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A Worm Themed Birthday Party

Aw, yeah. Clara’s second b-day party was full of food, family, friends, fun… and worms (she picked the theme based on her deep love of looking at, drawing, and even dreaming about worms). So… worm to your motha!

We were so thankful to be surrounded by the people we love, the bean had the best time, and the 75 degree weather and sunny skies were the icing on the worm cake. Or should I say worm cupcakes. Let’s get this party (breakdown) started…

Party Collage

But let’s start at the beginning. Clara was born two years ago today. Wait, that’s too far back. Let’s just cover the party. Here’s the sunroom all decked out for the big day. Nothing too fancy, just some balloons and streamers from Target, a colorful tablecloth from HomeGoods, and lots of worm-a-licious food. But we’ll get to that in a second.

Party Food Sunroom Full

We decided to use the sunroom, the patio, and the carport for the entire gathering, which was about 30 people total (ten were kiddos under the age of four). Of course if it had rained we would have partied inside, but it felt especially wormy and fun to have kiddos running around outdoors in the fresh air. Having the sunroom (which is located right off the patio) for food and drinks was also really nice since we didn’t have to worry about finding actual bugs in the food (fake worms = ok, real bugs = not ok).

Party Food Balloon View

Here’s a close up of the table seconds before everyone arrived. Fun fact: the table is actually a secret book project covered with a tablecloth since we can’t reveal it on the blog – and also since we didn’t have room to stash it anywhere else. Haha. We figured we might as well put it to good use for now (we’ll be auctioning a bunch of book projects off for charity this fall once the book is out and they’re allowed out of the proverbial bag).

We set out worm-ish food with worm-related labels (made in photoshop and printed at home) like “worm crudités” (long skinny slices of carrots, cucumbers, and cheese), “puffed worms” (white cheddar cheese puffs), “salted worms” (pretzel rods), and “worm dogs” (hot dogs that we cut into fourths and boiled to make them all curly as so many of you recommended in the comments of this pre-party post – thanks!!).

Party Food Full Table

See those pretty flowers on the table? They were from J-boom for Mother’s Day. Love my hubby.

Party Food Spread Pretty Shot

Here’s a close up of the worm dogs. They were a hit among kiddos and adults. I think we moved more of them than we had people at the party.

Party Food Worm Dogs

All of the bowls and plates were just things we had in the pantry. Nothing really matched in shape (round, scalloped, rectangular, etc) but it all worked because it was white – which was actually a nice combo with the crazy-colorful tablecloth (bright platters and bowls might have been a bit much with such an in-yo-face pattern).

Party Food Other Wormy Stuff

We also set out little cups of gummy worms. Hanging a few over the rim like they were crawling out was my idea of a good time. Oh yes, I live on the edge.

Party Food Gummy Worms Close

We had another small table for the pizza – which is always a party pleaser. We did our take on worm pizza by ordering one with worm-like peppers & onions and topping one with pre-cooked spaghetti. The other two (cheese and peperoni) had a label that said “dewormed pizza.” Oh yeah, we ran with this worm theme, baby.

Party Food Worm Pizza

Everyone got a kick out of the bird napkins (birds eat worms, right?) that we found at Ikea.

Party Food Servingware

On the other side of the sunroom we set up a little drink station. See this table covered with another HomeGoods tablecloth? There’s another secret book project under there. Haha. As for what drinks we served, we went with some cute glass bottles of orange soda and Coke for the 20-ish adults and also had Izze, water, and sparkling water in the beverage tin along with apple juice and water for the kiddos. Oh and see those apples in front of the drink tin? We plopped a gummy worm on each one. Ha. They actually got eaten, too!

Party Drink Table Full

And check out those worm-like pink straws…

Party Drink Table Close Soda

Since this room is still completely untouched, there was no wall art going on (we just plopped down furniture 16 months ago and haven’t done anything but shove book stuff in there since). So we taped up Clara’s monthly pictures from this year along with 12 fun worm facts on a nice bare expanse of wall above the table. John just googled around for worm trivia and typed each 4 x 6″ card up in Photoshop.

Party Drink Table Pics Close

For anyone who wants to see the whole shebang a little closer, just click this photo for an enlarged version:

Party Drink Table Pics Small

Oh and here’s the carport all snazzed up with pink & orange streamers. When it comes to bang for your buck, they’re pretty festive (and so cheap!). It’s hard to see in these pics, but we swagged them so they were sort of wiggly and worm-ish. And I proudly hung the fabric banner that I made for Clara’s first birthday on the half wall that looks back onto the patio. We brought a few chairs and a garden stool out from inside as well as all the sweet little watering can favors for each of our young party-goers to take home.

Party Outside Carport

I can’t tell you how happy it made me to see all ten of those little watering cans lined up on that wall. As I mentioned here, they were each filled with a bottle of bubbles, a pink or orange shovel, and a stuffed snake-turned-worm that we found at Ikea for 49 cents (we cut off the forked tongue to complete the conversion). We also grabbed the watering cans at Ikea for 99 cents each.

Party Outside Favors

Other than streamers and balloons, we just hung three paper lanterns that came in a pack from Target and some funny worm-like pink swirlie paper things that we found for a few bucks at Party City. Then we brought out a low table from the sunroom and made a little play station for the kiddos with things like bubbles, a puzzle from Melissa and Doug that has bugs/worms on it, a box of crayons, and a bunch of color-the-worm pages that I sketched before the party.

Party Outside Patio

I just took cardstock and a gray marker and drew a few happy little worms for the kiddos to color. It actually went over pretty well. It was so much fun to see all those colorful scribbled worms at the end of the day.

Party Outside Coloring Table

Here’s a people-milling pic for ya. Is there anything better than a patio full of people you love?

Party People On Patio

Sidenote: Clara was kind of hilarious about the pizza. She took a big bite of mine and then moved over to her cousin Jake and asked for a bite of his and when we all stared laughing she went from person to person, requesting a bite of each slice (thankfully there were only two other people nearby so it didn’t turn into a giant germ-sharing fest). It was very “welcome to my party, now feed me” of her. At least she wasn’t asking us to bow to her and fan her with leaves.

Party People Clara Eating Pizza

The other crowd favorite of the afternoon (besides our sweet little pizza-mooching bean) were the dirt cupcakes. We just picked up tasty little 40 cent vanilla cupcakes from a local bakery here in Richmond (Ukrops), pressed them icing-side-down into crushed up Oreo cookies, and plopped a gummy worm on top. We also made some that were dirt free (just squished a worm into the white icing) but the consensus from the crowd was that the Oreo ones were the best since they had some crunch.

Party Cupcakes Pretty Close

Here’s the birthday girl getting her special cupcake (she hand-picked that green gummy worm before the party) in her favorite yellow chair. We stuck two worm-ish pink candles from Target on top, sang our little hearts out, and blew them out fast (since she’s still mildly afraid of fire from a certain Hawaiian hibachi incident).

Party Cupcakes Singing BDay

She did momma proud with her cupcake-eating skills.

Party Cupcakes Clara Eating

We even remembered to try to take a few family photos. Of course we didn’t get any with all of us looking at the camera and smiling (what are those odds, one in a million?), but we did end up with some sweet candid ones (yes that is a random bubble floating by in the foreground).

Party Portrait Clara Reaching

Clara took the worm theme very seriously. For example, she took great pleasure in feeding them to me.

Party Portrait Eating Worms

She and her daddy even got all Lady and The Tramp for this shot:

Party Portrait Daddy Clara

We all seemed to gravitate to the carport after a few hours in the sunroom and on the patio, and then we decided to open some presents. This wooden worm (well, actually it’s a snake) from one of Clara’s best buddies was a huge hit. The funny thing is that John and I played around with that exact same thing (from Michael’s) for this old Halloween post before we had any idea Clara would develop a deep, strong love of worms.

Party Gifts Lots Of Presents

Clara was seriously smitten.

Party Gifts Playing With Snake

Here’s another people-milling shot in the carport. As much as we would someday love to convert that space to a garage, it sure is good for friends and family (and balls and balloons). We ended up bringing out our dining chairs with their slipcovers back on (so any rogue icing could just be washed off) and we did what we do best: hung out and watched those sweet kiddos of ours. Although there are only three out of ten kids in this pic, so there must have been a gaggle of them staring at a spider in the corner or dunking by the basketball hoop (a sweet gift from my brother Dan, which you can see two pictures up).

Party People In Carport

The general gist? It was a great day. We are so thankful for our friends and family and our sweet, happy little girl. I always cry at her party. Just can’t help it. She’s our little miracle (birth story here, sniffle sniffle). And we’re so grateful to have awesome folks like you guys to virtually attend our weird little worm party. Haha. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.

But perhaps Burger had the most fun, gazing dreamily up at all the leftovers at the end of the festivities.

Party Burger Looking

He even got lucky and found a cheese puff under the table.

Party Burger Under

The End.

Oh wait, we made a little Clara video like we did last year – not to show at the party this time, just to have so we can look back on it (and watch it with Clara, since she loves the one we made for her first birthday). So here’s her last year in seven minutes. My favorite parts are her Britney Spears impression near the beginning and some Flash-Dance-ish ottoman dancing in the outtakes at the very end.

Love that girl. Love you guys too. Lots of mushiness flying around. Haha. What did you do this weekend? Any Mother’s Day fun? Any worm eating?

Psst- We have a bunch of outtakes for this month’s Clara picture in front of her homemade fabric, so you can check those out here on Young House Life.

Comments

  3. Melyssa says

    So sweet. I cried through the whole video. Such a cutie and growing up so fast (especially when compressed into 7 minutes!!!) You are such a beautiful family.

    Reply

  4. Kelly says

    Happy Birthday, Clara!!! They grow up so fast.

    What a fun and festive party! Those worm hot dogs are hilarious and very creative. Actually, everything was so cleverly thought out. Great job!

    Thank you for sharing such a special day.

    :)

    Reply

  5. Megan says

    Love the party theme- looks like it turned out great! And a what a sweet little video of the past year. I love her dancing/singing :)

    Reply

    • Meredith says

      Um, I may have totally purchased a package of gummy worms (and consumed them) after I saw your plans on Friday. I couldn’t help myself!

  10. Meg{Green Motherhood} says

    Happy birthday sweet Clara!
    It gets me so choked up because we will be there soon. Isla June will be 2 in one short month, and I just can’t believe it!
    Great job on the video John! Y’all always motivate me to get my flip out.. The everyday occurrences are worth recording!

    Reply

  12. chyenne says

    The sweetest video ever! <3 What a great way to relive all the special moments. My babies are three and six now! Wow, six year old just learned how to ride on two wheels this weekend, great vid moment huh? You have totally inspred me to make yearly kiddo movies. Now I just have to figure out how to do that fancy stuff!! lol Happy Birthday to Clara!

    Reply

  13. Mindy M. says

    Awwww! I love that video. I don’t even know you guys (IRL) but it makes me sad that she’s growing up so fast. It made me tear up a little. She’s going to love having these videos when she gets older.

    And, what a cool worm party! Clara is a lucky girl to have parents that go all out for her birthday in such a non-traditional theme. I loved the worm dogs!

    Reply

  14. Nicole says

    Wow – what a fun looking party! Even though everyone isn’t looking at the camera for your family photo, it still is great!

    Reply

  15. Laura says

    You would think we are close personal friends from the amount of tears I just shed at Clara’s year-recap video! It was so well done – I just did one for my daughter’s 1st birthday, so maybe that’s why I’m so emotional. As usual – love it all, great party!!

    Reply

  17. Nicole says

    Aw, I love ya’ll! What a wonderful party and Happy Birthday Clara from northern calif, we love you! Thank you for sharing your special day. Beautiful!

    Reply

  19. Georgia says

    Cute party. I love the worm facts.
    And your birth story had me sobbing. Can you imagine what it would have been like in the olden days before women had access to all the sophisticated medicine we have today??? It must have been terrifying every time you got pregnant. I feel very blessed that I had 4 easy and natural births. I can totally undestand why you would be nervous about having another baby.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Georgia. It’s definitely still something that terrifies me but I’m so so grateful for modern medicine and the amazing doctors and nurses who saved our girl!

      xo,
      s

    • Kristi says

      It’s probably way too personal, but is adoption something you would consider? There’s so many children already here that need good parents like you guy.

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Absolutely! We would like to try for another baby, just for the chance to feel those kicks again, but definitely have open minds and open hearts for adoption as well!

      xo,
      s

  21. Shweta says

    Happy Birthday to Sweet Clara! Such a warm, colorful party! And Sherry I always turn up crying at my son’s birthday party too! :) I love birthday parties that are actually all about the birthday kid, you guys did such a great job! Can’t wait to get ready for my son’s 3rd birthday party! I am trying to figure out what he is really digging right now, seems like jigsaw puzzles! A jigsaw theme party? Would’ve been easier if he just liked Spiderman :D But that won’t be half as fun!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, I love the idea of a jigsaw puzzle party! The invitations could be puzzles that people put together (just snipped into a few large pieces) and things like brownies or pizzas could even be cut into puzzle shapes. I’m in love!

      xo,
      s

  24. Amanda says

    I love the worm theme, so original! How did you manage to ward off an Elmo obsession so far? That seems to be such a popular theme around the age of 2!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Haha, she does like Elmo and Thomas and Nimo, but she just seems to love real animals so much (Burger, worms, the dog who lives across the street) so it was so funny when she picked worms above all else!

      xo,
      s

  25. mollie says

    what a wonderfully fabulous post!! I shed a few ‘happy’ tears… such joy and love in your family; clara is a blessed little girl!! what a shot of encouragement to read your blog…. thank you for brightening up my day, and keep up the good work. you are doing a wonderful job raising and nurturing your daughter:) blessings….

    Reply

  26. Sierra says

    Wow! One of the most fun parties I’ve seen! Our daughter has that same dress C had on and we too have to tie the straps in back with ribbon because they fall off! lol! Great parents think alike. ;)

    Happy Birthday to C and Happy Mother’s Day to you Sherdog! :)

    Reply

  27. Jenn says

    The party looks like it was AWESOME! And the video made me cry. You have a precious little girl. Hug her tight!

    Reply

  29. Tashauna says

    Thanks a lot guys! Now I’m all verklempt!!! My baby girl just turned 2 on May 10. Glad it was a great day–great video!

    Reply

  31. Kasey M. says

    LOVE the party photos, but even better is watching the adorbable video of your little girl doing her thing and dancing around the house.

    PS I hope you get a print of John & Clara’s lady and the tramp photo. It’s so heartwarming!

    Reply

  32. Elisabeth@SimplyParkers says

    Love it SO much! My favorite part is the little worm facts on the photo wall…so clever! Our little guy will be turning two in just a couple months, I’m even more excited for the party now :)

    Reply

  35. Nicole Lindquist says

    awww, thanks so much for sharing this! i teared up reading it, so i can only imagine you at the party! my daughter will be 2 in June and i plan to go all out with the Sesame Street theme. My husband even bought a shirt at Target that says “Every Day I’m Snufflin’ — can’t wait :) Happy Birthday, Clara!

    Reply

  36. Selena says

    What a beautiful party for Clara! Y’all really had some great, wormy ideas. All the colors were so cheery and I loved the pic of the sun room showing all the beautiful pillows and the party table. I also loved all the bright clothing everyone was wearing. Her little video was so precious and I re-read her birth story. I must admit I was holding my breath although I knew she made it because this post is about her 2nd birthday. Thanks for sharing her special day with us :)

    Reply

  39. Heidi says

    I love the video! I can’t remember if you’ve mentioned before what program you use to put together your videos like that. I’d love to know :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We used Final Cut Pro for this video, just because we’ve recently purchased it for book reasons. But last year’s was done with iMovie which would’ve worked just as well this year too.

      -John

  40. Erin says

    I have been following your great blog for years now, and I just love it! And although this may sound nerdy, I’ve been really looking forward to seeing the pictures of sweet Clara’s party. As usual, everything was so cute and creative! Y’all did such a great job! Thanks for always sharing. Enjoy your little 2 year old and have a great day!

    Reply

  41. Staci @ My Friend Staci says

    I was one of those people thinking about Clara on Saturday too! I was even stalking instagram in hopes of a sneak peek. So glad you had a wonderful party. Makes me wish I had a kid so I could throw elaborate themed parties. I guess I’ll have to stick with “holidays” that I don’t particularly care about just for an excuse to decorate! (Super Bowl and Mardi Gras, anyone?)

    Reply

  42. Sophie says

    That video got me right in the heart – Clara’s just such a special little sweetie :3
    I know I don’t know her, but I feel like I’m just watching her grow up before my eyes!

    Happy Birthday little honey! (:

    Reply

  43. Nichole DeMario says

    I am new to the Young House Love blog. I am absolutely in love with it! Thank you for sharing so many wonderful ideas. I don’t have children yet, but love the idea of creating a montage video each year. What program(s) do you use?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Thanks Nichole – glad to have you! We edited this year’s video in Final Cut Pro (we’ve recently purchased it for a video for our book) but last year’s was done in iMovie, which is cheaper and easier. I didn’t really rely on any of Final Cut’s advance capabilities this year, so iMovie would’ve worked just fine too.

      -John

  44. Nicole says

    Aww I love it! Your Clara video got me all teary. My little one is 10 weeks old today… time goes by so fast!

    Reply

  46. Anika says

    I never ever thought worms could look so cute! I have to admit that when you announced what the theme was I was not sure how it would look, but you guys pulled it off. I loved all the different ways you incorporated worms into the party (especially all the fun food) – Well done!

    And Sherry you’ve now convinced me I need one of those old navy dresses stat! You look wonderful, as always. ALl the bright colors made for a really cute family picture that pops.

    Thank you for sharing so much of your life and your memories with us all. That video was amazing, so special and cute. We love your family!

    Reply

  47. Kim says

    How did you guys deal with the condensation/melting ice in the beverage tub? I would think by the end of the party it would make the table and floor wet. Any tips? Thanks!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oddly enough we didn’t have any issues with that. There was a bit of moisture and condensation around the outside of the bucket, but not major drips. It may have helped that it wasn’t a super hot day and it was in an enclosed, shaded area.

      -John

  48. Gina P says

    You guys seem to get a lot of use out of photoshop. Maybe that would be a good future post. I would not mind seeing a demo of how you have used it. I am interested but don’t know the best way to obtain it, buy from a store, download it, etc.??? If you have already posted about this can you direct me. Thank :)

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We haven’t really done a post about that, so that’s a good idea for the already long to-do list. We’re certainly not experts, so we’ll see if there’s a way we can share some insight in an interesting way.

      As for obtaining it, we just bought / downloaded ours from the Adobe website.

      -John

  49. pam says

    I knew those hot dog worms would be a hit! I know my son loved them when he was young. He still does at 22 :)
    I am glad you all had a great time and the weather cooperated with you .
    Happy Birthday Clara!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply

  50. Alyssa says

    I have been a secret follower for 2-3 years now and have never commented. I just really enjoy reading about your projects. After watching your home video of Clara I just wanted to tell you how cute it is. I have a little boy who is about to turn 1 in July and watching that video made my eyes water. It’s amazing how much joy little ones bring to your life everyday. Thanks so much for sharing!

    Reply

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