Finn is one!

When I started thinking about Finn's first birthday party (when he was like 4 months old - I know I have a problem) I quickly decided to do a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" themed party. I immediately had an idea for the invitation. I thought it would be cool to have the invitation look like a single circle when you first see it, but then it expands to be the caterpillar's whole body. It was pretty easy and I think it turned out very cute (if I do say so myself!).
Here it is after it's been stretched out:
Then I made a banner out of fun foam that looked pretty much like the invite except larger:
Then I thought it would be fun to serve a lot of the food that's mentioned in the book. It was a good idea because he eats so many things in the book that I had lots of options. Plus, because of the way we eat and Finn's special diet I wanted to serve a vegetarian meal so I just cut out the sausage, hot dog, etc. that the caterpillar eats. In case you're not familiar with the story on the first day the little caterpillar eats through one apple. On the second day he eats through two oranges, and so on, until the sixth day he eats through a crazy amount of food like a cupcake, a piece of pizza, an ice cream cone, a pickle, etc. Then he gets a stomach ache so on the last day he eats through one nice green leaf. So I served most of these foods and had a salad to represent the nice, green leaf. (Plus I had a few extras like pb&j's shaped like butterflies for the kids, a pasta salad, and my friend Molly's delicious spinach artichoke dip.)
Here is my interpretation of Eric Carle's artwork for the book:
It was so much fun to plan, very simple, and relatively inexpensive. I made all of the decorations and most of the food (along with my mother-in-law who worked like a dog helping me, and my mom who made this fun cake below). I love having birthday parties for my kids (sometimes I say it's the reason I had kids!) because I love the chance to be creative without using a lot of money. There are definitely fancier parties out there but I think our parties are just perfect for us!
I wanted to "set the scene" with photos of the decorations and food first, and in a few days I'll post photos with actual people in them (like...the birthday boy!).