Jack Turns 12

Jack wanted a simple family birthday this year, opting for the fancier presents rather than the party. He selected the menu: roasted chicken breasts, twice-baked potatoes, and fresh fruit (strawberries and grapes) and veg (orange bell peppers and cucumbers). Chocolate chip pie for dessert. It was a perfect celebration to ring in the last year of tweendom.

It was a gorgeous day here, "cool" in the morning and in the evening, with some great blue sky and clouds. Yes, clouds are something to celebrate, even when they don't bring rain. Tonight was almost cool enough to have the windows open for a while...the first real night of "here comes the awesome season" that we've had. Hurray for surviving the desert summer!

The birthday cake has mini-sparklers instead of candles. The best part of this is that they burn out really quickly, so we had to sing "Happy Birthday" loudly and finishing just as the sparklers burned out. And the sparklers distract from how out of tune our singing is...

The birthday cake (as requested) is a chocolate chip pie. Basically it's this recipe but made in a round cake pan (all the trouble in the original recipe is NOT worth the cookies, but the pie is freaking delicious...the "crust" is very tender, like a really good scone, and I might have added an extra chopped up Hershey bar or two in there, too).