Sand Dessert - Yummy!

My son's 3rd birthday was a few weeks ago.  He turned 3.  I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he wanted a Cars cake.  He had a Cars cake last year, so I talked him into a tractor cake.  He loves to play in the dirt with tractors, so I thought it would be perfect!  I started scouring Pinterest for ideas and found this.  This lady did a great job and I thought I would tackle the task of making inside look cool too.  It ended up being really easy to make.  She had a great tutorial.  Bonus for my son, he got more tractors!  Here is what mine turned out like:

The best part was that you didn't need to have smooth icing on the cake because it was supposed to look like dirt.  Here is what a slice looked like:

The week before his party, we went to a swim party/barbecue at a friends house and I decided I would take the Ramen Noodle Salad from the My Family Meal Planner on the Grill and Sand Dessert that I found here on Pinterest.  Here is a picture of this bloggers Sand Dessert:

I had a brand new sand pail so I served mine the same way she did.  It looked so real and tasted even better.  While coming up with my menu for my son's construction birthday party, I decided I would make this sand dessert and serve it in his big dump truck that he plays with inside (don't worry, I cleaned it and lined it with Press N Seal).  It turned out better than I had hoped and it was a hit! 

Sand Dessert

1 pkg Vanilla Wafers
3 or 4 Oreos
8 oz Cream Cheese
1/4 C Butter
2/3 C powdered sugar
2 small pkgs French Vanilla pudding mix
2 3/4 C Milk
12 oz Cool Whip

Crush Oreos and Vanilla Wafers in a food processor. In your mixer, cream together softened 8 oz cream cheese, butter, and powdered sugar. Then add the pudding mix and milk, mix well.  Fold in cool whip. Layer into bucket or dump truck with sand, pudding, sand etc. 

The 3 Oreos really give it the "real" look.  It even feels like the sand on the beach.  You could also fill the dump truck with Dirt Dessert!  (That recipe can be found in the My Family Meal Planner.)