My Baby's a Teenager

I am now the mother of three teenagers. And I have to confess...

It's pretty terrific.

Ben turned 13 today and I think had a very successful transition into teen-hood.

Here he is cutting up "green peppers" for his birthday cookie.

And here he is preparing "black olives".

What kind of birthday cookie is this you may be wondering?

A PIZZA Cookie!

Okay, the butter-cream frosting "cheese" is a little too yellow and the whole thing was pretty sickening sweet with all that frosting and candy, but we thought it was clever nonetheless.

We used berry fruit roll-up type candy to make the tomato sauce and pepperonis. Cut-up green gummy worms to make the green peppers and sliced tootsie rolls with a hole cut out of the center to make black olives. And, of course, the gummy fish are anchovies. Fearing it would be too sweet, we decided to go for the understated look and not being able to figure out how to make mushrooms, we contented ourselves with a less than "supreme" pizza cookie.

But we thought it was a success -- even when we realized we had no candles. Ah well. It didn't stop us from singing and ushering our youngest man-child into his teens.

Happy Birthday, Ben!