THOMAS THE TRAIN My 3 year old loves and is obsessed with Thomas and his friends. I planned a backyard party so I could have multiple things happening in a large space. First, I made my own invitations on the computer with a card-making software - I put a picture of my son on a train on the front with the saying "All Aboard the Birthday Express, Logan Turns 3, Please Be His Guest!!" I included a pic of Thomas on the front and on the inside. For decorations I created a "Logan and Friends" sign the same as the Thomas and Friends sign with red letters inside a white cloud outlined in blue. I taped this big sign to the fence and put 2 big yellow RR crossing signs on either side of it. In front of the signage on the grass was a Thomas Train my father built from plywood. It had 3 sides - the one side had Thomas' face painted on it ( I used an overhead projector to trace on Thomas' face on the wood). On the front of the train was a window cut out that the kids could look through from behind. There was a steering wheel mounted and a whistle to blow into. The wood was painted blue with red striping and had a big yellow 1 printed on the front...in yellow block letters was printed "THOMAS THE TRAIN" ....it looked absolutley fabulous!! The kids loved being in behind it, pretending to drive it and getting their pic taken. Each child had a conductor's hat with their name on it (I used scrapbooking letter stickers) and a whistle around their neck. I took their pic one at a time behind the train and then had them decorate foam frames with stickers, glitter, foam stickers etc. I then printed off their pics and put them in the frames to take home. I also had a large inflatable water slide blown up that the kids entertained themselves with as well (not Thomas-related but fun nonetheless!)  For the cake I baked a simple vanilla 2 layer cake, iced it white and piped it with blue icing and placed a Thomas edible image in the middle . I then put every color sprinkle all around the edible image - simple yet looked amazing!! The Loot bags -  contained Thomas and Friends tattoos, stickers, wood whistles, chocolate bars wrapped in special wrappers that had Thomas' pic printed right on them and on which I also had printed " Happy 3rd Birthday Logan!" I included some other non-Thomas items and for the girls I added some princess items.  Overall a great success and Thomas is still around for post-party playtime!!