Birthday Extravaganza!

Asher turned three today! He has had quite the week of celebration as he managed to extend his birthday over four days! He had his party on board the Kettle Valley Railway's Easter train on Saturday, it was Easter on Sunday so we spent the afternoon with family and he opened gifts and cards there. Then Mr Joyful was off work on Monday so we spent the day together and had a TON of fun and finally the 25th was his official birthday! I tried hard to be as intentional as possible about the gifts and treats and in the end we did not so bad.

We had originally planned a little birthday party for Asher at our place, but then we found out that a couple of his friends would be away over spring break, so they'd miss it. When I asked Asher what he wanted to do for his birthday he said that he wanted to go on a "real" train. We had already established that he would have a train birthday cake, but now he clarified that he wanted to go on a real train, on the train tracks, not on the cake! So I scrambled to try to find a train somewhere nearby. As it turned out, the Kettle Valley Railway was having their Easter train on the Saturday before Asher's birthday so that would be perfect. We invited a couple of his little buddies and their parents and that was that.

I had already ordered some Thomas bubbles, conductors hats and wooden train whistles for the goody bags, but when I realized that there would only be Asher and two other kids, I went to Ten Thousand Villages and bought them each a shaker and a hand drum (and bells for Asher). This was inspired by the kids, who have been bringing musical instruments to church to play during the worship time. I also picked up some fair-trade chocolate (little individually wrapped squares) and a bag of mixed dried fruit (also fair trade). I wrapped the fruit up in little wax-paper packages of four pieces and we took these as snacks on the train and to replace the candy the kids would get at the easter egg hunt (Which Asher and his buddy couldn't have because of their allergies). I put all the goodies in brown paper sandwich bags and then took a photo of Asher in his Thomas jacket holding his trains and I attached a photo to each bag. It was a nice and simple decoration.

For the cakes, I got little cupcake piks, which were very cheap and although they are made of plastic (which we're trying to avoid) they are reusable, so thats good. I also got reusable cupcake liners.
The day was absolutely amazing. The kids all had an awesome time and were mesmerized by the train. There was a live banjo player on-board, so we all had a good sing-along. The kids all fell asleep on the way home and when we got back to our place we had a picnic of home-made food - potato salad with our Urban Harvest organic potatoes, home-made hot cross buns, coloured boiled eggs, salad (the first of the year from Little Creek garden's unheated greenhouses!) with hand-mixed balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing, fresh homemade bread and homemade hummus and local organic apples. Of course, the cupcakes and butter icing were also homemade, but the food colouring was far from organic... we're still working out our salvation with fear and trembling!