I did spend the day watching my sister’s kids. They took the baby with them, so it was only 7 kids. But I brought Jenna with me, so it was up to 8. And they were all very good. Seriously. They are easy kids to watch. Other than the short outburst the two year old had when she woke from a tiny nap and I was STILL HERE, and she proceeded to scream “No! No! NO!” over and over again, we did ok. I just sent her sister over to see if she’d like a drink or a snack or anything, and stayed as far away from her as I could, and then eventually she happied up again. In order to keep my place as the “fun aunt”, I had to be prepared. I brought movies that they hadn’t seen (Pete’s Dragon, while pretty annoying to me, keeps kids attention if they’ve never seen it before), made sugar cookies and let them each choose 3 cookie cutters to use to cut out the cookies, and took these little perler activity beads, which are plastic beads that you form and then iron. 
  
If you’ve never tried them before, they are worth every penny (especially when you buy a whole quart sized ziplock bag of them for $1 at a garage sale. I just had to buy more to replenish my supply though, after 6 kids doing 2 or 3 each). They keep kids occupied for a while, and they can make all kinds of designs on the little molds. They were a big hit. In fact, when their mom and dad came home, they yelled, “No! You can’t be home yet! I’m not done with my design!” But I stayed long enough for them to finish up.
Here at home, the kids are having a blast. Today we were going to go to Seven Peaks water park, but with a forecast of thundershowers and no refunds on your day passes if it rains, we decided to go another day. But I don’t think the kids are too devestated. Robin took my two oldest and her two to a smaller water park/splash pool in Provo, so I’m sure they’ll be excited to tell us all about it. They’ve been watching movies, playing video games and playing outside. Even the younger kids who don’t have a friend their own age are enjoying having guests here. We let them stay up late, they get ice cream and lots of games. Why wouldn’t they love it?
We also went for our traditional Robin and Paige splurge of a pedicure, and now my toes look fancy and my feet are soft!
I splurged on a pedicure the other day, too. I love my purply toes!
thanks for the tip on the perler beads. i will be watching 2 girls this week. my boys are quite boy–so i was in need of a good idea for everyone!!!!! thanks!
Sometime I will have to take a picture and send it to you of all the perler beads we have done this summer. It’s all we did for the first three weeks of vacation!! Seriously, I think I’m almost out of wax paper and my kids have probably at least 20 each of these things cluttering their bedroom. BUT – it was hours of enjoyment!