Tucker's Trains!

TRAINS TRAINS TRAINS!

I started collecting boxes and coffee cans, pringles cans and toilet paper rolls, paper towel rolls and shoe boxes for months before Tucker's birthday. I had seen several cardboard box train pictures online and I had a plan. Here is the link to my pinterest board for Tucker. You know how you have everything figured out in your mind and it seems like it will be so easy? Well, this was certainly a learning process. But now I know how to do things, how not to do things, and not to wait until the week before the party to actually make the main feature of the party. So, here's my post about Tucker's third birthday party. I think in this one I'll just post about the box trains and the train cake...or maybe this post will be about the box trains and my oven on fire...we'll see. It all depends on how late my lazy boy will sleep.


This is my pride and joy. My crown and glory. I wanted my Thomas engine and my Rosie engine to be perfect. They were supposed to be especially for Madeline and Tucker. They wore them around the house pretending to be trains all day on a Monday that Daddy stayed home from work and I let Madeline stay home from school. It was kind of a snow day...not quite the event we had hoped for but enough that I felt justified in making everyone stay home. It didn't take much.




My prototype. When Tyler and I got to a point one evening when we could put together and tape all of the broken down boxes we had collected it was the coldest night that we had had all year. We were outside and it was so cold that the tape wouldn't stick. Lesson #1: Tape doesn't stick in 20 degree weather.
We had to move the operation inside.


The supplies. Lesson #2: You can never have enough glue sticks. Buy some for craft projects and then buy some more. Tyler went out at midnight to get me more one night. I promise through this process I was IN.LOVE with my husband. I'm about to cry right now just thinking about how helpful and sweet he was during all of these crazy preparations. Not once did he ever say that I was nuts. He hung in there and helped. He has been amazing this year. Our marriage is better than it has ever been. I remember times when I wondered when he would get it; that the kids were his too. That he needed to just jump in the middle of it and HELP without me having to ask. Well, I've learned to ask and he has learned to jump in there. Thanks T.


Lesson #3: Crappy cheap spray paint is crappy cheap spray paint. Skip it and buy school paint. Most stores sell jugs of school paint in primary colors. I had to steal Madeline's Melissa and Doug acrylic paint that came with her easel and then I had to go out and buy craft acrylics from Wal Mart. This was AFTER I had gone to Home Depot AND Wal Mart for spray paint that didn't cover the boxes. The lady at Wal Mart looked at me like I was weird when I checked out with all of that spray paint. I kept thinking about Laura Dearn huffing spray paint behind the hardware store in some movie I had seen years ago. I was sure the check out lady expected me to come back through with spray paint rings around my mouth. We went ahead and used it for a "base coat" in an attempt to fully cover the writing on the boxes but it was a step that could have been eliminated. Just go with some decent craft paint.


My Tyler hanging in there. The grandparents had taken the kids. So thankful for helpful grandparents. That is one thing I want to ask when I find all these beautiful parties on Pinterest- WHERE ARE YOUR KIDS while you are making tissue paper lanterns and sorting out each individual color of skittles into their own color coordinating candy buffet container?! My kids were at Tyler's parents house. Thank God. Tyler and I were both a bit buzzed from the fumes and I hate to think how many brain cells would have been lost had M and T been running around during all of this.
We had the following engines: Spencer and Hiro (black), Thomas and Rosie (blue and pink), James and Victor (red), and Percy and Henry?? (green, who else is green...I can't remember if it was Henry or not).


Tyler had spent all one afternoon and evening constructing this wood stand to put the boxes on to paint and decorate them. Hilarious. All I had asked him to do was put the boxes together and when I got home with supplies not one single box had been taped and this structure was standing in the driveway. He's like Heathcliff Huxtable on the Cosby show. Don't dare ask him to fix the leaking dishwasher because you'll end up with a wall knocked out. Men love any excuse to use their tools.


My kitchen looked like this for a little over a week. We have a giant dog who sheds enough fur every few months to make about 10 baby dogs. There was no way to keep the kitchen clean, no way to sweep or vacuum around 10 box trains. That's my excuse for not cooking for a couple of weeks.



Here is the link to the Thomas and Friends website. From this link click on the "posters" prompt. You can scroll through several great posters of the different engines. This is how I made the engines faces. I printed the posters, cut out the faces, and then blew them up on our copier (just black and white). Some of them I went back and colored in their eyes or smiles with a black marker because they are really pixilated when enlarged. But these were the best 3D images I could find for each engine. The same link can take you to great Thomas printable coloring sheets and birthday invites.


Here is the link to oriental trading company. It is where I got most of our party decorations- table covers, plates, napkins. I bought our party favors there- each kid got an engineers cap and a wooden train whistle. I also used plain yellow, blue, and red napkins, plates, and utensils from the dollar store. We had pizza and cake so I needed big plates and little plates.




This is the link to trainparty.com's website. Awesome train clothing, Thomas and Chuggington, Little Engine that Could, and so many other train themes, party supplies, toys, accessories, cake pans, even pedal trains and ride-ons! I think I got some of our balloons there and maybe Tucker's Thomas hat too.



Mom and Dad went up to our church with me at about 11 pm to help me tape down the duct tape tracks. We left around 1 a.m. and then I was determined to do a few more things at home before bed.



One of Tucker's favorite books is Freight Train. I wanted to read the story to the kids and play "pin the caboose on the freight train" with the kids. I stayed up until 4 am making this felt engine and cars- each to look like the book. I used hard felt from Hancock Fabrics with a tacky sticker backing. I had copied the engine and cars from the book and I used my copies as a template to place on top of the felt and used an exacto knife to cut out the outline of the train. Then I just free handed the details of the engine and cars with a silver paint pen. It was labor intensive and the kids enjoyed being trains and riding their bikes so much that we ended up not doing that activity. Tyler stayed up with me cutting out some great engines I found in a pack of "transportation" cut outs from the dollar store. We used them all around the gym to decorate with. Just taped them up on the walls everywhere.




My boy is awake and frustrated with me because I won't help set up his tracks in the living room so off I go to play trains! I HAVE to do a post about catching the oven on fire. I don't understand baking. It is math and science. I was determined to make T's train cake and Thomas cake. THANK GOD Mom made me buy a sheet cake as well. Okay...I'll save that for another post. :-) Happy Friday! M and I have a date with our Emily to see Snow White tonight.


And as a personal side note- if Madeline has the wisdom some day to fall in love with and marry this little boy I would be a happy happy person. What a guy.