Thomas' 26th

Today is an especially lovely day... It's my husband's birthday!  So the most wonderful thing about today is that I get to celebrate with him the fact that he exists!  

Very quickly, because I know you probably don't care to read pages and pages about how awesome he is, I am just so thankful for him!  I am truly glad that he exists and that he picked me to be his wife.  He has such a great personality and a wonderful heart, and he never fails to make me laugh.  I love the time we have had together so far and I am so glad that I get to spend the rest of my life with such an amazing person!

There, I'm done with the sappiness!  Moving on, here's a little peek at our birthday activities.

I made one of Thomas' favorites for breakfast this morning: banana bread!  For my Banana Bread recipe, click here.

He had to work today (boo), but we got to meet at our local hotdog stand for lunch.  And though I did take a photo of him at lunch (with his hot dog), I will attempt to preserve his manly dignity and not post it all over the internet.

Back at home, his presents are all assembled.  And he'll have to come home quick if he wants to be able to unwrap them himself.  Lolo was all over these things.  I took literally ten pictures of them and only one did not feature Lolo climbing and sniffing around.  She just loves presents (mostly because she wants to chew on the ribbons and play in the boxes).

His birthday dessert is all baked.  We even sampled it last night, and I was pretty pleased with the result.  Thomas' favorite two desserts in the whole world are cheesecake and crème brûlée , so I scoured the internet (a.k.a. Pinterest) for a crème brûlée cheesecake to make for him.  And I finally found a recipe that met my criteria, and here it is:  Layered Crème Brûlée Cheesecake! 

It features a sweet Nilla wafer crust on the bottom, a rich, airy cheesecake layer in the middle and a creamy crème brûlée layer with some broiled sugar!  It is super rich; a small piece goes a long way.  And that's saying a lot coming from a girl who has a "special compartment" in her stomach that makes her magically always have room for dessert!  (A long-running family joke)  It is absolutely delicious, and it will definitely be a dessert I will repeat, but I may make a few changes next time.  The recipe will be posted later on this week (hopefully Tuesday), so watch out for that!  **Update: You can view the recipe here.

So this evening, I'm cooking Thomas' favorite meal: Chicken Parmesan.  Then we'll just hang out and watch a movie or some Top Gear (UK, of course) and eat some birthday dessert!

Happy Birthday Thomas!