Happy Birthday Big Guy!

Today is the Big Guy's birthday! He and Claire's birthdays are 3 days apart, so he hasn't had much of a celebration for the last 6 years. Usually, we just leave up the pink streamers from Claire's party, buy him a cupcake, and call it good.

But, being St. Patricks Day as well, we try to have a little fun for him sometimes. Today, we made green pancakes. This looks disgusting, but Matt's moms recipe for pancakes is the best one ever...and a little green food dye just makes them that much more fun!

Here they are with butter. Matt's did not have any butter. Did I ever tell you how Matt doesn't like butter? He doesn't...it's one of our biggest differences because in my family, we eat things like bread just so that we have excuses to eat more butter. Do you know what Matt puts on his pancakes? Peanut butter and syrup. Peanut butter! Well, to each their own.

Here is my dad having a few! With bacon of course...no one makes their husband a birthday breaksfast without bacon, right? Not around here at least.

And Grammy and Claire are preparing another of Matt's favorite foods: Oreo Ice Cream Dessert. Alright, now he's just getting spoiled. But I'll tell you what...if you want your husband to love you, make him my mom's oreo ice cream dessert. It's the perfect sweet and salty combination of fabulousness. I'm even going to give you the recipe.

Prepare the chocolate sauce first because you need it to cool for a while. Stir 1 can of evaporated milk, 4 squares of bakers chocolate, and 1 cup of sugar together in a sauce pan. Stir constantly and bring to a slow boil. Boil gently for 8 minutes or until it thickens and becomes saucey. Set aside and let it come to room temperature.

Put a package of oreos in a food processor (or just smoosh them up). Melt a stick of butter and stir it into the smooshed oreos. Shape this mixture into the bottom of a 13X9" pan. Take a carton/box (1 gallon) of vanilla ice cream and slice it into straight, square slices (cut the carton off of the frozen ice cream and slice it like a loaf of bread). Lay this ice cream on top of your oreo crust. If their are any holes, you just fill it in with little pieces of ice cream. If your sauce needs more time to cool, put this all in the freezer. When it's cool, pour the sauce over the top of the ice cream and sprinkle the top with peanuts. Keep the whole thing frozen and cut into squares to serve.

And then, because we REALLY love the Big Guy, we'll take him to Gino's East later for pizza. That is seriously his favorite food. Deep dish Chicago pizza with spinach and pepperoni. It's very good.

Actually, I can't eat much of it because it has so much cheese on it and I am a tad on the lactose-intolerant side, but sometimes it's worth the intestinal pain. The Big Guy and I have a little debate over who has the best crust: Unos Pizza or Ginos. But obviously he wins on his birthday.

Are you noticing a theme for this birthday? Pancakes, dessert, pizza? Well, don't forget that the ski trip was his OTHER birthday present....he should be in love with me for a while for all this fabulousness I think.

Hey Big Guy, do you remember that we met when we were 19? That means we've been together for 10 years! That's a third of our lives! Thanks for 10 years and 2 babies. You're a great husband and daddy....Happy Birthday!