I yam what I yam... and I yam one!

This Saturday was Remy's birthday party, and we had a fun time!  It was my first time putting together an actual party, and it turned out really well.  I think the party was more for Ben and me as parents; a celebration of our first year of successful parenting.  

I decided to do a sailor theme, thanks to my friend Rachele.  I received inspiration here and here.  I also used some free printables from here for the cupcake toppers and Remy's birthday sign, which I failed to take a picture of.  I didn't like the shapes on the cupcake toppers, so I used the blank ones and downloaded a free font that went better with the theme. The colors turned out a lot darker when I printed them out on cardstock, but I thought they were still pretty cute.

I decided that it would be cute to have Remy wear a sailor shirt, but I didn't want to make anything too time consuming.  I normally wouldn't have Remy wear a themed outfit for his birthday party, but with October just around the corner, I decided it could double as his Halloween costume.  I planned everything out in my head using two t-shirts to put together a sailor top.  The only problem was that I couldn't find plain t-shirts in the right size.  I adapted my plan, and used two onesies instead.  And I have to say, it turned out much better than I had imagined.  Maybe I'll put together a tutorial because it was super easy.

 Front

Back

For Remy's smash cake, I decided to make a round cake and put a sailboat on top.  It was super easy, and only required a bamboo skewer and paper.  It was my kind of cake, because it was inexpensive.  

For party favors, I decided to make sailboat cookies.  I love the way decorated cookies and cakes look and I've been wanting to try my hand at it for a while, so it was my chance to splurge on a pastry bag and tip set.  My friend Penny helped me decorate the cookies, and she is my craft mentor because she is so talented.  I decided to package them in some inexpensive bags I bought from Walmart.  I shredded some blue paper I already had in our shredder and put it in the bottom of the bags like confetti.

For food, we just made up some sandwiches using rolls from Costco.  We also bought some lunch-size bags of chips and grapes, and we were set.  My friend Nancy helped me with the food prep.

We ate outside and had a great time with our party guests.  It turns out that outside is the best place to eat a smash cake.

I was even able to get Remy to eat a sandwich before it was cake-eating time.

And then we gave Remy his cake:

My favorite part in the video is when Remy tries to fling the frosting off his hands, but it's stuck.  I'm no sure why the color in the video is so blue.  It seems almost all videos from our camera end up that way, but we were able to take some cute pictures of Remy that turned out better.

 Remy is experiencing the sugar high

Yum yum!

 All done Mom!

UPDATE:  The title of the post comes from Popeye.  Popeye is a sailor man, hence the connection to our sailor-themed birthday party.

Remy's Progress Report

Can you believe Remy has turned one?  It's a little hard for us to take it in because it means our little boy is growing up.  See next post for birthday pictures.

Remy has been doing all sorts of fun things now.  He is walking now, but has not yet decided that it's his primary mode of transportation.  He is, however, getting much more confident  in his walking abilities.  He will even walk short distances by himself around the house.  We love playing outside where Remy can practice walking around and playing with other neighborhood children.  And he recently learned how to go down the slide by himself.

Sorry about the low-grade quality. 

Remy has also been great about eating adult food now.  We share our dinner with him, and for the most part he will eat it just fine.  He's had chocolate now, thanks to his birthday smash cake.  We are working on adding cow's milk to his diet now.

Remy is still a social creature.  He loves attention from everyone and plays coy.  This means that when someone says hi and smiles at him, he smiles back shyly, leaning his head to the side and putting it on Mom.  It's so adorable!  He is increasing his vocabulary and loves saying "oh" or "woh."  He has also learned how to cluck his tongue, which is pretty funny.  He also kind of hums and sings to himself when he's playing with his toys.

Remy has also started teething again.  This means that he is must more irritable lately, and now has little temper tantrums or meltdowns when he doesn't like something.  It's cute for about two seconds but that's it.  His legs go limp and he throws his head and body back, which has led to some bonks and bruises at our house.  He also has learned how to scream, which I wish he would unlearn.  Ah well, the good comes with the bad, right?

We still can't believe how big and strong he's getting!

Remy is Walking!

Remy has been walking for a couple weeks now.  We figured it was about time to upload a video so everyone could see.