Train Party -3yr - Train Shaped Sandwiches

TRAIN PARTY

For my son's 3rd birthday we went with a train theme (mostly Thomas the Tank Engine, but not everything).

For invitations, I made them on the computer.  The outside had a train on it and read All Aboard To celebrate Connor's 3rd Birthday.  The inside read- Destination (The Jones') meet at track # (address) - RSVP to the Station Master.  I also put a separate piece of paper in there with a schedule of events.

I held the party in my garage so I set up 3 tables for people to sit (1 of these being the b-day boys table it had his cake and his presents on it).  The b-day was covered in a Thomas table cloth and the other 2 were covered in a coordinating color from the Thomas tablecloth.  I hung 2 Happy Birthday banners on the walls in the garage. 

I used streamers in coordinating colors to drape across the ceiling with a bouquet of balloons hanging from the center of garage.  I used 2 bouquets of helium balloons on each side of the b-day table. 

I also took streamers of different lengths and hung those all away across the entrance of the garage.  I cut corners on my plates/napkins/etc. by using a solid color that I picked up at the Dollar Tree.

For food we had peanut-butter sandwiches(shaped like trains), pimento cheese sandwiches, a veggie tray, a fruit tray, chips & salsa, Cheetos, various cookies, and of course cake(Thomas the tank from Kroger) and ice-cream. 

As I said before I had a schedule planned out.  The schedule consisted of 2:00 arrival and free play, 2:15 game station (pick up ducks, each kid got 3 chances to pick a winner then they had their choice of a prize), 2:30 cake and present station, 3:00 train rides(I rented a train for an hour for the kids to ride.

It was a riding lawnmower that someone had made to look like a train and it had 3 cars.  It held 12 kids and was awesome!!  The kids loved it), 4:00 tattoo station (we used temporary tattoos instead of face painting), 4:30 piñata station, and 5:00 departure.

I had also made signs for all the various stations and also put a sign on the outside of our garage that read Welcome to Jones Station, est. 1998.  At the end of my driveway where the train was going to pick up the kids, I used painters tape and made a railroad track.  At each end of the track I used large cardboard fabric rolls and yellow round poster board to make railroad crossing signs.

For treat bags I used plain blue bags and filled them with some candy, Thomas the Tank stickers, a party blowout, train shaped whistles (bought off the internet), and yellow round railroad crossing zipper pulls(mortonsuggestions.com, affiliated with operationlifesaver.com). 

I almost forgot the party hats.  When the kids got on the train I gave them all paper engineer hats to wear (purchased from mortonsuggestion.com), they were great and they were only 22 cents each. 

We had about 35 people there and everyone had a great time.  The weather was great, the food was good, and the kids loved it.