Caterpillar Party

On Friday night, I stayed up late working on Charlotte's cake and cupcakes, plus various other food props for the Very Hungry Caterpillar party on Saturday. That Caterpillar ate through quite a few different kinds of baked goods. I got everything done, and went to sleep exhausted but happy that all I had to do the next day to get ready was to make fruit salad and straighten up the house. On Saturday morning I took Emily out onto the back porch (which is now functioning as an extension of our refrigerator) and showed her the cake.

She got very excited, and asked if she could have the caterpillar's head. I explained that the head was a special smash cake for Charlotte, and that on Emily's first birthday she had gotten the special ducky off the top of her cake all to herself. I brought her in to show her pictures of her first birthday party.


I was hoping that doing so would remind her that she had had a turn, and now it was Charlotte's turn. Then we heard Charlotte yelling good morning, so we went up to get her out of the crib. When I brought her back downstairs, Emily wanted to show her the cake. As I opened the back door, I heard Emily say "Where's the head?". Sure enough, this is what was now sitting out on the back porch:

Apparently Remy had slipped outside in all the excitement and had taken advantage of an unsupervised moment to help himself to the cake.
The culprit:

(This is how I imagine he looked as he plotted his crime)
SO, instead of cleaning all morning, I spent the better part of 2 hours making the caterpillar's face again. Since the face was for Charlotte I had made it a bit healthier than the rest of the cake, so I had to go back and make the cake and frosting from scratch again. This resulted in an extremely stressful morning, but thanks to wonderful husband, sister, and mom the party was ready to go on time at noon, and the cake had a new head:

I'm very lucky he went for the head and not any other part. Since the head was a seperate piece, he didn't have to touch the rest of the cake. If he had tried to sample the caterpillar's butt we would've had a major problem.

Emily had been begging for a lollipop for weeks, so the minute the party started we finally allowed her to have one.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a party theme that writes its own menu.

I realize now I should've taken 20 seconds to put the cork squares back on the wall because it looks pretty gross with just the tape sitting there.

Very few people know this, but in Eric Carle's first draft of the book the caterpillar finished eating through 1 slice of watermelon and then plowed through 36 martinis.

That's the REAL reason why he had a stomachache.

More party fun



Charlotte enjoyed playing with the frosting, that's about it.


Fruit! Much better.

Presents!

So now I get a little break from buying presents and planning get-togethers until Emily's party in May. She initially told me that she wants a yogurt-themed birthday party, then a donkey-themed birthday party, but luckily she seems to have changed her mind and now wants a unicorn birthday party. I think that's much more doable.