Caleb's 11th Birthday!

Yay!!! We finally got the picture thing figured out with a new laptop (a whole other story for later)...

Caleb, my "left-hand-man", celebrated his 11th birthday last weekend. That puts him just 2 years away from being an official teenager. Where does the time go. It's amazing how fast they grow. In the last year, Caleb has really started to grow into a young man. I can't believe how strong he is. He carries 50 pound bags of grain around like they're paper weights. Whenever I need something heavy carried (and Paul's not home), I ask Caleb. That boy can actually carry his dad on his back (for a little while)! I call him my "left-hand-man" because, well, I'd be up a creek without him. He's so responsible and helps out soooo much. Many mornings he'll have breakfast cooking by the time I come downstairs (since he wakes at 6am to milk the goats and I am NOT a early riser by nature). He doesn't just make pancakes anymore. Nope, he's expanded to Amish oatmeal, baked apple pancakes, coffee cakes, cinnamon rolls... anything we have a recipe and the ingredients for. It's likehaving a B & B in my own home!
Caleb wanted a baseball field cake for his birthday. I'm a bit ashamed to say that he actually baked his own cake and made the frostings, but I DID do the decorating (although he had to draw it out for me). We make quite the team :)

This year was my brother Mark's 50 Birthday, so we celebrated Caleb, Nathan, and Mark's birthdays all together. Poor Nathan took a spill on a gravel driveway while apple picking a day before the party, so he looked a mess for the pictures but enjoyed the attention none-the-less. Uncle Mark was on his way home from Wisconsin for cake time, so he missed out on blowing his candles out. Notice how stratigically the candles are placed. Caleb made baseball players out of them.

We usually do something special with just me, Paul and the kids on their actual birthdays. Most of the time we meet daddy at a park near his work, but this time, Caleb's birthday landed on Saturday. Instead, we took everyone to Johnny Rocket's. It's a fun, old-fashioned looking hamburger joint. They play 50's and 60's music and serve hand-made milkshakes. We all had alot of fun and the kids got balloons to take home.

The birthday boy or girl gets to choose what he/she wants for breakfast as well. He chose cinnamon rolls. I hate to admit it, but he made his own cinnamon rolls too. Shame on me. You could say I was slacking a bit this year, but boy were they good!!! I think he even made them better than I would have!

After the yummy cinnamon rolls, Paul took Caleb to the driving range for his first golf outing. We bought a lefty set of clubs at a garage sale this summer and he's been trying his hand at wacking the walnuts from our tree out front into the neighbor's field (which is the real reason I got the clubs... much more fun than picking them up by hand!) I think he's found another sport to show interest in, although I think we'll stick to the driving range and walnuts for now (much more cost effective :)