Mom is the Only Girl: Sweet Pea Turns 4

Today is Sweet Pea's 4th birthday! I can't believe four years have passed since I first saw those little hands and held his tiny body against mine, saw his little smirky grin as Hubby burped him for the first time, knowing we were in for quite the ride!

Happy Birthday Family Photo

Of course we had a train themed party on Saturday, for the 3rd year in a row! (Click here to see what I did for his 3rd birthday party!) This time, however, to change things up I had made some cute signs for our 'dining car' and various other things, but could not get our printer to work (and of course he wouldn't let me use the signs we used last year which are now hanging in his room)! Oh the frustration, but I was able to get just enough printed to pull it off with help from Mom's Cricut which was instrumental in getting some train cars for the walls! (which I don't have pics of) Many of my ideas were gleaned from Pinterest (look up train parties, you'll find so many ideas!) and I tweaked them to make them my own and to suit Sweet Pea's interests.

In the past we've made some pretty cool cakes, but this year we opted for a simple white fondant train cutout adorning a chocolate frosted chocolate cake which the birthday boy loved! The train table was set up with a track in the living room with a smaller train track set up in the family room where most of the adults congregated and where the presents were opened.

Lunch was simple, roundhouse sandwiches, veggies, chips and dip. I made little signs for each type of item, listing which train car carried them to the party!

"Chew Chew" was for the utensils, plates and napkins.

I remember seeing a simple sign like this on one of the blogs that had a post about a train party.
Sorry to not give adequate credit, but honestly I looked at Pinterest so often for ideas and followed so many links...

As guests arrived they followed the signs to the 'Baggage Car' to store their coats if I wasn't available to greet them right away, and as they left the kiddos were given a goodie bag of gummy candies with a label attached saying "Chew Chew Thank you for coming aboard for my 4th birthday!" as well as a big boppy balloon. If my printer had worked the balloons would have had a label attached to the rubber band saying "Thanks for Puff Puffing along with me!" mostly for the parents entertainment as they would have been the ones puffing when blowing them up!

Every year we are so blessed by family and friends joining us to celebrate another year in our children's lives and we truly feel the love in their presence at the parties! Thank you to all who came and hopefully I've inspired someone else to create a simple Train birthday party, too!