Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

Friday, May 27th, was my precious daddy's birthday!!!  I am a HUGE daddy's girl and it is always so special to be able to celebrate his birthday with him.  One of the best things about living in the same town as your family is that you never miss a holiday, birthday, anniversary, etc.  We get to spend every single one with both sides of our family and it is truly special.  Not only do we live in the same town as our families, but we live diagonally across the street from my family!  No...it's not like Everybody Loves Raymond!  In fact, it's completely the opposite.  I would honestly have to say that it's one of the best things to live across the street from my parents.  With Cody's job, he might have to live in another town for several months at a time, and he feels good knowing that when I'm home, my parents are just right there if I would ever need anything.  It's also nice because we get to see them and my little brother all the time.  During the summers we go over there pretty often and go for a swim in the pool...that is until all five dogs jump in and take it over!  It will also be amazing when we have kids because they will just be right there if we need help or babysitters :-)  Anyways, on Friday, we got to celebrate my daddy's birthday together as a family and it was nice to start the weekend off that way.  It was also the last day of school for me, so I was home that afternoon by 1:00...so I made him a birthday cake!  I got the recipe from Pioneer Woman...if you have never made anything from her blog or her cookbook...you must do so...NOW!  She cooks like Paula Deen...so you can imagine how good everything is!  The cake that I made for him is called Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake...she calls it the best chocolate sheet cake ever!  It was definitely delicious...and I even had one little sliver.  I also found a recipe on her site called a Milky Way Cake.  I was debating whether to make this or the other cake.  The Milky Way Cake has 11 Milky Way Bars in it!  Can you imagine that?!?!?  Oh dear Lord, I can just see the sugar comas that we would all be in with just one bite of this cake!  I will be making this over the summer though...it's just too tempting not to make it...at least once!

So, since it was my daddy's birthday, we all went out to eat together at Copper Creek.  It was amazing, as always.  The only problem with Copper Creek when it comes to our family is that my mom has a hard time finding something to eat.  She's a vegetarian, and Copper Creek doesn't really have very many things other than a salad, baked potato, or some veggies to eat.  Which are all very good, but when you go out to eat, you want to eat something special.  But, we all enjoyed every last bite of our meal together and then it was on to our house for some cake!  Everyone enjoyed the cake, I think next time I'll make it without the nuts on top because my brother didn't eat any because of that.  Or, I could do half and half.  We also took some of it to Kerrville with us that next day when we went to see my Grandma.  She loves sweets and she gave this cake a thumbs up too!  I'm so thankful for my precious family and so thankful and blessed to be able to spend another birthday with my daddy!  I love you so much!!!

A few pictures of my daddy, brother and me on his birthday!  Plus...a picture of the chocolate sheet cake...which is now almost gone!!!