Thomas the Train 3rd Birthday

It doesn't seem like my little guy should be 3 or that it should be his birthday already.  I posted here about his birthday invites and now I have the party details.  I decided to do the party in our apartment rather than my mom's house this year which meant less space to decorate but I'm really satisfied with how everything turned out. 

(after this pic I realized my table was not centered and fixed it lol)

I used scrap paper I already had in my stash for the cardstock circle garlands and the #3/Happy Birthday hanging cutouts. 

I had planned on having these accordion circles hanging from the ceiling but when I went to put everything up it just didn't work.  Instead I hung them as a backdrop. 

The All Aboard banner was made with scrap paper I had in my stash.  I didn't do the typical Happy Birthday banner because I had one already made from last year and I had enough hanging from the ceiling with Happy Birthday on it I thought it might be a little overkill to have a banner too. 

This is the first birthday of Grant's I didn't do cupcakes.  I couldn't figure out a way to decorate them that satisfied me and when searching online I found some really cute round cakes that were decorated simply enough I thought I could do something similar.  I haven't decorated a cake since my sister's graduation party and I swore I would never use fondant again, which meant every detail on the cake was gonna have to be piped by hand by me.  That's a lot of pressure on this mama, and looking back I should have just made the cupcakes and stuck to what I know I'm good at.

I chose a pumpkin flavored cake with cream cheese frosting.  It took me forever and a day to decide on a cake flavor. I knew Grant wouldn't really care and we would be left with any that didn't get ate so I didn't want a plain old chocolate or vanilla, that's just not my style.  I decided on pumpkin because it's October and I love the smell of anything pumpkin flavored baking in my house.  I also made Butter Cookies, a signature cookie of my mom's.  She used to make these for every Halloween, Christmas, and Easter.  Every time I smell them baking I think of so many Holiday memories, and I've made them for every one of Grant's birthdays so far.

There weren't many things to actually buy for decorations this time around.  Other than the balloons, table cloth, streamers, and some cardstock.  Which was great because I got to use up some of the craft supplies I already have and it kept costs down.

I didn't do a whole spread of food this year since I'm pregnant, working part time, and I figured it was ok to cut myself some slack and take the easier way out by ordering pizzas and buying a couple 2 liters of pop.  I usually go a little overboard at showers and birthdays with all the food and then I'm left with a ton of leftovers, and spend the whole 2 hours before the party cooking and cleaning up the kitchen before people arrive.  I knew with me doing the cake during Grant's naptime I wouldn't have much time to cook a meal then clean everything before people started showing up.  And lets face it sometimes it's nice to not stress yourself out.  It seems the last hour before every party I've done is me being short with everyone, aggravated that certain things aren't done or people are in my way, and me runnin around like a chicken with no head.  It wasn't worth it this year, and given Grant's pickiness with food, I'm sure he more than appreciated the pizzas since it's one of the few things he loves eating.

After everyone left my husband and I sat there surrounded by toys, boxes, and wrapping paper and it was the feeling you get when Christmas is over.  All the build up and waiting all year then it's over and all I could think was, another year gone.  Another year celebrated.  Another year before the next one.  It's exciting to think next year Grant will have a brother or sister to celebrate his birthday with.

 

Until next year!

Thomas the Train Birthday Invitation

I decided awhile ago to do a train theme for Grant's birthday and since you really can't get generic train party supplies, or at least I've never seen any, it became a Thomas the Train party.  Let me say this.......I really don't like Thomas the Train.

I was secretly hoping he would pass over the cartoon so I'd never have to see it, but of course that's not the case.  He really doesn't care what I think about it and I decided to put my own dislikes aside and give him the party theme he would love.

Am I a good mom or what? lol

As I did last year for his Mickey themed party I set a $50 budget for the whole party, and quickly realized with this budget I was going to have to do some more improvising with decorations because there was no way I could afford to buy all the Thomas party supplies in the store.  I have lucked out with Grant's Toy Story and Mickey birthdays because I had the Cricut cartridges to do the main decorations.  But what do you know, Cricut doesn't make a Thomas cartridge so I'm on my own.

If I was the kind of person to look on the bright side of things I would see this as a great opportunity to stretch my creativity by coming up with new decorations on my own.......I'm not that person and I much prefer having the Cricut do that grunt work for me.

I did purchase a table cloth from the store with Thomas on it but this is the only Thomas specific item I have bought.  We have a small apartment which makes it nice for parties because the smaller area you have to decorate the less decorations you actually need to make a big impact which in turn means less money spent, and I'm all about that.

I decided to pick 3 colors, blue, aqua, and red and bought streamers and plan on buying balloons in these colors as well.  I had intended to buy some train clipart off Etsy.com I found that actually looks just like Thomas (without the smiling face) for $5, however as with any small budget, cuts had to be made somewhere to allow for other spending and I decided to find Thomas images online and use those instead.  $5 doesn't seem like much in the grand scheme of things but when it comes to a $50 budget that includes food, party supplies, and decorations, every penny counts.

I have only finished the invites for now as most of the decorations will have to be finished the week before the party (October is a super busy month around our house).  I had grand ideas of a really cute train ticket invite with the perfect font and images on it.  Then reality, pregnancy exhaustion, a part time job, and the month of October hit and that idea went down the crapper pretty quick.  Instead I opted for a simple invite printed on white cardstock with the Thomas image I downloaded from the internet and backed it with plain old red cardstock.  I cut the squares of the cardstocks out with my Cricut ( why use an old school paper cutter when you can push a button and watch the Cricut do it for you?).  This invite is similar to the others I've done, which is exactly why I wanted to do something different this time around but maybe next year.

I'm pretty lucky in that everyone I invite lives pretty much on the same road so I didn't bother with envelopes, stamps, or mailing them at all.  Instead I drove down the road and dropped them into their mailboxes.  One thing I hate about invites is the cost of stamps (if I wasn't one of those sentimental people who save cards and invites I would so do e-vites).

Even though these weren't the invitation I had dreamed of, they serve their purpose and I'm really glad they are done.  I guess there comes a point in life when you have to give in and realize you can't do it all.....

I'm just not ready for that yet. haha.