A Very Hungry Caterpillar Party

It was Jenson's 1st birthday on Friday (30th). 

We had a lovely day and the birthday boy and his brother really enjoyed themselves! 

Mummy and Daddy gave Jenson a wooden trike and an activity cube and Burton gave him a Melissa & Doug latches board. He also 'wrote' a birthday card out for Jenson and made some lovely colourful squiggles inside it! 

We also gave Burton two small presents to open so that he wouldn't feel left out and to occupy him so that Jenson would be able to play with his new things. Hmmm.....like that was going to work!! Burton has enjoyed trying out all of his brother's new toys and especially likes riding his new trike!!

I spent most of the day in between occupying the boys, trying to finish off the party food. Luckily I managed to get Jenson to nap for an hour after lunch which enabled me to get some food prep completed!

Due to the weather being so glorious and because we don't have a garden to host the party in, Jon's parents very kindly agreed to let us host the party at their house so that the children could run around outside and use the trampoline and swings. The guests were a mix of family and friends, and even though several of the guests couldn't make it, which was a shame, it was a lovely gathering and everyone enjoyed themselves.

I did a theme for the party which was The Very Hungry Caterpillar , and I based all of the party food on the items that features in the story. I replaced some items for similar ones e.g.. cherry pie was actually cheese & onion quiche, the chocolate cake became mini triple decker sandwiches on wholemeal bread, I made blue & yellow cake pops for the lollipops, pizza wedges for the watermelon, mini cheddars for the oranges and ham instead of salami! I also filled ice cream wafer cornets with jelly for the ice creams. I made mini caterpillars using grapes and a cherry tomato on cocktail sticks. I then wrote cards out with the lines from the story on as menu cards

The cake turned out much better than I had imagined!! I made two chocolate sponge cakes filled with chocolate butter cream, which I placed on top of one another and covered with white chocolate ganache. Then I stuck smarties around the sides and finally I cut a hungry caterpillar out of icing to decorate the top of the cake with.

It really was a fun afternoon and Jenson really seemed to be enjoying himself and he didn't cry once!