Birthdays Dinner, Civil War Prep, and 12 kids

My friend, Winifred, invited the kids and I to her house for her birthday weekend. Silly girl thought that it would be fun to have 12 kids in one house for 2 1/2 days. The kids range in age from 17 to 2 months old. They all really get along very well and the only trouble we have is the toddlers. They are so sweet to each other and then become Dr Hyde and forget they love each other.

Winifred and I headed to a little Thai Bistro for dinner. Just the 3 of us. Yep the baby tagged along. The food was so yummy! They served us fried plastic first, in a cute little metal bowl, that almost made you forget it tasted like Styrofoam. Next up was Siam rolls. I stopped the waitress and made her bring us another bowl of the sauce since I couldn't pry the bowl out of Winifred's fingers. I practically licked the next bowl. It is that good. The entrees were equally delicious. She had yellow curry something or other and I had the spicy chicken with sweet chili sauce. Oh my heaven! I even liked the broccoli that was in it. It was that good! We just hung out, talked about the couple with matching dreadlocks, kissed on the baby and enjoyed the quiet (you know the quiet of not listening to 12 kids all talking and jamming!).

As you can see I left nothing on the plate!

Fortune cookies are a lot more boring now. What happened to "you might get lucky tonight"?

The next day we made 635 food items for the civil war ball being held at the end of the month. It was tiring, but so grateful to have it all done. It is baked, packaged and frozen. After that we headed over to her little country Wal-Mart and bought fabric for our dresses. The girls basically finished Lioness' dress. I finished the top of mine.

Those little brothers!

What might be hiding under there?

I also learned some cool facts about Civil War balls. They loved colorful dresses. The top and the bottom didn't necessarily need to match. Just be very colorful! You can't sit down in hoop skirts modestly. They fly right up in your face. You can hide two toddlers under a hoop skirt. So imagine what else you could sneak in under those things. A cannon perhaps? A union spy? Interesting.

It's a toddler!!

We ended the weekend with a mini Mark Ruffalo marathon, ice cream and lots of chocolate chip cookies!