Hungry Caterpillar Cake

My older son recently turned four.  These past four year have passed in the blink of an eye.  I absolutely love watching my children grow and learn.  Four is already turning out to be a fun and challenging year. 

One of my son’s favorite books is the Very Hungry Caterpillar.  So when it came time to decide on a birthday cake, it was easy to sway him in the hungry caterpillar direction.  Months ago, I found a hungry caterpillar cake on Pinterest and I knew I wanted to replicate it.  Then I found hungry caterpillar shirts at Target and I knew this party was meant to be!

To make the cake, I stuck cake pops into a decadent four layer sour cream chocolate cake covered with chocolate frosting and painstakingly painted a white cake pop red (a word from the wise: almond bark does not like to be painted – spend the extra money for red candy melts!)

For party snacks, we had a delicious fruit tray as a play on the Hungry Caterpillar story.  On Monday, the caterpillar eats through one apple, but is still hungry.  Tuesday he eats through two pears, but is still hungry, and on through strawberries, plums, and oranges.  Therefore, the fruit tray was a journey through the Hungry Caterpillar’s story.

In addition to the party, I also added another Pinterest inspiration to my son’s birthday and had him answer 20 questions about his favorite things.  The idea is that I will give him this little survey every year (for as long as he’ll tolerate it) and all of the surveys will be placed in his scrapbook or memory box.  It will be a fun way to track his interests through the years, in his own words.  Since this time was his first time doing the survey, a couple of the responses were prompted, but it was still quite fun.  Here are his answers this year:

Birthday Survey: Age 4

1. What is your favorite color?  Blue
2. What is your favorite toy?  cars
3. What is your favorite fruit?  oranges
4. What is your favorite tv show movie?  Cars
5. What is your favorite thing to eat for lunch?  Hot dogs
6. What is your favorite vegetable?  Little trees (broccoli)
7. What is your favorite game?  Kinect-rafting game
8. What is your favorite snack? Fun fruits (Fruit snacks)
9. What is your favorite animal? elephant
10. What is your favorite song? Cat song (from his keyboard)
11. What is your favorite book? Tractors
12. Who is your best friend? Teddy
13. What is your favorite cereal? Crispies
14. What is your favorite thing to do outside? Go to the park
15. What is your favorite drink? milk
16. What is your favorite holiday? My birthday
17. What do you like to take to bed with you at night? Teddy
18. What is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? Mini Wheats
19. What do you want for dinner on your birthday? Chicken nuggets
20. What do you want to be when you grow up? Teach the class and fly the airplane like Daddy