Wow! My second child is now eight... how the years scream by, yes? Simple, small party... just a few friends at one of those "Bounce House" places... we've done one there before. Couldn't decide what to do for the cake. We didn't really have a 'theme' for the party. So he just decided on a character from one of his favorite video games... SackBoy from Little Big Planet. (those circles at the top are where the candles will go) Oh no, but it didn't start off this pretty :-) Baked up a nice marble cake, split and filled it with chocolate buttercream... and then just HAD to take a potty break. Come back to find this: THE DOG ATE THE CAKE!!!!! Oh my heart just sank. I guess it was better now than after it was frosted, right? So I put the dog outside and cut out the corner of the cake (is that wrong? Would you have still used the un-eaten part?) I really had no choice... this all happened about 10 in the AM and the party was at 1:00. And filled it in with a half-a-chocolate-cake-mix-baked-real-quick-in-a-loaf-pan. This corner was not pretty marble... did not have filling... so I was actually hoping we wouldn't have to cut into it at the party. Everything turned out well... no one was the wiser :-) (until I showed them these pictures anyway). Dean absolutely LOVED this big slide... He probably climbed these stairs 30 times: Blake playing with friends: It turned into a money birthday, too. I guess maybe 8 year old boys are hard to buy for??? He ended up getting well over $100 in birthday money. Happy Birthday Bud! Love you!