Little Rhody Girl: Nathan's Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Party

On August 24th we had a BBQ to celebrate Nathan's first year in our family!

It's hard to believe that a year has already passed us by. We had a wonderful day with friends and family and I think everyone had a great time!

I had planned on food and favors for around 30 people and I'm pretty sure that's how many people came so that worked out pretty well. To be honest the week before I was working like crazy making all the decorations and planning the meals etc so when the party day arrived I was pretty relieved to no have to party plan anymore :-)

I made most of the decorations myself and we rented some tables and chairs from the navy base. Our friends were generous enough to loan us some easy-up canopies and lawn games (corn hole and bocci ball). I made the caterpillar photo banner pictured above with my Cricut machine; I think it turned out really well! It was hung on the fence in our backyard behind the food table.

I had this sign made on Etsy and had it printed at Walgreens. I had a 10% off coupon and was able to get it printed on hard foam board for the same price as a regular 11x14 print. I love how it came out!

To the right of the sign is The Birthday Book; I found this on amazon and fell in love with the concept. It has one or two pages to fill out for each birthday from year 1 to 18. As you child grows there are pages specifically for the child to fill out. I still need to find the perfect picture from the party to include in the book.

For the desserts I asked one of my very talented friends to make cupcakes for the guests and my very talented mother in law made the smash cake for Nathan.

1) Birthday Invitations - Etsy - Ashlee @ Scriptiva Paper

2) Birthday Stats Sign - Etsy - Tiffany @ Enchanted Wishes

3) Cupcake Toppers - Etsy - Chelsi @ ChelsiLeeDesigns

We BBQ'd burgers and dogs for everyone and had a nice picnic lunch. We had samplings of all the different foods that the caterpillar had in the story. (Not familiar with the children's book The Very Hungry Caterpillar? Then you obviously had a very deprived childhood!... Just kidding!)

Kyle's mother who is the Children's Lead at the Local Barnes and Noble got me a really nice hardcover copy of the book to use as a guest book. Everyone that came to the party signed it. It will be a great keepsake to flip through and cry over after Nathan leaves for college!

I made him a special birthday sign for his highchair and the smash cake pictures! It was so amazing watching him while we all gathered around to sing happy birthday to him. I kept it together but it was really hard not to get choked thinking in those moments that my baby really isn't a baby anymore..