birthdays are even better with donuts

after that initial birthday outing, the rest of the week was relatively quiet until friday, when she happily brought two dozen krispy kreme donuts to school to share with her class.  i'm pretty sure she was the most popular girl in class that day.

last selfie with her as an 8-year-old!

with grandma in town, she opted to have a sleepover with her in the guest room the night before the big day.  this meant that her annual "cover the floor with balloons" tradition was a lot easier for us to accomplish, although she didn't get to wake up to it.  didn't matter though, she still loved the sight first thing in the morning.

she proceeded to wake everyone up somewhere around 7am, which was fun.  heh.  but she had a nice pile o'presents to open, and who doesn't love that?

i guess the latest thing is something called "num noms."  they're kind of like the shopkins toys, but they're bigger...and scented.  much excite.

see how thrilled everyone was to be up so early?

she recently discovered youtube videos about rubik's cube champions and decided she really wanted one of her own to give it a try.  it was actually pretty high on her list, so she was stoked to open one.

legos were on the list too, along with a stop motion camera so she could make her own movies.

another throwback gift request:  powerpuff girls.  it's like raising her sister all over again.

we saved the best for last - a set of 30 different "squishies."  again thanks to youtube, these are literally little sponge-like squishy things that are usually shaped like food items, like bread, cupcakes, cream puffs, macarons.  kind of like stress balls, but cuter and way more fun to squish in your hand.

early morning no makeup selfie with the birthday girl!

and it was just the beginning.  there was still a whole day of festivities to look forward to!