Thursday, March 15, 2012

Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo Train Party

After all of that planning and prepping the day of the party came and went quickly.  

I need to be honest here and say THANK YOU to all of the wonderful people that have had train parties and posted about them.  I got most if not all of my ideas from a lot of different websites.  



I wanted to have railroad signs around the yard along with some duct tape railroad tracks.  Sadly the signs were the last things that got made.  Hubs and his brother made them for me the morning of the party.  Hubs was putting them up just minutes before the guests came.  






There was also a X sign where we wanted guests to park that said MG Express Parking.

Inside looked a little bit better than outside.  


At the drink station there was water and diesel fuel (iced tea).  I also purchased some sport top little kid water bottles for the tots and covered them in a Chugga-Chugga Choo-Choo label that I made.


By the door on our kitchen table I put all of the goody bags for the kids.  I also used some of the left over invitations, a train (on the right) that I found on sale for $1.00 at Michaels, and a red train (on the left) that my mom found in her attic that was my twin brothers for decorations.  The label there was suppose to say Baggage Claim (recommended by my brother in-law) however I was half asleep when I made it and typed Luggage Claim.  That's ok right :)


I made a little train station highlighting the boys.  G is in the ticket booth and M is in the luggage booth.  I was hoping we could use this for a backdrop for photos but I had to open up the dining room table in order to fit all the food on it.  My house isn't big enough to back up far enough and use this as a backdrop but it was definitely a cute decoration.  


Above the dining room table is my shadow box.  Normally I have Willow Tree Angels and some other things on it.  I took all of mommy's pretties down and put up the boys Thomas trains.  All of the pennants around the house are made out of red, white, and blue scrap paper.  I cut them into triangles and sewed them together.  


The food was housed in train cars.  The train cars were weaved baskets that I found at the Dollar Store that Hubs spray painted for me.  We bought the dollar something cans of spray paint and we were able to get away with only 2 cans.




The train engine was made out of cardboard.  My brother in-law and I sat on the floor for about an hour trying to make an engine the best we could.  We used a lot of duct tape.  When My brother in-law spray  painted it for me it looked HORRIBLE.  You could see ALL of the duct tape.  I decided I would not use it.  So my mother in-law and I sat of the floor for almost another hour covering the thing with brown kraft paper.  We used glue and tape only at places that you wouldn't be able to see.  

I think it turned out pretty cute.  It wasn't exactly what I wanted, but it did the job.  My mother in-law kept telling me it looked like a puppy...it kinda does... but I wasn't going to try to make another one.  


For the food I made wraps.  The party wasn't during lunch or dinner time, but I thought it would be nice to have some kind of food that had a little substance.  There were some ham, cheese, and lettuce and some turkey, cheese, and lettuce.  I threw some tomatoes on a few of the wraps but left a bunch plain for those people that don't like them.


I made train sandwiches for the tots.  Half were PB&J and the other half were turkey and ham.

All of the train cars had yummy snack food... starting with the last car there was...


Fruit kabobs and yogurt.


Celery sticks and carrot sticks with ranch.


Puffs (that's what we call them) Pirates Booty.


Animal crackers.


and ending with Pretzel sticks and hummus.

I turned my hutch into the dessert table.  



I purchased some colored candy (I think this was the most expensive purchase of the party). 



I made some red and blue jello.  I didn't think this would actually be eaten... it was :)


Cookie tray.


AND of course the boys 2nd birthday cake.


 On the table at the front door I used some of the left over party favors for decorations.  This is the table where the boys presents were placed.

Here are a few pictures of the boys enjoying their party.

 M

 G

M

Happy birthday to you.  Happy birthday to you.  Happy birthday to M and G.  Happy birthday to you!












7 comments:

  1. Knut told me to not get my hopes up. My party will definitely not be that cool. ;) It looks like so much fun!

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    1. Make it that cool! Everything was home made... and most of the things I already had on hand... and the things I bought were either $1.00 or just a bit more. The most of the money was spent on food which would have been even if I didn't have the decorations, etc. :) I'll come and party plan for you :) I love it. OH you know what.. my train cookie cutters were total with shipping $15.00. BUT totally worth it. The amount of WHOLE sandwiches the boys have ate since buying them is beyond that amount of money.. and I would never complain to have more cookie cutters :)

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    2. What games or activities did you guys play?

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    3. We didn't. I had a bunch of ideas but being that our house is so tiny and our guests were so young I figured we didn't need to do anything (Jon figured haha). I wanted Jon to make a cardboard train for outside (I had him wait until last minute so we could see if the weather would be nice enough, but we figured it would be too cold for that). I was going to use it as a 'photo booth' and just so the kids could pretend to be on a train. I was going to make a large train for the wall and play 'pin the steam on the train'. I was just going to get large cotton balls so the kids (at that age without blindfolds) could stick the puffs above the train. That was really all I could think of. But like I said we didn't do any of it. It was low key. I had all of the different train tracks the boys have and set them up in the living room. The kids mostly played with them, until they discovered the drawers under the train table that houses all of the boys trucks :)

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  2. Great Job, Mama! Looks like the boys loved it!

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  3. Super cute party! I love the boys tshirts! Did you make them?

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    1. Thank you. :) I did make them.... http://jkronnevik.blogspot.com/2012/03/chugga-chugga-choo-choo-im-2-shirts.html

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