Thank goodness it’s Friday! For real, yo. It’s been a long week. I’ve been single-parenting it while T. works out of town since Sunday. It was also the first week back to school since Spring Break, and the first week that the kids have had to go to bed when the sun was still out. Or, Trifecta of Doom, as I like to call it.

It’s been almost a week since Erv’s big birthday bash. I think I might have finally come to terms with him being one.

But only because I know we’ll have another soon.

HA! Put down the phones, grandmas. Just wanted T’s blood pressure to go up for a sec.

We’ve made no such decision.

Anyway, Erv’s big 1st birthday was the Very Hungry Caterpillar, which I found on Pinterest about six months ago. I think it turned out pretty darn cute. And it was really easy to coordinate with all of the bright colors from the book.

I had to do the cake because who knew that getting a gluten free one made would be so expensive?! (Um, probably everyone that is gluten free. HELLO.) I found this cake on pinterest (via Catch My Party) and it was actually pretty easy. The hardest part was getting the red buttercream dark enough to not be pink. I finally gave up and settled with this:


The head was Erv’s personal smash cake and the cupcakes were for everybody else. (FYI: the boxed Betty Crocker GF vanilla cake mix? Not so good. The Devil’s Food? Really good.)

Another idea from Pinterest (via Pottery Barn Kids). I bought these paper lanterns from Birthday Express. I used card stock to make the face and feet pieces and Glue Dots to stick them on.

 I found these free printables and used them to label the different kinds of chili. I could have used them for so much more, but I ran out of time.

This was one of my favorite elements (and it’s still hanging up). Jamie from Chosen Chaos posted this idea for her one-year-old twins’ birthday party, and I thought it was brilliant. It was so fun to see and remember what everybody in our family looked like around one year old, and to see who Ervin really looks like. I made a banner for the wall using ribbon and a picture of the caterpillar and butterfly on the ends.


I also used this idea from the same post (and Pinterest) for the inverted balloons. They were all over the living room, dining room, and entryway, and I LOVED all of the colors. I used a bulletin board border for the tables that I got from Amazon.

I usually like to have some kind of craft for the kids to do. There’s a lot of kids in our family, so I like to be prepared with an “icebreaker”. I found some unfinished frames in the craft section at Wal Mart for $.97. They weren’t fancy, but they worked! The night before, I painted them all white so they’d be ready, then during the party, everybody got to sit down and paint them however they wanted.

Here’s the example I did, with Ervin’s name, a couple of leaf stickers, and a Hungry Caterpillar painted with round sponge brushes and acrylic paints.

I had gotten yellow plastic silverware, and Ivy and I wrapped them in green paper napkins and tied them with red string (the idea came from here via Pinterest).

These skewers came from the same site. They’re kind of supposed to look like caterpillars, and they were pretty popular (especially with my four year old….she ate, like, four of them).

This was my favor/activity table. I sorted Skittles into bowls and let the kids scoop them into clean, dry water bottles (the mini ones).

I didn’t take an after picture, but this is what they looked like (and where the idea came from). I loved it because the kids got to spend some time filling them up, the colors were perfect for the theme, and they got to take home a little treat.

I really like how it turned out. It wasn’t super fancy, but it WAS super festive.

I’m linking up with Just Jennifer for TGIF today, because I love her and she’s had a rough couple of weeks. You should link up, too, and share what’s making you happy!