Lilo's Very Hungry Caterpillar 2nd Birthday Party

Two years ago yesterday, at around 5 in the morning, my little caterpillar Lilo was born at home, upstairs in our bedroom. He has been a hungry caterpillar since that day and has grown into a big caterpillar indeed. He is also already spreading his wings as a butterfly and we love him so much for all he is.

For his second birthday, some really lovely friends of his (and their amazing mummies/daddies) came to our house to celebrate yesterday. I had planned a Very Hungry Caterpillar themed party after the well-loved book by Eric Carle, and researched the many Pinterest boards and blogs on the subject extensively before starting on the different aspects of the party a few weeks ago.

Lilo wears his antennae and butterfly wings for the party

I am glad to say that fun was had by all, especially the birthday boy. Here is what we did.

The house was decorated to reflect the very hungry caterpillar themes, with a hanging lantern caterpillar on the wall, a balloon caterpillar on the banister outside and a butterfly I made out of recycled milk bottle plastic and Sharpie markers (see here for instructions). I ordered plates, bowls, cups (and themed stickers and badges for the party bags) online from The Pod Company, and bought the Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric from Hobbycraft. Our upright piano was a good out-of-reach display "table" for the sweet food.

 For the food, I basically followed the instructions laid out in the book by Eric Carle and we had all the food featured in the story (apart from ice cream, which I swapped for jellies, as we were having the party inside the house). Here is a list of the food that I prepared that was on offer:

• Apple
• Pear
• Plums
• Strawberries
• Orange segments
• Watermelon
• Slices of Emmental cheese
• Slices of salami
• Gherkins
• Chocolate cake (with red glace cherries on top)
• Cocktail sausages
• Lollipops
• Cherry pie
• Cupcakes 
• Jellies

I also added French bread slices and homemade sausage rolls to bulk it up a bit.

I printed out food pictures from the book from this website and stuck them on matching coloured card and lollipop sticks to go on the different bowls and plates of food.

I designed the birthday cake, completely inspired by this one and this one, using Annabel Karmel's birthday cake recipe. It was a really yummy sponge that didn't really need filling with jam and was moist just eaten by itself. I baked one for the caterpillar in a Bundt tin and the other in two round tins. I prepared the fondant decorations for the cake 1 week ago, which gave them time to harden.

I prepared the fondant decorations a week ahead

The round cakes were covered with marzipan and then iced white and decorated with the fondant icing shapes and little polka dot decorations I got from the supermarket.

Decorating the round cake

I cut the ring-shaped cake and made it into a caterpillar by covering with different colours of green fondant icing for the body and red for the head. There is also a layer of marzipan under the icing.

The finished hungry caterpillar cake

The cake seen from above

We played a game called "Feed the hungry caterpillar" - I painted a caterpillar face on a canvas and cut out a hole for the mouth. Then we had the children throw caterpillar felt food into the mouth hole.

Caterpillar felt food I made 2 weeks ago

Feeding the caterpillar

We also played musical statues and pass the parcel. I had wrapped a little wooden caterpillar (worm) in brown and gold tissue paper to pretend it was a cocoon.

I had set up a little craft table in the kitchen with a sticky contact paper covered tray. Exploration boxes containing recycled milk bottle lids colored green and red and green and red pompoms were there for the children to create their own caterpillars.
There were also plenty of pens, crayons and copies of the Very Hungry Caterpillar colouring sheet I found on the Eric Carle website.

The party bags for the children to take home contained:
- A very hungry caterpillar sticker sheet
- A very hungry caterpillar badge
- A bag of sweeties
- A bag of homemade red and green make-your-own caterpillar play dough with googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennae inspired by The Imagination Tree
- A very hungry caterpillar activity sheet (for older children)

Party bag for all children to take home

We all had a fabulous day and even though all the preparation was a lot of effort, it was really worth it.

January?... Where is January???

So we haven't posted for a while. It has been a challenging month, getting over the festive period and re-acquainted with the routine of nursery runs, music and sports activities, play dates and weekends with family. Phew! Just writing about it exhausts me. I will share here some of what we did, but I'll keep it short. Promise.



For Three King's Day, we made three wise men puppets out of empty toilet paper rolls and felt. The boys had fun fitting the pre-cut pieces of felt together to make the three wise men, who bring the gifts to baby Jesus. We talked about this story at length while making this craft.

Our three wise men, blinged right up

We also made a gluten-free and sugar-free Galette des Rois to share with our friends on Sunday 6th January; although I was quite pleased with the rough puff pastry (which you make with Philadelphia cheese, or if you live in France: Petit Suisse), I was a bit let down by the filling - it was a tad too dry... I'm sure I could improve on it though, so I won't give you a recipe until I have. The other let down was the fact that none of our friends or children found the "feve", the little ceramic ornament hidden inside the cake, which makes a king (or queen) of whoever finds it in their piece of cake. The tradition which is very popular in France, involves a crown, which Ju was really pleased to make and model.

Gluten and sugar-free galette des rois with our homemade crown

Then we finally had some decent snow and made a real - albeit small - snowman in the garden! This prompted more repetitive reading of The Snowman story. Lilo now says his special word for snowman every time we go outside, in a very sad and forlorn way, as if he is mourning the melting of our snowy friend. The special word: "mao-mao".

Mao-mao

We received our Makedo kits and got making with cardboard boxes. Although Ju can't use the safe saw provided to cut cardboard, he is quite good at making holes with it and can therefore put the "nails" provided through the holes. We made a doll's house last week, and today we made a robot outfit, which both boys tried on eagerly.

I AM A ROBOT!!!!

New Year Calendar

Happy New Year everybody! New Year sometimes involves serious changes, like new resolutions or perhaps a new way of life, but firstly and most practically, it means you need a new calendar (unless you're working with an academic one or have gone fully digital). Ju has been very disappointed that there are no more advent calendar windows to be opened. With the new year just starting , I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to make him a felt calendar. We have already ordered our photo calendars for all the grandparents, which feature both boys (and us parents occasionally) through the seasons. And we received a home made calendar from Oma (my mother) just last week. Calendars ARE on our mind.

Ju knows about seasons, the days of the week and counts up to twenty (after 20, he counts: "a lot"). Building on this, the calendar will gradually introduce additional numbers up to 31, as well as months and dates, to help him understand how the year is divided up into months, weeks and days. He is often interested in describing the weather and understands that sunny doesn't necessarily mean warm.

I cut out rectangles of different colours for the months and blanket-stitched the edges using a sewing machine. I then painted some of the months' names with glittery white fabric paint and wrote down others with a Sharpie marker (this wasn't as easy as I thought it would be). I wrote the days of the week on rectangles of felt (one colour for each day) with a black Sharpie marker.

I cut out numbers in black felt which I hot glued onto the squares. Ju helped me organise the numbers in order.

 I made felt shapes of a cloud, a sun, an umbrella and a snowflake, and machine stitched detail onto them.

I made the actual calendar using a large felt square sightly bigger than a piece of strong card recycled from some packaging. I machine stitched a rectangle of grey felt into the middle and machine stitched some separators to make a table.

I cut out some felt letters to write DAY, DATE and MONTH and hot glued these on in the first column. I then hot glued the whole thing onto the cardboard, tucking the edges around the back.

We have now hung the calendar in the kitchen and the first thing Ju does when he comes in the morning is to put the right date and weather on the calendar.

Last Minute Christmas Decorations

So we're spending a few days with family in Norfolk. As we're staying in a holiday cottage, the lack of Internet has prevented me from posting on our activities but not to craft. As we are guests here, the tree is a little bit bare so we have joined forces with my sister-in-law and her children to get decorating.
Here are our ideas for some very last minute decorations:
- wrapping paper concertina
- felt ornaments
- decorated wooden ornaments
- pre-cut foam reindeer and sleighs
- Father Christmas on a lollipop stick
- decorated paper boxes
My lovely sister-in-law brought this great book of Christmas paper crafts which I look forward to using too.

Pain d'epices and Recycled Baubles

It was Lilo's playgroup Christmas party today, so I thought we would bring something baked to contribute. This morning, Ju and I made a "pain d'epices", which is a French spiced honey cake. Although it translates literally as spice bread, it is not the same as gingerbread and it has its roots in China, from where it was brought over in the Middle Ages. It is also a cousin of German Lebkuchen. We used to eat this a lot for snack time as children and I have never really associated it with Christmas time, but it contains all the usual spices. I adapted the recipe from French recipe site marmiton to make it gluten-free.

Pain d'epices

- 250 g honey

- 250 g flour (I used Doves gluten-free plain flour)
- 100 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp ground anise
- 1 tsp grated nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 2 eggs
- 50 ml milk

Pre-heat the oven at 160°C.

Heat up the honey in a saucepan until really runny and pour it into a bowl containing the flour, baking powder, sugar and spices. Mix well with a wooden spoon and gradually beat in 2 eggs and the vanilla extract, then add the lukewarm milk.

Ju stirs the cake mixture

Pour the mixture into a greased and floured loaf tin. Bake for 1 hour and turn out the cake when it has cooled down completely.

It keeps for one week wrapped in foil. 

Slice of delicious pain d'epices

It is delicious spread with butter or on its own and eating it takes me right back to childhood. The texture is slightly chewy and so moist, especially considering there is no fat in it. It is also deliciously sweet and spicy, a real taste of Christmas one can enjoy at any time of year. Luckily, even though it was appreciated at play group, competing cupcakes made by another mum meant there was some left over, so I took it home so Ju could try it after nursery.

Pain d'epices tasting

Santa and Elf Recycled Baubles

In previous years, we have made a footprint ceramic bauble at The Ceramic Experience and I have made various fabric baubles using polystyrene balls. On Day 1 we also made a string and glue ornament, which was pretty much a bauble, although not completely round. Baubles are definitely a must on any Christmas tree

String and glue ornament (top), fabric bauble (bottom left) and ceramic bauble (bottom right)

I have in the house coloured plastic balls from a ball pit that has been moved up to the attic, and I thought of a use for them today, which also allows us to complete another one of our Christmas countdown activity: to make a Christmas bauble. I started by putting a needle with thread through the top to ensure we could hang the bauble. 

Needle with thread through the top of the plastic ball

Then we took some felt and I cut a section from a circle so the boys could make hats for the tops of their baubles. We use Copydex to glue felt, seems to work quite well.

Ball, felt circle with section cut off and red marabou trim

Lilo wanted to make a Santa and Ju a little elf. Both boys glued their hats on and then decorated the bauble with trimmings of red marabou for Ju's elf's beard and cotton wool for the hat trim, bobble, and the beard. I helped Lilo stick some googly eyes and a black belt with a yellow buckle cut out of felt.

Ju gets gluing

Santa's eyes and beard

The boys couldn't wait to put their baubles in the tree. They are definitely getting the hang of this (!).

Ju's elf bauble

Lilo's santa bauble