I can’t believe how grown up my little boy is. Four years old. What a milestone. We celebrated with a train party.
It was so special that this year he was in school and we had a birthday circle. Both his teacher and I did it together. Nicky had a globe and walked around the “sun” candle four times while we talked about how he grew every year. His friends sang happy birthday to him and we ate a cake I did by putting cupcakes together with kit kats on top with his train figurines completing the theme.
Nicky was also lucky this week to have his grandparents visiting, and I was lucky to have some help in the party preparation. I have to be honest, all my ideas came from the internet (here’s my pinterest board) and I just put them together.
The invite I got from this pinterest pin took the form of a train ticket.
Most of the time and effort after that went into the food. I think in retrospect I over did it since there was way too much left over, but I went on the logic that I would rather have too much than too little. Most of the ideas for the food I got from the blog On My Side of the Room, as well as the label templates. I put them in red boxes decorated like train cars. So we had different “cars” of food.
Log car and produce car – I put them together as I knew that the carrots and celery would probably not be a hit. My husband loved the breadsticks though.- Coal car – of Chuckles chocolate balls, but grapes would also work.
- Sweet station – sweets! Nicky liked the mashmallows.
- Cookie Carriage – made up of train cookies and Thomas cookies.
- Station House Sandwiches – not a hit but we had them for supper
- Tooty Fruity – Fruit Kebabs. I thought nobody would eat these but they did. This was done last minute with strawberries, pineapple, grapes and gooseberries.
- Caboose Cupcakes – we made miniture ones with train toppers but they did not get eaten so much. It could be because they were on the wrong side of the table.
Two items deserve special mention.
One was the cake. Nicky’s playball teacher makes cakes as a side income and you can look at her site here. Nicky saw the picture on pinterest and chose it himself. He liked the tunnels. She did a fabulous job and all we had to do was add some plastic trains. It also tasted delicious – light and fluffy. I think it had three layers.
The other were the Thomas cookies. I got the idea from this pin. Of course mine did not work out anyway as near as good at what hers did. But I had a similar shaped cutter, which even had two bumps serving as wheels. I did some red icing at the bottom and blue at the top. There was an oreo cookie in the middle (leaving the white inside in). Dots of coloured sprinkles served as eyes and I did a pretzel for the mouth.
My mother in law was a huge help in the kitchen and she did the cookie and icing recipe for me, as well as the cupcakes.
I didn’t get to the party games but as it turned out, we didn’t need them. The kids played happily outside on bikes, the trampoline and on Nicky’s new hot wheels toy present from dad, the Ultimate Garage. He was also spoilt with many presents.
I think what was really special about this year was that he was much more aware of the excitement of his party and involved in its creation. He chose the cake, he reminded me to invite his swimming friend and on the day of his party woke up and demanded decorations! I was googling Thomas flags and found a good set to print out in a hurry and then we had to put up all the balloons. This all before 8am.
But seriously I’m glad I only have to do this once a year. Between making the house look presentable and all the food prep, that’s enough for me.
Happy Birthday to Nicky! Looks like a fun party. I like the idea of the food train. I also get all my ideas on the internet.
Happy birthday to you all! Looks like such a great party. Love the food train idea
thanks Cat!
Wow, you did everything so beautifully! Love the kit kat tracks
Thanks. All from the internet!
The Kit Kat train rails are brilliant! 🙂