We have recently finalized our adoption of our almost four year old son.
We have had him in our home since the age of one and he has become a "train addict" Of course Thomas is a big favorite but he loves all trains. In our area there is a group that runs miniature trains in a local park the first weekend of each month from May to October. We rented a picnic shelter, made a donation to the group to include train rides for all the kids - entire families were invited and we are providing each child with a bandana, engineer hat(paper-kindly provided by Operation Lifesaver) and a four-note wooden train whistle, along with a few other Operation lifesaver trinkets - they are all tied into the bandana to make distribution easy. We are having a cook out to make the food simple and with a guest list that seems to have grown to 100 (including adults and siblings) we are keeping it simple. the invitations were done on my computer and came out beautifully. We are only using primary color plates, etc. We will have two train piņatas. But games are not necessary with the train rides and access to two very nice play structures. It is simple, relatively inexpensive and takes advantage of all of one of the great train activities our area has to offer. The cake consists of two 1/2 sheet cakes (one vanilla and one chocolate. Place on a board about 4 inches apart. I have made a block of Jell-O Jigglers in Blue with gummy fish in it to fill in the space between the two cakes. I have constructed a bridge to span the Jell-O river (covering it with frosting) and have made a four car train from small loaf cakes and all sorts of misc. candies that will be traveling from one cake, crossing the bridge to the next. We tried to stay away from the Thomas theme as we are attending "A Day Out With..."this weekend and prefer to keep his interest in trains more than just obsessing on Thomas(as cute as he is) The bandanas and whistles were hard to locate at a good price for so many kids. But the Grand Trunk Railroad Police/Operation Lifesaver provided the best hats possible unless we invested in cloth.
