Not my best offering

Yesterday was Wesley's 3rd Birthday.  We're having a party this evening, and in-exchange for taking Parker all afternoon, Denise asked me to bake the cake.  ...okay, it wasn't such a clear tit-for-tat, but she did ask me to bake a cake, and she did take Parker (not to mention arranging for Grandma to take him over-night).

I'm not really much of a fancy-looking-cake maker, I'm more of a tastes-really-good-but-just-looks-like-a-cake baker.  But, I know that 3-year-olds aren't overly concerned about gourmet cakes, as long as it looks cool and contains copious amounts of sugar, they're happy.

All that to say, I've never made a theme cake, and Wesley was asking for dinosaurs.  So, off to pinterest I go, looking for inspiration.  Had I had the time and talent required (or at least time for a practice run), I would have done something like this little guy:

But he is clearly beyond my ability at this point, so I went with something a little more simple.  When in-doubt, cover with toys and candy, right?

Hopefully it's edible.  I have a perfect chocolate cake recipe, but I've never made a white cake from scratch before and although the cake was PERFECT when it came out of the oven (flat top, just the right done-ness), when I came back half-an-hour later, the whole thing had fallen, so the cake part might be a little dense.  Which was when I was really wishing I'd just bought the cake mix I'd seen on-sale at the store, but who knows what chemicals are in those things? Apparently the chemicals are what make it light & fluffy. 

I have a pretty good idea that there will be more frosting than cake.  But what 3-year-old is going to complain about too much frosting, right?  ...right?

Happy birthday, anyway.