little lovelies

It's Party Day!

This morning when we woke up we were treated to an excited three year old's cries of "Train caaaake! Mooooomma thank you!!!" as monkey boy went into the kitchen and saw his cake decked out for his party tonight. He immediatly ran back to our room to give us kisses and hugs and talk in an excited three year old stream about his party, trains, birthdays and cake.



We celebrated a bit on Thursday with our dinner out, but today was the real party day. We started out by going to breakfast at a local pancake house called Pancake Circus. Pancake Circus deserves it's own post and lots of pics dedicated to it, but that is for another day, today is about the party. *I just found the link and review of the Circus and I don't think I could put it any better than she did, but I will post more pics sometime. The place is a serious trip!* We had our huge pancake breakfast and came home to decorate for our train party. Our little guy is never without a train or two nearby, so naturally when I wanted to use his toy trains to decorate for his party there wasn't a one to be found. We managed to make do, get the house ready, the food made and out to the Railroad Museum on time.



We spent a lovely afternoon admiring trains and talking to the old men who spend their time volunteering at the museum. Everytime we go I meet a new nice old retired train worker and everytime I go I notice they are getting older and older. Soon these gems are going to be gone, these guys who spent their youth traveling the country by railroad, working it and loving it. Why is it that railroad travel is so romantic? Probably because no one does it anymore, so it has a charm that plane or car travel just doesn't have.



My great grandfather worked the railroad and though I never met him, my grandma would tell us kids about growing up in the Sierras in a railroading town. At one time there was an exhibit in the museum based on a photograph taken of the railroad in the 30's. In the photograph there was a small house, a shack almost, on the side of the mountain and my grandma would point to it and say, that was our house! That was always the highlight of our visit, "look for grandma's house!" Now, 20 years later, the exhibit is gone, but I still feel like a kid again looking at the giant peices of machinery.


While we were there, taking a break from the trains, our Little Peanut girl decided to make it official that she can walk! She has been walking on secret for a few weeks now, sitting down as soon as someone looks her direction. But today with all our family and friends close by she decided that she would prove that she could walk with the rest of us. She must have known that today wasn't about her and needed to prove herself. ;)




All in all we had a pretty special day and I think that our guy had a great time. We might even have to go back for his birthday next year!