Charlie's 3.5 Birthday Party

Our son's birthday falls at Christmastime - maybe the worst time for a party.  And this year, because Lucy had just come home from NICU and was not supposed to be exposed to large groups of people, we did not have a party.  So we decided to celebrate his half birthday instead!

I found this photo invitation online and used a picture from his recent trip to Day Out with Thomas:

Then I pinned a ton of ideas from Pinterest:

I'm actually not a big Pinterest person.  I didn't like the interface and felt like there was just too much stuff.  But since Jennifer walked me through it and showed me what all the stuff meant, I am cautiously agreeing to spend a little more time with it.  Anyway, I had some grandiose plans for the party that ended up simplifying themselves...which is pretty much the story of my life.

But I like simple!  One thing that ended up WAY simpler than I thought it would was the cake.  I found this Wilton cake pan online:

And was a little intimidated.  Fortunately, my mother and MIL are both very knowledgeable about (and even enjoy) cake decorating.  And Molly, my sister-in-law, was great help, too!  Our process in pictures:

My MIL made the frosting and laid out all the high-tech equipment we needed.

And I brought the instructions that came with the pan.  They were...mildly helpful.

Thomas is light blue, so we didn't have to add much.

We used little white circle-things for the eyes so we wouldn't have to try to frost them.

And the final product:

I think it turned out pretty great.  And Charlie FREAKED out when he saw it.  We had to leave it at Gigi and Pepa's house because I was afraid he might mess with it.

For the actual party, I purchased a table cloth, plastic ware, and four tin loaf pans.  I hot glued Oreos to the sides of the loaf pans so they looked like freight cars.  I filled them with Charlie's favorite things in the world: animal crackers, goldfish, strawberries, and gummy bears!

I also found little train whistles at Target (which I got a screaming deal on, right Molly?) and wrote the names of all the kids on them.  They were a hit, but I was glad the whistle wasn't louder.  I made some cupcakes (as we had more people than cake slices) and, as favors for the kids, I made cookies in the shape of trains and then I iced them with a brush using this recipe.  It was amazing - I'm totally bookmarking it for the future!  This plus balloons and a "Happy Birthday" sign (neither of which were photographed) were the extent of the decorations.  I think it was pretty perfect!

And so did Charlie.  When he got there, he got so excited about the Thomas balloon (courtesy of Grandma), the cake, and the freight cars filled with his favorite foods on Earth.  And boy did he have a blast eating food and opening presents!

It was a LOVELY party.  A huge thank you to all our family and friends who came out to help celebrate, and to my mom, mother-in-law, Molly, and Kristin who really helped pull things together.  Charlie had a WONDERFUL time, and look at all those presents!