Edward requested a Lego cake for his birthday, so of course that led to me spending some time shaking my head at the insanity of the results of a Google search for "Lego cake." Once again, I stumble upon descriptions and "how to's" that include sentences like, "It took me 13 hours, but after seeing my kid's face light up it was all worth it." No. No it wasn't. Your kid would have liked you to spend 12 hours with him and an hour ordering a cake and picking it up. One person even described measuring Lego bricks to ensure her cake was exactly to scale. No. Just, no.

I followed the directions at BettyCrocker.com, baking a 9x13 cake, cutting it in half and then cutting one half into the smaller bricks. Halved marshmallows create the brick bumps.

Edward picked the frosting colors and we were off to the races. This cake is not Pintarest-worthy, but it was taste-bud worthy and it absolutely fulfilled the vision of our newly-minted 8-year-old. I call that success.

Daniel is so into gift opening that his appreciation and admiration extends even to gifts for others.

Once again, Edward's Christmas/birthday cup overflowed--so many great new games, toys and books. And this year, even luckier to have Great Grandpa with us to celebrate (even though we somehow managed not to capture this in the photos.) We were glad that, even at 93, Great Grandpa remains adaptable enough to accept baked potato soup for Christmas dinner--Edward's birthday request.

Fancy glass, celebration plate and eight candles on a Lego cake = a happy birthday boy