Amos's Nautical Themed 2nd Birthday Party

Now that I've updated you about Amos's 2nd year, it's time to talk about the party!! Having a pool at our new house, I thought it might be fun to throw a nautical-themed pool party, so that's what we did for Amos's 2nd birthday earlier this month. I decided to go with classic shades of blue and red for the colors. First on the agenda, the invitations.

I also like to add a little something to the invites to make them unique. This time, I used Amos's favorite - Lifesaver mints! Yes, he loves these things! They were the perfect touch to add to his invites. I also created coordinating 2" round stickers to seal the envelopes when I mailed the invites.

After the invitations were mailed, I started brainstorming ideas for the party. To decorate the house, I bought some light blue, navy and red latex balloons at the local grocery store. I made a custom banner that read "Happy 2nd Birthday Amos!" using the same nautical/color theme.

Here's an example of the banner letters, close-up. I threaded jute rope through the pendant pieces to hang it. It worked well and looked great! I also made a "Welcome Aboard" sign for the front door to greet guests as they arrived.

For the party favors, I made little bags of goldfish crackers labeled as Amos's Catch of the Day. I also made personalized sailor hats for each of the little party guests. I ordered these from Amazon, then stapled on the name tags I made. Unfortunately, the hats didn't look as nice in person as they did online, but they served their purpose. I also bought the fun fishing net on Amazon as well. It was the perfect size for covering our entire table! After reading reviews on some of the other nets I found on Amazon, I decided to go with this one to be sure it would be big enough. I'm glad I did - it was perfect!

Amos shared his party with my side of the family this year with his cousin, Jacob, who turned 8 a couple weeks before he turned 2. :)

I made cupcakes for the party instead of cake. What better way to decorate than to turn the cupcakes into little sailboats!

I stuck these toppers in some delicious caramel cupcakes. These cupcakes definitely deserve a post of their own. Topped with a "sea" salted caramel frosting, they are my new favorite. You can find the recipe, from Sally's Baking Addiction, here. They are simply amazing, and super easy, too! Be sure you let the frosting cool longer than I did. ;) I waited 15 minutes like the recipe said, but it was still really warm, so you can see that the piping didn't hold up very well. The next weekend I made them, it worked much better giving it longer to cool first. :) You also don't want to wait too long though, because the frosting will stiffen and become hard to pipe/spread if it gets too cool.

I bought red napkins and used jute to secure the utensils in the napkins. I added another mint here, perfect for each guest to enjoy after dinner. They looked super cute in the anchor bucket that I scored from the dollar section at Target! ;) I also bought the red and white striped plates and navy plates at Target. They were perfect for the theme! An additional jar of mints was the perfect touch to the display.

I bought red and white striped paper straws on Amazon, and added some cute navy AHOY! straw flags to complete the look. These adorable mason jars (with lids that had cutouts for straws) were on sale at Target, so I couldn't pass them up. No more buying disposable cups for parties - I can re-use these for years to come. And decorate them to go with the theme, of course! ;)

I think these may have been my favorite part.

It was surprisingly difficult to find nautical-themed food ideas online! Fish-themed items were more common, but I wanted to try and keep it more nautical, if I could. I finally resorted to scouring a nautical glossary for ideas. So, no, "cog" and "helm" didn't just pop in my head. ;) For the dinner menu, I finally decided on the following:

• WATER-melon: seedless watermelon wedges
• Caprese SCHOONERS (skewers): grape tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzarella and balsamic glaze
• BATTLEships (chips) & CRAB dip: Maryland crab dip and pita chips
• Corn on the COG (cob): oven-roasted corn on the cob
• HELM (ham) sandwiches: toasted ham and Dijon mustard on Hawaiian sweet rolls
• ANCHORS away parfaits: layered cornbread, shredded BBQ pork, and coleslaw
• SEA-salted caramel cupcakes: caramel cupcakes with salted caramel frosting
• Chocolate chips AHOY!: cookies
• 'Lil SAILOR'S punch: cran-pomegranate juice with Sprite, frozen blueberries

I love creating themed party food items. Seriously. It's so fun! It was a yummy spread, too!

Here are some pics of the birthday boy enjoying his parties!! :) I bought him a cute navy and red striped shirt from Target (surprise! haha!) clearance to look cute with the theme.

The final item to take care of was the thank you notes. I made a simple flat 4" x 6" card with a picture of the birthday boy.

Because who doesn't love getting something sweet in the mail instead of bills? ;) We had a couple adorable, fun parties for our water-loving tiny man!

Happy 2nd Birthday to our tiniest little guy!

All items you see above are available for customization and purchase through my business page, kreations by kristy. You can also find me on Facebook and Etsy.

Amos is TWO!

Age of Child: 2 years

Size of Child:

• Weight: 23 lbs 6 oz (up to the 4th percentile), +4 lb 13 oz from his 12-month visit and +2 lb 4 oz lb from his 18-month visit
• Length: 33 inches (down to the 16th percentile), +3.25 in from his 12-month visit and +1.75 in from his 18-month visit
• Height-to-Weight ratio: up to the 7th percentile

Amos is still wearing a size 3 diaper (but it's probably about time to move to a 4), and mostly 18-24 month, or 2T, clothes. He is wearing a size 6 shoe now!

Immunizations:

• None! He did need to get another finger prick to check lead levels. All was good there.

Doctor's Visit Summary:

His visit went well. The only concern we're dealing with is that his speech seems to be a bit delayed. I think he is ahead of where Ethan was at this age, but definitely behind where Noah was. He has recently started trying to say many more words than he was though, so I think we're ok. I guess when you have 2 big brothers who talk constantly, it's probably hard to get a word in! ;)

Accomplishments this Year:

• First trip to a zoo and aquarium
• Made his first big move
• Took his first cruise
• Weaned from nursing after 20 months
• First night away from Mommy

Last September, not long after turning one, we made a trip to Ohio for our university's homecoming football game. While there, we decided the kids might like to check out the Cincinnati Zoo and the Newport Aquarium. It was a packed weekend of fun, but they had a blast!

We packed up the family and moved from Tennessee to North Carolina in February. While the big boys had made the move from Georgia to Tennessee, this was Amos's first move. Lucky for us, it didn't seem to phase him much. While he misses his best bud, Owen, he is pretty happy about gaining a pool in the back yard. This boy loves the water!

We took a family cruise to the Caribbean in April and Amos was the perfect tiny traveler! Though he was relegated to the baby pool since he wasn't potty-trained, he didn't let that stop him from having a wonderful time. His highlights of the trip were multiple desserts with each meal, ice cream cones on demand, nightly strolls around the ship, and beach time! He had all the ladies wrapped around his little finger all week. ;)

Amos continues to be our very adventurous eater. He will still try literally everything you put in front of him, but his favorites are probably pasta, rice, fruit, and pancakes. I weaned him at the beginning of May, after 20 months of nursing. He was doing a great job with whole milk and it just felt like the right time. He did fine with it and we still enjoy nightly cuddles in the rocking chair in his room. We tried to then wean the pacifier shortly after this, but it did not go nearly as well. So, we allowed him to have it again for naps and nighttime. About a month ago, we tried taking it away again and this time it went much better, so we're paci free now! Yay!

Amos is a great little sleeper. He is going to bed around 8 pm, and sleeping until 8 am. He is also still taking a 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon. Fortunately, he also did ok with his first night away from me. Josh and I escaped to Charleston to celebrate our 10-year wedding anniversary in July and the boys stayed behind with Grandpa and Grandma Frank. He did great!

Amos has discovered a love of all things Star Wars. Some of his first words were "Star Wars," and "Darth Vader." Oh yes. He even hums the Star Wars tune whenever he sees anything Star Wars. It's pretty adorable. He loves to grab the Star Wars books from the boys' room and sit and "read" them. It's also one of the only ways to get him to sit still - by watching one of the movies! I guess you know where you will find ALL of us when the new movie comes out in theaters this year! ;)

Amos has continued to be our crazy little guy. As the only one of the three that we really needed to baby-proof the house for, he continues to keep us on our toes! It's not uncommon to turn around and find him dancing on the dining room table, climbing as high as he can get on a piece of furniture, digging out snacks from the pantry, removing all of the DVDs from their cases, emptying the coffee grinds from k-cups all over the dining room floor, and unscrewing child-proof medicine bottles. Sigh. He's so very creative. He's lucky he's cute! ;)

And here is his final year two summary.

Happy 2nd Birthday, little Amos! We love you!