Our "baby" turned 8 today.

This is the cake the Riley insisted that we (read I) make. We saw it in the Rachel Ray magazine and I showed it to Riley. I said, "hey Riley isn't this a cool cake and it's got your favorite cotton candy on it". She decided then and there that she needed this cake for her birthday. Those of you who know me well know that I don't bake cakes. Paint a house? Sure! Use my power saw to install molding or baseboard? No problem. Remodel a bathroom? I'm there. Cake baking is just my downfall. I cannot get the friggin' cake out of the pan without making a mess. I'm not good at frosting and I just plain don't have patience for things like preheating an oven, mixing certain ingredients in a certain order, waiting for the cake to cool. I could go on and on about my baking issues. So this was a true test for me and I can't tell you how relieved I was that it turned out and as you can see from the picture below Riley was truly pleased with her cake. Oh, and it was delicious and we did not have a crumb left.
























On to the party details. We had about 20 family members over for dinner which was hamburgers, pasta salad, chips/dip, veggies and dip. All simple and all also requested by the birthday girl (maybe she was making up for that cake request). So the kids all played in the backyard, the men were glued to the USC game and the rest of us sat outside and enjoyed the perfect weather. Then she opened her large haul of presents. Thankfully she got lots of Barnes and Noble giftcards to feed her book addiction and tons of totally cute new clothes. Scott and I gave her a pink nintendo ds which she opened before we even woke up this morning, the little sneak.
Right now she is in her room with her cousin snuggled in sleeping bags with the lights off watching a new DVD on her portable DVD player and having a great time.
All in all she had a great birthday and now I have just over 2 months to get ready for Zachary's 12th birthday, the last one before the big teens. YIKES!