A Backyard Bug Birthday Party!

A few months ago, the kids and I started to talk about their birthday party. You see, if you are new to this blog, my kids were due the same day 2 years in a row. But L was born 3 days after his due date, and D was due the day before, making them 4 days shy of being exactly 1 year apart. (In fact, that means they are the same age for 4 days!) So, because their birthday usually fall on the same week, and the same week as Father's day, we try to have their party the Sunday before. In past years they have had 2 different themes for their party, but this year I told them I was done with that for now, and we were just doing 1 theme. There was a little arguing over that for a few min, until I suggested a bug theme party. They were both in agreement, and then I showed them some ideas for the party. That sold that idea to them!

So I present to you, our bug birthday! (Any inspiration links will be provided at the end of the post)

Dig A Bug
We started with some fun things for the kids to do. I dyed rice in shades of brown, orange, and black, and poured it into a shallow plastic container. I then hid plastic bugs in the rice. (bugs found at Target and Wal-Mart in the party section) I added some magnifying glasses that I found at Dollar Tree, empty clean baby food jars with holes punched in the top to collect the bugs with, and brown paper lunch bags with the kid's names on them to keep everything together. This would also serve as the kid's party treat bag!

 Build A Bug
I had saved up a bunch of my empty egg cartons, and cut them up into sections. I have single cups, 2 cups, and 3 cups, and then painted these with acrylic paints. The single cups were red, 2 cups were black, and the 3 cups were green. I punched some holes in each grouping for legs or antenna. Lastly I laid out different colors of pipe cleaners, googly eyes, and Elmer's glue. Kid's were encouraged to make as many bugs as they wanted and put them into their brown paper lunch bags.

 Food
We had a nice selection of food, unfortunately the temps were in the high 90's, so nothing stayed nice for long. Oh well, roll with it, right? I made an Earthworm salad (spinach, carrots, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, broccoli), dirt pudding, hot dogs,  fruit salad in waffle bowls, grape caterpillars, bug shaped PB&J sandwiches,  bug shaped jello jigglers, potato chips, ketchup flavored chips, and pretzels.

 Drinks
I set out a jug of water, sweetened ice tea, iced coffee with creamer, and for the kids we had bug juice (blue colored lemonade with gummy worms frozen inside the ice cubes), and ladybug lemonade (pink lemonade with blackberries frozen inside the ice cubes). I also set out a bowl of gummy worms, and gummy butterflies that actually melted from the heat! Didn't see that one coming!!!

 Cakes
 L insisted on having a bug cake. So this cake is a chocolate layer cake in two different sizes. The filling was a milk chocolate frosting, and in the bottom layer I hid gummy worms as well. Frosted in a milk chocolate frosting, topped with crushed Oreo "dirt", gummy worms, mint gum grass, and candy melt ladybugs. This was very fun, easy, and yummy!!

D wanted ladybug cupcakes this year instead of a normal cake. I wanted to do something a little different since I have made ladybug cupcakes in the past. So we went with these pretty Wilton cupcake liners that I found on clearance at Meijer, baked vanilla cupcakes, topped with pink tinted vanilla frosting, and finished with a candy melt ladybug!

 Games
We also had a pin the wing on the butterfly that Adam created by just using an image he found on the Internet and Photoshop. The kids all had a good time playing this one!

 And lastly the kids insisted we have a spider pinata. Adam was in charge of making this one as well. He used paper mache to make the body and head just using the newspaper and diluted Elmer's glue. We made it a pull cord one instead of the traditional one. The normal ones are always so difficult to break open, kids are always upset that they weren't the ones that broke it open, and plus who really wants a bunch of sugared up kids swinging a bat blindfolded? So each kid had a string to hold onto and pull. Well, they pulled it off of the rope holding it up, but once it was on the ground and they pulled, it burst right open! They had a treat of dum dum suckers, spider rings (don't ask how hard these are to find off season!) and faux plastic cockroaches! YUCK! But the kids all really liked it.

Inspiration links:
fruit salad waffle cones
egg carton bugs
bug cake
grape caterpillars
dig for bugs and build a bug
bug juice