Thoughts From a Dumas...: All Aboard!

last weekend we put together a little celebration for jacob to celebrate his first year of life. it was a little crazy pulling it all together since we didn't really have any concrete ideas until a week before the party (yes, we've been a little preoccupied with fixing up the house). luckily, my sister in law is wonderful at party planning and was here for a full week before the party. my mother in law and father in law arrived a couple days later, too, which was very helpful. we started brainstorming and pulling things together. while i was chasing around j, cleaning and feeding the troops, lester and my mother in law were able to get a bunch of the decorations done. she also ran around rochester gathering supplies with me and provided entertainment for the little man. my father in law worked hard with ry to get the porch ready (that reno is ALMOST done - we just need to paint the paneling). my mother came in on thursday night and was able to do food prep with us on friday. it was a scramble to the end, but with all the help, it came together!

this jacob train was a gift from my inlaws for j - it worked perfect for the drink table:

my sister in law put these cupcake toppers together. they were free printables found here.

leslie also painstakingly wrapped these bottles with these cool labels we found at the same website. we protected the bottles with packing tape over the labels so they didn't run in the ice bucket.

all the food was put into red and blue "train cars" that we found at the dollar store. leslie used the cricket to make the train wheels. here's the "log car" full of chocolate covered pretzels. it was easy to find sprinkles with the correct colors thanks to fourth of july quickly approaching.

the dessert table with j's melissa and doug train!

i was pretty excited about making these rainbow fruit skewers with railroad signs. good thing my mother is a patient woman because she helped me put them together. leslie and i made the toppers.