Chocolate Palooza

Is palooza actually a word?  I wrote that and then I looked back at it and wondered...  Is it just something I've heard somewhere or is a word that truly makes sense?  In my mind it means an overabundance of something which is what we had tonight- an overabundance of chocolate in honor of our birthday girl...

When we lived in Lebanon, going to Chili's was the occasional treat- it got more and more rare as the girls got older and their appetites grew and it became more and more expensive.  An even more rare treat was the yummy chocolate goodness that you see above- molten chocolate cake with ice cream, hot fudge and caramel- oh so yummy!  Well, they have a Chili's here too and this was Abbey's request for her birthday and since I baked 48 chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese filling and chocolate icing for her to take to school today, I was more than happy to let Chili's be in charge of her birthday cake... We had an early dinner and then headed over to Chili's for our treat.  Knowing the way my kids can attack one of these, I also ordered a chocolate shake- I figured we could splurge a little since we were only doing dessert.   

Ready to dig in..

and then came the chocolate shake

3-5 minutes into chocolate consumption (I started making them put their spoons down between bites...)

Such concentration!

Don't know if they could have gotten that plate much cleaner..

And the chocolate induced silliness is kicking in...

Good thing I ordered a cherry diet coke for myself- afraid I might have lost a digit if I'd attempted to many bites...