A Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party

Is it too late to be posting about Lucan's June 2 birthday party? Probably.
We switched it up a bit this year and had Lu's party back at my parents home. I decided that a big first birthday party is fun, but subsequent parties for at least a couple of years would be smaller. Just family. And by having it at my parents house, not many people had to travel - just us really. Which is a little annoying, but the trade off was I didn't have to prepare a full meal. I'll take it. I know that it doesn't necessarily look like a smaller party, but it was. Just fruit, cupcakes, tortilla roll-ups, coffee, lemonade and gummy worms - some printable decorations - and a lot of popped balloons.

I had all of the printing done here locally. I used a blank template I found online (sorry - I've forgotten the source, if someone knows, let me know) and added our party details.

A sweet friend had purchased a printable party pack on Etsy and she kindly shared it with me. So cute!

We set out the book so people could understand the party's theme if they hadn't already picked up on it already. My mom had also bought gummy "worms" to pose as caterpillars. I eventually had to put the bowl up higher because Lucan had eaten waaayyy too many.

I had leftover paper straws from Lu's first birthday party. I printed out food labels for everything. It's kind of my party thing. But we had all the corresponding food that the caterpillar ate each day. With an exception to Sat. I wasn't about to buy salami, swiss cheese, pickles, etc. The party garland, which is hard to see, had all sorts of different things on it - all the different foods, munch munch munch, the caterpillar, the butterfly, etc. I cut each circle out by hand (I should have borrowed a punch!) and Lance assembled the night before. Lucan had fun ripping the garland down. So typical.

Lucan was hiding in the "jungle" plants. He needed a break from the festivities.

The "Happy Birthday" banner was left over from last year's party. My intention is to reuse every year! A funny story about the balloons. I originally started with a balloon bunch of 12 balloons. It was a little damp and windy and three balloons popped in the parking lot before I even got them loaded into our suv. But by the time the party started, six more had popped when Lucan was playing with them. He cried. But he wasn't annoyed like his father - who just saw wasted money on over-inflated balloons. I just saw a funny story! 

I had printed off Hungry Caterpillar coloring sheets and bought small boxes of crayons as favors. I got told this was probably a waste of money, but to my delight, each little one colored. SO THERE HATERS.

It's hard to talk over shrieking. Just ask the grandpas.

I could blame the three two-year-olds, but Andrea got her fair share of wrestling in too.

I printed off and assembled all of the cupcake toppers. I hired the cupcakes out to a girl I went to high school with and they were really yummy. White with raspberry filling, peanut-butter filled chocolate and cookies and cream!

Lucan liked the candle. Mesmerized.

I had made the suggestion to my parents to buy Lucan a knock-off Pottery Barn Kids "anywhere" chair. Lu loves Lucan-sized furniture and this chair was no exception. He got a lot of nice gifts from our family!

This was taken on June 3 - Lu's actual birthday. We had a leftover cupcake to commemorate. And the obligatory picture with the party hat. Lance didn't like the hat because the butterfly was too "girly." Pshaw. I bought the hat and printed the butterfly out from a printable from Pottery Barn.