I second that the dress is STUNNING.  It really looks amazing.  Great job.

Thanks everyone for all of your nice comments.  Can you tell I love doing birthday parties?  I have been seriously thinking about going into the birthday planning business.  I have already came up with a name and logo.  What do you think?

For the leaves I did use fondant.  I rolled out the fondant and used a leaf cookie cutter to make the shapes.  I used a dowel about 8" long and covered one end completely with two leaves.  I used water to "glue" the fondant together.  Next I overlapped leaves down the dowel.  I did one side and then flipped it over and did the other side.  I curled the edges a little and hung it upside down to dry.

I made all of the parts.  It took three boxes of cake mix!  If I had more time, I would have put SpongeBob at the base of the cake and a picture of my daughter coming out of the window.

Here is my take on a SpongeBob cake for my daughter's 7th birthday.

You could get a picture of a bus and decorate the outside so it looks like the bus is going to Atlantic City.  You can put dice or cards on the side of the bus and say it is for your husband's 40th.  You can also take a picture of your husband and have him hanging out the window of the bus.  For my daughter's Spongebob birthday party, her invitations had her hanging out of SpongeBob's house window.  Here is the invitation I made:

Here is a link to a SpongeBob Party I just had for my 7 year old:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=191477.0

Homerof2:

I do put a lot of work into all of the birthday parties I do.  I think I want to go into the party planning business some day.  I get to practice on my three kids!

Here are some links to other parties I've done:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=186475.msg1952438#msg1952438
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=157477.msg1574105#msg1574105
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=121415.msg1166164#msg1166164

We had a lot of fun at my daughter's 7th birthday party.  We had a SpongeBob party and I made all of the prizes and games.

Here is the cake I made.  SpongeBob's house:



Our first game was a Krabby Patty Cook-Off.  I made fry cook hats and all of the fixings to make Krabby Patties out of felt.  The kids had to gather all of the ingredients and then assemble their Krabby Patty.  The person who finished first won a spatula and everyone got Krabby Patty Cook-Off ribbons.





Next we played pin the tail on Sandy.  Instead of buying 20 goody bags I made them myself.  I used lunch bags and folded the edge down two times.  I bought some raffia for $2.00 and cut it apart to form the handles.  I hot glued the handles to the inside of the bag.  I printed out some pictures of Sandy on sheets of sticky paper and cut them out and stuck them on the bags.  I filled them with SpongeBob sticker, Spongebob gummy fruit, bubble gum and jelly beans.





Next we went Jellyfishing.  I used pink balloons with streamers hanging down.  The kids had to use a racket and hit the jellyfish across the finish line.  I made stuffed jellyfish as prizes.



Here is a tutorial for the jellyfish:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=179725.msg1866249#msg1866249

Then the kids went to Mrs. Puffs boating school and had to drive their boat mobile around an obstacle course. 



When they made it around the whole course the got their boating license.  I laminated the licenses to make them look real.



Here is the invitation I made:

Last night we had a big neighborhood Pig Roast.  It was great.  Everyone brought side dishes to share.