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Rachel and I are still sorting through and editing all of the pictures we took last weekend (upwards of 400, between the two of us), and when we get those done, I will blog about Alex's big b-day weekend. For now, I am hoping that pics of some of the party decorations will hold you over...plus I am totally shameless about plugging stuff that is for sale at my Etsy shop, which all of these things are.

I brought white chocolate covered pretzels for Alex and his classmates the Thursday before his b-day and saw that as another opportunity to tag something. So I used the same paper I designed for his invites (it matches the sprinkles!) and added green yarn ties.

I didn't decide on a party theme until way late in the game because I kept thinking that we would just keep it super low-key and simple and only invite a few people this year. Then I remembered that I am me, and I do not comprehend words like, "low-key" or "easy" when it comes to planning parties.

Because Alex is so enamored with trains, I couldn't, in good conscience, dismiss the idea of doing a train-themed party. But I had to draw the line at doing a Thomas-themed party. We all know how I feel about Thomas. I could say that don't like him because he has a rotten attitude and teaches my son bad habits, but I really just think he is annoying. So I decided to compromise and do a Thomas-less train-themed party (Alex calls any regular old train engine "Thomas" anyway, so I figured it was a win-win) and started to plan accordingly.

I had decided to make lemon cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for his party because I wanted to serve something light since it was bound to be a thousand degrees the morning of his party, plus cupcakes are easier to eat than cake, plus white icing doesn't stain children, plus I love anything related to lemons. I did a trial run beforehand because I stink at baking, mostly because I am "lazy" and don't like to "measure things". They turned out great-tasting and looking, with the frosting perfectly piped on and everything just so.

I had Rachel bake the cupcakes the night before the party, and they were divine. Then yours truly had to go and dump the metal pastry tip into the garbage disposal and grind the thing to smithereens before I had a chance to frost them. I made a run to the grocery store, and they only had plastic tips, and plastic tips stink. Long story short, we started to run out of time, and I ended up frantically slopping the icing onto the cupcakes. And the result was...well, sloppy.

I was hoping my cute cupcake toppers would distract from the sad looking cupcakes, although I'm not sure that anything short of me running around the party topless would have accomplished that task. And actually, both things would probably have been equally as unappetizing, so I decided to save myself the embarrassment and went with the toppers.

To keep with the theme, I sketched a series of train cars, digitally colored them in Adobe Illustrator, printed them out, and then added a craft stick to turn them into toppers. The concept was that, when the cupcakes were lined up, the individual train cars would become a whole train.

And not to toot my own horn...or blow my own whistle, rather, but I LOVED how my party favors turned out. I bought unfinished wooden train whistles online, painted them in vibrant colors that matched the rest of the decor, and then made tags to match that said, "CHOO-CHOO, Alex is TWO!"

I am working on Thank You notecards that match everything, too, and I hope to get those mailed out before Alex's next birthday. At the same time, I will also continue to edit my party pics and will hopefully get to blogging about those in the near future.