My sweet Buggy is 8 today. Eight! I’m a proud aunt so pardon me while I gush. 

My Buggy loves Scooby Doo, her doggies Ozzy and Daisy, playing Clash of Clans with her dad and Huncle HoHo, voting on Sydne’s outfits, swimming like a fish, and surprises (she’s never met a piñata or surprise ball she didn’t like).

She’s the funniest person I know, saying things, in all seriousness, like:

“I only like filet mignon.”

“That’s a problem you can’t fix (in response to me saying I got a mosquito bite); I’ve got bigger ones (problems).“

“I don’t want to do a photo shoot, I’m a commercial actress.”

She indulged me with a quick one anyway…

At my Dad’s 60th birthday dinner, she ate a giant pickle with a fork and knife (which reminded me of this Seinfeld episode!). Oh, Miss Fancypants.

She’s 8 going on 40, fearless, will talk to anybody and isn’t afraid to speak her mind (on her very first say of school she went to the principal’s office — not because she was in trouble — but to complain about a system she found to be unfair).

She has the best eyebrows on the planet and runs free like the wild child she is. And she makes me a better person just by being in her presence (she urged me to accompany her to volunteer at the Humane Society on this last visit even though my inclination was to be a lazy bones and sleep in).

When she could barely talk, we took a family trip to Sedona in the winter. On the first morning, she scooted up the stairs to our bedroom, walked over to the window where the sun was shining in, and gazed at the snow-covered scenery and said, “This is the life.”

Happy Birthday, Buggy! I hope it continues to be the life, always and forever.

p.s. For those wondering, you can make an 8 cake by using Bundt pans; and a 60 cake by using one small Bundt panand one large Bundt pan(which I learned when Kelly of Studio DIY made her grandmother’s 90th birthday cake).

p.p.s. More Kaylee Golightly posts here & here.