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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

  2. Tina H. says

    What a sweet party. Clara is such a cutie! She is looking more like her mommy every day.

    I had a wonderful weekend as well. I ran a 5K on Saturday and my oldest daughter graduated from UNC on Mother’s Day. I couldn’t ask for a better Mother’s Day gift! Her birthday is also on May 14th as well.

    Reply

  3. Deanna says

    Sherry, I love your hair and dress!

    Also Clara looks like she certainly had a blast at her worm party! My family just got finished celebrating my cousin’s third birthday where cellphones were the theme. My little cousin is obsessed with ‘calling’ people on the phone. She once dialed some number overseas!
    Can’t believe little Clara is two! Happy Birthday and Happy belated Mother’s day!

    ps. not even going to lie I teared up a little bit watching your video! Clara is one of the smiliest kids I’ve seen!
    Congrats on being such wonderful parents!

    Reply

  6. Julie Jacobsen says

    So, she’s not even my kid and I felt teary eyed watching that video! Perhaps I’m just teary eyed in general because we just watched our first born deliver a 20 page thesis to a panel of judges yesterday as his final act of high school. Our little man is now a full grown hairy man about to venture out into the world!

    Time goes by quickly so continue enjoying your baby girl along with all the other blessings of your lives. You have a precious family!

    Reply

  7. Cathleen Pearson says

    I just watched the video and my 1.5 year old daughter was enamored by Clara pointing “baby baby” haha and my 3 year old son said “Can we go to Clara’s house?” It looks fun there for sure. :) Great job on the party.

    Reply

  8. Mollie says

    I am somewhat new to your blog but I look forward each day to your posts and what amazing and creative ideas you have in store for us! I was just blown away by your party, it was so creative and cute! The pictures just explode with color! It made a rainy day up north not so grey! Thank you!

    I also love your video of Clara, my 2.5 year old daughter askes me each day to watch videos of Clara so her year in review video was a huge hit at our house!

    Reply

  9. Jen says

    My little man turns 2 in a month and I may have to steal this party theme from you. It is TOO cute! And, he is all about digging up worms (which his 4 year old brother has always called his “pals”) and getting all muddy. Love it.

    Reply

  10. Belle says

    3 things:

    1. I wonder, if you could track scrolls in a page, how many times you would have logged people reading ‘the table above is a book project covered up’ then scrolling back up straight away to try to work it out?

    2. 2 years? I’m now on obsessive Sherry’s-stomach-watching.

    3. I hadn’t planned to have kids but seeing all this makes me realise that one of the things I’ll miss is the joy of reliving all the fun stuff with your own little person who loves you right back. So fun and so sweet!

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We used iMovie (comes free with Mac computers) for her first year video and Final Cut Pro for this year’s (since we had to buy it for a book video we were making, and it’s a little faster). Hope it helps!

      xo,
      s

  12. kathy says

    I know you guys have posted this before but I can’t find the answer – what program do you guys use to make the birthday video? love it!!

    Reply

  14. Lindsay says

    Love you guys, LOVE the theme, love everything! Happy birthday to Clara. Why don’t I think of stuff like this?? You are always so creative!

    Reply

  16. Kate says

    Recently retired, I found your website when I was looking at inspiration to get my house back in shape after years of *some* neglect. Yesterday was a beautiful day to get digging in my back garden and I came upon worm after wormy worm and it made me think of your sweet daughter. Thanks to her, the worms of the world (well, my garden to start) are being saved and safely placed back. Happy Birthday to your sweetie from the worms of Vancouver! And thanks to you guys for a great daily read and inspiration : )

    Reply

  17. Frances says

    Happy birthday to Clara! I went and read her birth story and it left me in tears. I suffered from a placental abruption 6 years ago almost to the day and lost my son Ben, so I know all too well how lucky your family is.

    Thankfully I have three beautiful children now, two of them born after my ordeal, and both of their births were easy and uneventful. I know you mentioned being worried about your next pregnancy, and I was too, but I think everything will work out for you and I wish you all the happiness in the world.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh Frances, I am so so sorry for your loss. I can’t even imagine. So happy to hear you went on to have two healthy and awesomely uneventful pregnancies afterwards.

      xo,
      s

  18. Kristen says

    Love the tablecloth!! Where did you find ? Or, is it just fabric you bought and made into a tablecloth? :)

    Super cute ideas!!

    Reply

  21. rachel says

    I love the party theme! it was perfect for a little girl, oddly enough :)
    I recently caught up on some of your older posts and found a slew of videos of Clara dancing and singing…made my day, she is so so cute. I love that she knows the words (mostly) I also found a fascinating video of 17yr old Sherry interviewing Eminem??!! Hilarious!

    Reply

  22. Jackie says

    Hi guys! I also teared up at the wonderful video – I have been wanting to do one for my little one but have been super intimidated about what site to use, did you make and edit everything on youtube? Would you recommend that for a beginner? Happy Birthday to Clara – love watching her grow : )

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We film everything on our Flip HD camera (from amazon.com) and edit things using iMovie (free software that comes on all Mac computers) and recently started using Final Cut Pro (an editing program we bought for a book video we had to make) but iMovie is free and works great well!

      xo,
      s

  24. Emily says

    I think this was my favorite post yet! The video made me cry within 20 seconds. In the best way! I can’t wait to have a little one…you guys are wonderful parents! Clara is so special :) xo

    Reply

  25. Briel K. says

    I love all the bright colors in the decorations! So fun.

    The video is awesome. Clara is going to LOVE looking back on her videos when she gets older. I wish I had more from when I was young. :)

    Reply

  27. Candace says

    I also love the worm obsession SO MUCH! I like weird animals too, and people think my 28yr old self is crazy. I feel Clara can pull it off though, at her wise old age.

    Reply

  28. cali says

    She is such a sweet, loving, funny, happy little girl and that video is amazing! The party looked like so much fun! Happy Birthday little miss!

    Reply

  30. Aly says

    Why does it look like Clara is wearing a real diaper in the beginning of the video. Around 40 seconds. I thought you were firm believers in cloth diapers.

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      Oh yes, we’ve used cloth almost exclusively for the last two years, but they must have been in the wash so we had a sposie on hand (we use them when we travel and don’t have access to a washer and occasionally when all her cloth ones are being washed and aren’t quite done but nature calls and she needs a change- haha).

      xo,
      s

  31. Erin says

    Adorable and I love the personal details, but not so over the top that it looks unattainable. Very cool.

    Reply

  32. Maria says

    You guys are the best! :) Beautiful party for beautiful Clara…..Congratulations your’re such a gorgeous and sweet family! thanks for all the fantastic ideas, and for showing little Burger too :)he is soooo handsome!

    Reply

  34. Kirpi says

    It was raing here on Saturday and I was thinking, how nice that you guys are living 4500 miles away from here and probably have better weather for the birthday party. So glad that you had! :)Happy birthday for Clara!
    Also do you have this stuffed worm from Ikea?
    http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80194848/
    Actually it’s a rattle and my baby girl loves hers.

    Reply

  35. Ashton says

    This just goes to show that any party theme can be a great one in the right hands! Goodness, Clara’s party was sooo cute! I’m glad everyone had a good time :) Happy late birthday to her!

    Reply

  36. Jen says

    I would love to see you post a photoshop tutorial for some of your DIY design projects like Clara’s bday invites or your Christmas cards :-) You know, when you’re bored…!

    Reply

  37. LARY @ Inspiration Nook says

    Guys, what an awesome video. I finally got to see it. It looks like Clara had a great party too. Loved the theme and cupcakes and favors. Everything! I still remember being all excited to see her “1st birthday party” post, can’t believe it has been a year already. :)

    Reply

  40. Cindy says

    LOVE THE VIDEO! What a wonderful way to celebrate Clara. She will love this when she has grown up (and so will you two). So Cool!

    Reply

  42. Samantha says

    I watched your Clara video with my 18 month old Ella. She loved it! She said “baby” or “girl” with each picture and pointed at Clara. When it was over she said, “Bye-bye Girl!” She wanted to watch it (a)gain! It was a great video! Happy, Happy Clara!

    Reply

  43. Alex says

    What an amazing party!! It was beautiful!! You guys have inspired me to make videos for our little girl (10m) Who does the music that was in your birthday videos?

    Reply

    • YoungHouseLove says

      We have a link to the artist/site at the end of the video. The songs were the instrumental versions by Josh Woodward (called Cherubs and Swan Song). Hope it helps!

      xo,
      s

  44. Jen F says

    I love how you created an awesome theme without making things overly complicated. I’m sure it was plenty of work though! Also, the video was so fun. She did so much growing and learning this year and went from baby to little girl….so cute.

    Reply

  45. erika says

    looks a fun time was had by all…..loved the video too – clara is such a cutie. seems like a happy kiddo with lots of love from her folks :) Happy bday Clara!

    Reply

  46. Marlayna says

    Hey guys!

    I love the video you made for Clara! Got me all misty eyed! haha :) The music was so sweet. Can you tell me which one of Josh Woodward’s songs it was that you used? Thanks!

    Reply

  48. Paige says

    Hi, where did you get the font that you used for the food placecards? Any recommendations for cute fonts that are cheap? Thanks:)

    Reply

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