Happy Birthday Munchkin

Munchkin turned two last week.  The time is flying at lightening speed.  He's really into cars, trucks, and trains, pretty much anything with wheels.  Since he's only two and mommy gets to decide, I went with trains (mostly Thomas and Friends).  As soon as I decided on a train themed birthday, I started researching any and everything I could about train parties.  The result: an awesome party, that my little man loved.  Although he probably won't remember it when he is older.  All the hard work, time, and money spent was totally worth it.

The first thing on my list of things to do was make a train cake.  After days of searching the web, I stumbled on an idea for a cupcake train.  I combined a few ideas from different sites and came up with a cool cake that the birthday boy and guest loved. Last year I made him a basketball cake.  Both ideas came from parenting.com .  The directions are easy to follow, and they have lots of cool ideas.  This is my finished product.  It took way longer than I thought to actually decorate and put together.  I used graham crackers and royal icing to hold to the cupcakes.  I made my own cream cheese frosting since I don't like any of the canned varieties. Chocolate Twizzlers and crushed Oreos and more graham crackers made the track.  I finished it off with coconut flakes dyed green.

While searching for really cool train cakes I got an idea to make a cardboard train for the kids to play in.  I pieced it together with used diaper boxes (we have tons in the garage) along with leftover boxes from Christmas.  Lots of tape, glue, paint, and even some paper mache' later... I had a Thomas look alike I dubbed the Munchkin Express.  I love that the only cost was paint and red duct tape.

I decorated the party room with train signs, and a train track on the floor.  All of these ideas can be googled.  I found myself getting carried away with all of the cool things to try or even thinking I can do that better and for way less money.  This train party became my obsession.  Great for the outcome, not so great for my body.  I stayed up till 4am every night that week except one only to wake up to feed my Little Bear at 5.  

FYI - the electric tape I used left a shadowy residue on my carpet.  I had to scrub it off with my Oxy Spray (love it).

It was all totally worth it.  My little guy had such a good time at his party.  I'm already dreaming up ideas for his next party... I hope he still likes race cars next year : ).