All Aboard the Choo-Choo!

Maddox is turning 2!! We celebrated Maddox's 2nd birthday yesterday on the Arkansas Missouri Railway. We rented a real train car for his birthday. Perfect place for a little one obsessed with trains like mine is!!

Of course no birthday party is without drama....but I'll save that for after the pictures!

Okay, so cute party right...now for the DRAMA!! For some reason I just had a gut feeling something wasn't going to go as planned. Mostly because the party was not at my house and I felt somewhat out of control over the whole thing.

What was SUPPOSE to happen was we have the party on the train, a real conductor was going to entertain, juggle, sing songs, and the usual cake, ice cream, open presents. Since the conductor was entertaining, I had nothing to worry about right?

Well, to my "surprise" I showed up, saw what looked to be a conductor and went and asked him if he was our entertainment. He had NO idea what the heck I was talking about. Made a few phone calls and came back and told me he had no "tricks" and that there had been a mix up. We are about 45 minutes away from party time. We start to panic. What in the you-know-what am I suppose to do with 12 little ones????????????????????

So my sister/make shift party planner steps in and starts brainstorming...."we'll sing I've been working on the railroad, we can march in a train outside to chugga-chugga choo-choo, we can get the little Engine that Could and read it..."...etc. She's good in a crunch, right? Well so is my Mom, who after getting a phone call at 1:20 (party it at 2), runs to Dilly Dally Toy Store to get us a book. God was shining a light down from the heavens as my mom walked in and laid her eyes on the CUTEST edition of the Little Engine That Could. Cha-ching...out the door...to the party.

Cut back to me and Kim, I totally forgot to mention that when we showed up the train car was in shambles. Obviously there had been a party the night before and in the 'conductors' own words "Looks here like that maid didn't show up". WOW, we busted it cleaning rearranging, and redecorating. Everything you see in the pictures came from my house, and we put it all up. I feel like I owe my sis some major $$ for all her help!

Mom shows up with the book, wonderful. Guests start to arrive, I'm only mildly still panicked. UNTIL, the railway department decides to "help" and send someone over from the cafe to take charge of the entertainment for my party. Now, I like to think I am not a judgemental person, BUT I must be, because when I laid eyes on this lady I knew there was no way she was enter acting with these sweet babies. She had on a grubby Arkansas t-shirt, had a tongue ring, and REEKED of cigarettes. Ugh! She said she wanted to play duck-duck goose. I'm like, uh, he's TWO...not FIVE! She informed me (now read this in a thick southern accent) "now look, I ain't singin no songs. If I belted out a tune I'd have every dog in the neighborhood a' howlin". Uh, thanks but no thanks! We'll take it from here lady....

So we have snacks, cake and ice cream:

So I assign the book reading to my dad, who is a former educator and I KNOW he can do a awesome job. Which he did. And Maddox loved the story. All the kids listened so good. Here is my Dad in action:

After this we do presents:

And after this the kids are winding down. So we decide to go outside and get a group shot and hand out party favors:

Here we have Bleu, Neely, Brett, Walker, Maddox, Ashlyn, Sloan, Kristian, Nikko, Margaux, Sadie.

ANNNNNNNND, party's over. Now time to fall to my knees and thank every member of my family who stepped up and helped out the most thrown together party of all time! I love ya'll!

Here are a few more party pics:

Thanks to everyone who came and all the wonderful presents. Maddox has been playing non stop since the party! He got lots of Thomas train stuff which has kept him busy and let me get some stuff done around the house! We also got lots of great things to take on vacation with us to entertain Maddox on the 9+ hour car ride. Wooo-hooo!