Birthday Blast No. 1

Toasted Coconut Cheesecake Dip with Teddy Grahams - and wrestlers!

March is packed to the brim this year! Have you noticed? OK, it's a little more in the Van Dee home because we have two birthdays and an anniversary - but this year,  in addition to St. Patrick's Day and Spring, Easter decided to slip in.

Monday was Brandon's birthday bash; it was really nice. Tristan helped me "bake" his treat in the afternoon. I found this great recipe for Toasted Coconut Cheesecake Dip that was a dream (and I don't even like coconut!). The only thing I changed is I gave it a bottom layer of protein bar from my personal recipe. One night last week Brandon said it would be genius to use the stuff as a cheesecake crust so I had to! Oh, and I served it with Teddy Grahams to dip.

When he got home from work he was ready for his other present (not the Docs, he had those on already) so I brought out a mystery package before his real, wrapped present. We live by this kooky dollar store and I really had no idea what it could be - I just had to buy it because 1. it was a dollar AND 2. it looked like magic.

Well it was...magic. He popped the bag and a glitter bomb went off and then a freezing cold cube was activated that blew up a mylar balloon!!!! I kid you not. Photographic evidence:

GLITTER BOMB!

Then the indulgent present I promised: special lotion from The Art of Shaving! ...even though that is the opposite of what he's doing. After two years of back and forth with starting a beard, shaving it off, re-starting, repeat, and then my Christmas gift of a razor he has achieved beard lift-off! It's coming in nicely now but he needed a good moisturizer and who doesn't like to have a lovely product that smells amazing? Even dudes.

After presents he got to pick dinner from anywhere he wanted and the winner was Thai (score!).

Then we all shared dessert...here are the coconut boys:

None of this would have been possible without my organized assistant, Mr. T. Thanks for doing dishes and helping measure things!

Coming soon: Tristan's Aquabats! Super Party! this Saturday. Stay tuned.