Our son (4) and daughter (7) have their birthdays are the same month. They both wanted to invite boys and girls and we knew our son’s party had to be trains. We combined their parties and took a train ride. Our local commuter train system (Metra) was very helpful.

My husband and a few friends boarded the train two stops ahead to decorate the 1/ 2 car with balloons. The children were dropped off and picked up at the station. We never left the train, but “turned” around at the end of the line. We kept the children on the lower part until we stopped, then they were allowed to investigate the upper seats and/or were escorted to the end car for a view. The children each received a scavenger hunt card with stickers to place on the items viewed from the window, a hat, bandana and goodie bag with binoculars, bubbles and train shaped whistles. We had a folk singer for the trip back, but this is not necessary. Most kids enjoy the trip for itself. Cakes are too messy for the train, so we had a train shaped cookies and juice boxes.