Healthy Family Happy Soul: A Caterpillar Cake and Three Pom Poms

I can't believe my baby is one year old already!! She has grown so much so fast! I am trying to savor every moment. We had a great party on Saturday for her. It was so great to have so many family and friends there to celebrate with us!!! I also had a lot of fun planning and preparing for the big event. It was a lot of work but I was really proud of the results.

I saw a caterpillar cake in a magazine and decided to jump in and try to make it myself. Being that my cakes are usually lopsided, crumbs all in the icing disasters this was a bold endeavor for me. But I kept positive thoughts and was confident that I could do it. I just needed to take my time and concentrate. When I was done my whole body was sore!! It was worth it though and it turned out great.

For decoration I made large pink "pom poms." I love these so much! They are really beautiful but are super easy and cheap to make. Here is the link for the directions to make these...Pom poms

We also had lots of food!! Watermelon, pizza, soft pretzels, chicken fingers, cake, cupcakes, couscous salad, cucumber salad, and BLT pasta salad. I forgot to take pictures of all the salads I made but I wanted to share the recipes with you...

Couscous Salad

1 cup dry couscous prepared according to directions on box

1 small red pepper chopped

1/4 cup pine nuts

4 oz Mediterranean herb crumbled feta cheese (Trader Joe's has a great one!)

green olives sliced

fresh chopped basil

about 1/3 cup balsamic dressing

salt and pepper to taste

Prepare couscous and cool in refrigerator. Once cooled combine all ingredients in large bowl and mix. Chill in fridge for few hours before serving.

This recipe is super easy and something I make all the time. It's very versatile as you can substitute many different ingredients. I love to keep this type of salad in my fridge so I have something easy and healthy to grab for snack or lunch. Quinoa is a great grain to use with this type of recipe as well.

Cucumber Salad

Click link above for recipe

The only thing I changed was to use half as much onion and I used theTrader Joe's Mediterranean herb feta.

BLT Salad

The link above is the basic recipe but I changed a few things...I used bacon ranch dressing, grape tomatoes cut in half, and green onions. I also used pre-cooked bacon which made it super easy.

Most importantly all the kids had a great time!!