For my son's third birthday party he picked Thomas the tank engine as his theme. We made the invitations to look like actual train tickets and sent them to all of his friends with a train stamp on the envelope. I do cake decorating as a hobby so I made him the Thomas cake with the Wilton pan and then placed the Thomas train on top of a decorated 1/4 sheet cake.  I made train tracks out of fondant and made grass and and airbrushed sky but my favorite part was having my son's name spelled out in cookies that were tinted red with food coloring before they were cooked.  As the guests pulled into the driveway they saw an All Aboard" sign with a picture of the main Thomas characters and they walked on railroad tracks made out of painters tape that I put on the sidewalk. I painted a railroad crossing sign on poster board and hung that up on the front door. My mother in law sews and was sweet enough to make party favor bags out of Thomas fabric with a little drawstring and hand stitched name tags attached.  We filled the bags up with train toys and whistles etc... and placed the bags in front of an engineer's hat for each child.  I made several different types of sandwiches and cut them out with train cookie cutters about 7 different shapes in all and the kids loved them! When they walked into the backyard they saw more train tracks on the deck which led to the yard and this was where the fun really began! My friend painted a huge Thomas the train on plywood which was just amazing and we took pictures of the kids standing beside it. My husband and I built a Train Depot out of plywood with a window and an opening door for the children to play in and used our last name and son's first name on laminated printouts and made it look like a schedule.  We bought cheap cloth to use as the opening to the window where we put another laminated sign saying "tickets". We had two motorized trains set up on tracks for the children to ride in front of the station and the Thomas.  The best part of the party for my son was the entertainment... my dear husband wore a handmade Sir Topham Hat costume and surprised all of the children for a live Thomas birthday story! I was amazed by how much he actually looked like the real deal :-)  My mother law made this as well (would be lost without her!) and included everything from the top hat to a stopwatch! My son had a wonderful time! Before the guests left each one got a Thomas the Train cookie on a stick that I made.  I changed his number to 3 for my sons birthday and wrapped it up with a clear bag and red ribbon.  To thank the guests for their presents we went to a website that lets you create your own writing paper we of course picked Thomas and wrote a thank you to all of our guests for making this party so special."