...and the Very Tired Mom. We had a blast over the weekend celebrating Ben's 1st birthday. One of his favorite books to have us read to him is "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle so that is what we had to have as our theme. I had a 24-serving cake made at the bakery not too far from here (Jo's Party House) and then made a caterpillar cake myself. And of course Ben had his very own cake to demolish/eat. I think he ate pretty much the whole thing even after he ate all of his dinner! 
For the caterpillar cake, I took a king-size cupcake pan and made about 12 cupcakes, arranged them into the crawling caterpillar shape on a sturdy styrofoam poster board, then cut a little bit of the side off each one so that it would fit snug next to the next cupcake.
For the frosting, I made buttercream, put about 1/2 cup or so to the side and colored the rest with green and yellow. (Just plain green looked too St. Patrick's Day-ish.) I frosted every other cupcake with the green/yellow, then added to the frosting quite a bit of blue food coloring to frost the remaining cupcakes. For the antennae and eyes, I just used construction paper although if I would have had time, I would have used rolled out cookie dough to make the antennae and letters to stick on top that say "Ben's 1st" or something like that. I also couldn't get a pretty color of purple using food coloring (red and blue) so I might would have gotten some purple icing coloring just for things like this. I used Hershey's Kisses for the feet.
Games that I had *intended* to play but just never got around to were:
1. Pin the Food on the Caterpillar
2. A scavenger hunt to find foods with a hole them (black dot from construction paper) that the caterpillar ate through
3. See how many "holes" (Cheerios) the kids can toss in the air and catch in their mouths
Party favors were sugar-filled plastic fruit, plastic caterpillars, butterfly stickers for the girls, and some odds and ends like bouncy balls, pencils, etc.
For the invitations, I put an apple on the front and hole-punched a hole out of it and used pom-poms to make the caterpillar.
But most importantly, we had fun bbq'ing with good friends and family! Thanks for all who could come and all who were here in spirit!
For the caterpillar cake, I took a king-size cupcake pan and made about 12 cupcakes, arranged them into the crawling caterpillar shape on a sturdy styrofoam poster board, then cut a little bit of the side off each one so that it would fit snug next to the next cupcake.
For the frosting, I made buttercream, put about 1/2 cup or so to the side and colored the rest with green and yellow. (Just plain green looked too St. Patrick's Day-ish.) I frosted every other cupcake with the green/yellow, then added to the frosting quite a bit of blue food coloring to frost the remaining cupcakes. For the antennae and eyes, I just used construction paper although if I would have had time, I would have used rolled out cookie dough to make the antennae and letters to stick on top that say "Ben's 1st" or something like that. I also couldn't get a pretty color of purple using food coloring (red and blue) so I might would have gotten some purple icing coloring just for things like this. I used Hershey's Kisses for the feet.
Games that I had *intended* to play but just never got around to were:
1. Pin the Food on the Caterpillar
2. A scavenger hunt to find foods with a hole them (black dot from construction paper) that the caterpillar ate through
3. See how many "holes" (Cheerios) the kids can toss in the air and catch in their mouths
Party favors were sugar-filled plastic fruit, plastic caterpillars, butterfly stickers for the girls, and some odds and ends like bouncy balls, pencils, etc.
For the invitations, I put an apple on the front and hole-punched a hole out of it and used pom-poms to make the caterpillar.
But most importantly, we had fun bbq'ing with good friends and family! Thanks for all who could come and all who were here in spirit!
Here's a couple of shots of the birthday boy:
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10 comments:
It was a lot of fun. The boys had a blast in your big backyard. When we were driving home, Brian even asked me if we could put a fence up in our backyard. :) Thanks for inviting us!
We had a great time. You were so brave to have so many people over, but it was so much fun!
We really enjoyed it too, Jen. Thank y'all so much!
What cute ideas! I love the cakes! So creative and cute. He's getting so big.
Valoree
What a cute idea!!! We love that book too (which is probably why it has come up missing.)
Jennifer Morris!!! I'm so glad you found me. After leaving the Village it seems like I just lost contact with all the friends I made. Jon and I thought you two were so great! It's really good to see what you are up to, your little boy is sooooo cute. I'm glad to see you guys are doing good! Keep in touch, I'm glad I can peek in on you and see what you're up to. :-)
I love that last picture of him...he totally looks like he's enjoying the cake! I really like the caterpillar, too. That looks just like the one in the book. Happy Birthday, Ben!
PS: When Olivia crawls, she does what I like to call the "Marine sniper crawl" on her belly. If you chase her, she puts her head down and slithers just like a snake.
That is a really cute cake! At least he enjoyed his cake, my kids were so afraid of it, because they had never had that much cake in front of them at one time.
That is the cutest cake. You should enter it in FamilyFun.com's cake contest. He's already one?!
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