The Very Hungry Caterpillar

A while ago I came across an adorable birthday party theme – The Very Hungry Caterpillar, based off the children’s book by Eric Carle. Since I absolutely LOVE children’s books and since Grant looked like the very hungry caterpillar for the majority of his first year of life, I knew I had to do that for Grant’s 1st birthday.

I do realize the party is for a 1-year old little boy who will remember NOTHING of his big day, but his mother, on the other hand, will. I have discovered that party planning is an outlet for my creative side. I really enjoy finding great ideas online (yes, sad to say, I really can’t take credit for any of the ideas), and I especially love all the little details that make it even more fun and thematic. I also enjoy doing it all on a tight budget. The main expenses for this party were the food, water bottle labels (which, in the future, I will be designing on my own), and his birthday shirt. So you might look at this party and think, “Wow…that’s a lot for a 1 year-old party”, but in my mind, it’s one way for me to do something different, creative, and fun for this stay-at-home mommy.

So this first post will just be pictures of the decorations and food. Then next I'll actually post pics of the birthday boy! :)

The caterpillar invitations

I've made it my goal to make my childrens' birthday cakes each year. I'm not sure how long I'll be able to do that, especially since I'm discovering my kids aren't much of cake-eaters - they seem to prefer ice-cream. Hmm...I might have to start getting creative.

Here's Grant's individual "smash" cake.

I found these labels on Etsy and thought they were adorable! If I had discovered them earlier, I would have just made them myself. I thought they were a cute addition to the party and the theme. I basically just bought the PDF file and then printed them myself on regular paper. I research online and found some places that sell water-resistant labels, but I couldn't justify the cost. So instead I improvised. I used clear packing tape, which happened to be the same width (thank goodness!) and just put tape on both sides of each label. Then I adhered them to the water bottle using some of my strong scrap booking adhesive dots.

My makeshift balloon caterpillar. I ran out of time to add his purple antennae...oh well! Still turned out cute.

I also scanned in all the food from the book, cropped them, printed them on cardstock, cut them out, and taped them to the walls for added decoration around the house.

In the entryway I had a basket holding the favors - bags of gummy worms.

I printed "Thanks for crawling over" on cardstock from my computer and actually made the paper behind it. If you're familiar with "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" book, you'll recognize the dotted paper from the book. In the book it's just a small strip across the bottom of the front of the book. So I scanned it in and copied it multiple times in a word document to make my own paper.
Out front Drew helped me staple some more of the food on some extra paint stirrer sticks we had laying around and we stuck them in the bushes.

I've seen online how people have made these birthday balloon wreaths that they put out for the birthday's in their family. I LOVED the idea and have wanted to make one for our family for a while. So I finally did it! The plan is to put it out for the week of the person's birthday. So for Grant, I decided to add a few "caterpillar" touches to it. I printed off some smaller pictures of the caterpillar and food from the book and used floral wire to hang them on the wreath.

And now some pictures of the food...

The food table - I had all the food from the book...

...and made signs with the wording from the book.
Below it says, "On Saturday, he ate through one slice of salami, but he was still hungry."

For the ice-cream cone, I saw online where you freeze buttercream icing and then scoop it out like ice-cream to put in the cone. Then you can set it out for the party without worrying about it melting.

I had some extra batter from the cakes, so I made some cupcakes and then iced most of them with white icing. I used a few cupcakes to make a caterpillar with the red head and green body.

"On Sunday, he ate through one nice green leaf and after that he felt much better."

Next I'll post pictures of the birthday boy and the actual party!

Jenna's Date with Daddy

Drew had a fun tradition growing up where he would go on "special trips" with his dad. He has so many special memories from it that he wanted to do that with our kids as well. So he took Jenna on his first special date a few weeks ago in mid-July. It was sweet - we had told Jenna that she was going on a date with daddy a few days before and that was all she talked about. She was obviously excited about it!

Drew decided to take her to Brukner Nature Center - a local nature preserve just a few miles from our house. They have walking trails and some outdoor and indoor caged animals.

Pictures before they left

She looks like such a BIG girl!

She is definitely an outdoor-kind-of-girl!

They had a great time and came home with LOTS of pictures and videos to share with Grant and me. :) I wish we could figure out why we can't upload videos anymore because there are some cute ones. I'll see if I (or Drew) can play around with it later today.

Last Saturday we decided we wanted to do something fun as a family. It was still VERY hot outside, so we opted for an indoor activity. I had heard of Boonshoft Museum before, but had never been there. We had a coupon for a free adult admission and Grant was already free, so we just had to pay for 1 adult and 1 child - score! The place is a mini-children's museum with lots of different themed areas for the kid's to play and explore and even a little zoo. Needless to say, we had a GREAT time and will definitely be back!

Jenna and Grant holding hands on the way there

One of her favorites - the water table

Another one of her favorites (and Mommy's favorite!) - a climbing spiral rope ladder that took you to the 2nd floor. There was then a slide that you could slide back down to the 1st floor. Lots of fun!

Grant enjoying the water table

Drew and the kids were inside this tent type thing that would inflate when you pushed a button to start the air flow. Then after a bit, the air would stop and it would slowly deflate. You could crawl in and out of it and there were little windows to peek inside. Jenna loved sitting in front of the air flow so that it would blow her hair.

There was a section where you could touch some sea life - like different starfish and crustaceans.

There was a tunnel under this display that you could crawl through and then there were a few of these bubble peep holes to stand up and look out through. It was cute to see Jenna's head poke up in the middle of the displays.

Another of Jenna's favorites was watching the otters. There were 3 of them in the tank and they just played and swam the whole time. They really were a lot of fun to watch!

Jenna and Grant checking out the meerkats.

Happy Birthday Grant!

Happy Birthday Grant!!

We started out the morning with his birthday pancakes.

They were blueberry pancakes and I don't know that he was a huge fan of them. Ha! So he also got his favorite breakfast food...a banana.

I love Jenna's cheesy grin. :)

Look at my big birthday boy! He's wearing his birthday shirt from "B".

Poor guy looks like Rudolph with his red, scraped up nose. He somehow scraped it this morning when we weren't looking, so we're not exactly sure what happened. It was just red for most of the day.

Hugs from sister. As she was hugging him she said, "I love you Gant." So sweet!!

Then for dinner we had Grant's all-time favorite meal...hot dogs!

And for dessert...half an M&M cookie.
We're saving his official birthday cake for his party on Saturday.

Then present-time! This was his first time opening a present and really didn't know what to do. He was much more interested in eating the paper. :)

So big sister gladly jumped in to help.

Yay...his own musical instruments.

Saturday is Grant's birthday party with family. B's flying in Friday night so we're all looking forward to seeing her. Jenna keeps reminding us that B's coming and that they're going swimming - her favorite thing to do with B. I'll be sure to post pictures of the party next week - we're going with the Very Hungry Caterpillar theme (and by "we", I mean "I"). :) I'm looking forward to it - party planning is something I enjoy and is a creative outlet for me.

Oh, and...Grant's started walking! He took his first steps a week or so ago, but has really started walking a few days ago. He just loves it and gets so excited. :) Such a sweet boy! We're so blessed!