Caleb turns 12!

Another birthday?  Where does the time go???!!  We are so blessed to have Caleb in our family - he keeps us laughing with his infectious humor and laugh.  He is truly a gift from God!

His sisters think so, too!

You may know that part of how we celebrate a birthday in our home is by letting the birthday person get to choose all the meals we eat that day and what we do as a family.  We did a tiny bit of school in the morning, played a game and then he played airsoft war with his daddy.  After that, he wanted to watch a movie of his choice, so that's what we did!

Sometimes the food choices can be very interesting! He chose to have:

Breakfast - Homemade Biscuits and Gravy
                   {Note: This was the best gravy I ever made!  I made homemade turkey sausage and also used part milk and part 1/2 and 1/2 (because I ran out of milk - I love when accidents make something so much better!).  I don't know if it was one or the other or both reasons, but it was yummy!  And on top of homemade biscuits???  Not much better than that!}

Lunch - Quesadillas
                  {Funny that he chose this since we have them several times a week as part of our regular meal plan - but we just looooovvveee them!}

Dinner - Homemade Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans and Baby Carrots

Dinner on our Special Birthday Plate

For his dessert, he wanted to try something new:  I don't even know what it would be called, except maybe sinful!  I'll share the process with you since they say confession is good for the soul... =)

Caleb snapped this picture of me working - notice the messy kitchen... this was a big job!

So, first you make a batch of your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and spread it in the bottom of a well greased (or parchment lined) 9x13 pan

Homemade chocolate chip cookie layer

Next, layer oreos on top of the chocolate cookies - my recipe actually called for Double Stuff, but you have to draw the line somewhere!!

As if you needed more, you now add your favorite brownie mix on top of that (I actually cheated here and just used a box mix.  Sometimes, you just have to cheat!)

Then, you bake it for about 50 minutes at 350*  Take it out and it looks something like this:

Serve it warm with vanilla ice cream and chocolate and caramel syrup - because it wasn't bad enough on it's own.

I could only take one bite (don't need an upset stomach over dessert!), but it was very good.  Tasted like a brownie on steroids.  Caleb loved it though, and that's what counts!

Happy Birthday to Caleb!  I think this will be his best year yet and pray that it is so!