Pauly's 3rd Birthday Party featuring Thomas the Tank Engine

Pauly's birthday was last month.  I had such a blast planning it!  I started about mid-January just looking through people's blogs on anything and everything Thomas themed.  I found some great blogs out there with awesome ideas that I just had to use!  Below each picture will be a link to a blog with the tutorials.

January 20 I emailed my husband these 3 links for inspiration:

Little Paper Cuts
http://www.kevincooney.com/archives/000174.php
http://www.costume-works.com/homemade-thomas-the-train-costumes.html

I knew my husband was creative and handy, but I never dreamed something so fantastic!

Idea from Tip Junkie

The morning of his party, I blew up 79 balloons and ended up with 78. 4 huge Thomas mylar ballons and 78 red, yellow, and blue latex. I popped one while filling it.  Balloons were everywhere!  Front of the house, tied out back to the deck, in the house.  I <3 balloons.  These balloons were also biodegradable.  I bought the balloons at Balloons Everywhere.  Great prices and great shipping too.
 

Going up the walkway

Front of house, going up wthe walkway

The kids played "Pin the Whistle on James" that I made. I just grabbed an image of James off the internet and enlarged it. I then photoshopped out his whistle and made it a separte item and then put all the kids names on each of their whistles.

Happy Birthday train banner with
Pin the Whistle on James game

Idea from Tip Junkie

I love, love, LOVE how the balloon wreath came out!  I made "Welcome to my party.  Thank your for coming.  Come on in!" sign for the center.

Balloon Wreath using the tutorial from How Does She Do That?

That Thomas cake took about 5 hours to make, not including the time it took to back 4 days before hand or the face of Thomas (that took about 2 hours to create that face).  Friday night I spent 5 hours carving, chiseling and icing that cake but that look on Pauly's face when he saw it for the first time was priceless.  He was thrilled.  It was my first 3-d cake and I think I have it in me to do more!

Train Cake using tutorial from http://thomasthetankenginecake.blogspot.com/

Train Cake using tutorial from http://thomasthetankenginecake.blogspot.com/

Train Cake using tutorial from http://thomasthetankenginecake.blogspot.com/

The night before our basement flooded.  So, instead of me cleaning the playroom for the kids to play in, we were cleaning, only water out of it.  Ugh.  It was ok though.  We didn't lose anything valuable or irreplaceable.  The kids never got their train conductor hats though.  :(  I thought they got ruined, but I found them a few days later perfectly dry.

We had a flood the day before the party and my husband thought that the hats got ruined.  Nope, I found them the next day.  Bummed the kids didn't get to take them.

I also made train shaped crayons using old & donated crayons and train candy molds.

Train crayons

Goodie bag contents: train crayons, train lollipops, thomas stickers and tattoos. 
In the bag already is the coloring pages I put together; all Thomas and Friends

I can't wait to throw another kids party!  I just loved his little face light up and all his friends just loved it.

A few blogs that inspired me for this party: