The Very Hungry Joshua

When you get an invitation like this...

...you can guess the party theme.

But when you have two creative parents like this...

(who happen to be part of the McFaul catering clan)

You know that this little boy's first birthday party is going to be something special.

Now, I'm assuming that you've read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"

If not, stop reading, order it from Amazon and come back later.

If you just can't wait, here is Wikipedia's synopsis...

A green baby caterpillar hatches from an egg, and from birth he experiences a perpetual craving for food. He eats through fruits on five days, one piece on the first, two on the second, and so on up to five, then experiments with a wider variety of foods. Soon enough he overdoes it and nauseates himself. After recovering he spins a cocoon in which he remains for the following two weeks. Later, the caterpillar emerges as a bright, colorful butterfly with large, gorgeous, multi-colored wings.

Foods eaten:

• 1 apple
• 2 pears
• 3 plums
• 4 strawberries
• 5 oranges
• 1 piece of chocolate cake
• 1 ice cream cone
• 1 pickle
• 1 slice of Swiss cheese
• 1 slice of salami
• 1 lollipop
• 1 piece of cherry pie
• 1 sausage
• 1 cupcake
• 1 slice of watermelon
• 1 green leaf

The story is basically about a little caterpillar who is hungry and eats his way through many yummy things.

It seems fitting therefore to start with the food....

(although please also notice the food stuck on the kitchen walls)

Strawberries and watermelon 

oranges and pickle

How cute is the sandwich caterpillar?

Now the next bit is NOT in the book, but a nod to Joshua's Indian heritage and BOY was it good!

Now what do you serve all these yummy yums up on?

Nothing but hungry caterpillar plates...

...and what do you eat with?

(I asked David if he had actually stuck the caterpillar dots onto the wooden spoons....I believed that he would go to this extent.  But apparently, they came from etsy....still magnificent none-the-less)

Now the little caterpillar never ate cookies, but it was only because he hadn't seen these ones....

Given that Carol is his granny, the party naturally featured amazing cake pops.

...and an awesome cake.

The birthday boy blowing out his candle
(and yes...they did decorate the lounge walls with cocoons and butterflies)

As you can tell, the food was very well received.

(At this moment I let out a silent scream as I forgot to photograph the caterpillar kebabs, but if you look closely at Max in the photo above, you will see that he has eaten the caterpillar's red head - strawberry - and is making his way through the body - grapes, while Beth has demolished the caterpillar entirely)

Now with such attention to detail being invested in the food you would be forgiven for allowing the decoration to slip...

BUT NOT IN THIS HOUSE!

Guests were welcomed at the front door by a caterpillar mat and along the wall crawled a 12 segmented caterpillar with photos from the first 12 months of Joshua's life.

Dangling above the table of goodies was a lantern caterpillar....

The house was strung with bunting in fabric featuring patterns from the book

And in case you missed it in the last photo, there was also a caterpillar balloon.

There were lots of crafts for the kids to do.

Miss Molly is obviously an arty sort.  She knows the importance of putting the lid back on your markers so that they don't dry out.  However, being only two, it is mandatory that your tongue has to poke out as you concentrate on the task.

There were also lots of activity pages to colour in....

...and caterpillar bookmarks to create.

Every one loves the craft table.  It was hard to move Beatrice from it...even when the big kids joined in....

Just to make sure that every one of your creations got home safely, our hosts provided handy paper bags....

Another lovely touch was a huge paperback copy of the book for all of the guests to sign....

Beth took a lot of time thinking about what her contribution would be...

...and then she spent even more time reading what everyone else had written.

I'm sorry....I couldn't resist....

"It's my party and I'll cry if I want to"

Seth was a little excited by the distribution of the party bags...

Which contained....some sweeties, a bespoke hungry caterpillar activity book, some stickers and my personal favourite, a roll of crayons in the hungry caterpillar fabric.

And for Mummys and Daddys there was a little treat bag too....

Naturally, it doesn't contain a random assortment of sweets...just look at the sweeties and review the list of goodies the hungry caterpillar ate.

Happy Birthday Joshua, I hope you enjoyed your AMAZING 1st birthday party.

"The Hat"