We have a five year old. When Liam was born, I couldn’t imagine him at a year old, let alone five years old. It’s bonkers, but here we are. When talking to Liam about what he wanted to do for his birthday, the first thing that came to mind was the subway: he wanted a subway themed birthday.
So how do we pull this off? He also wanted to go to the Bronx Zoo. Totally on theme because the Bronx has access to the subway system. We were already planning a big vacation for his birthday, so we needed to keep this simple: zoo trip, favorite cake, balloons, and some subway themed things.
Creating things for the Subway Themed Birthday
The first thing I thought of was a t-shirt. Why? We have a great little shop on Etsy called The Sweatshirt Shop Company where you can get some really fun things. So by using our printer for at-cost, I was saving money.
We would all wear subway-themed t-shirts on our trip to the zoo. Liam would wear a “5” train, his brother would wear a “1” train, and mom and dad would wear letter trains. If you are not familiar with the New York subway system, there is not a 30-something line, so I wore a “B” train.
Outfits? Check! The next easiest decoration? Balloons. What we learned from Liam’s first birthday is that balloons can transform a space. So I ordered balloons in every color subway line. I spent way too much time going through the line colors only to realize they all make up a rainbow haha! Basically, get all the colors of the rainbow, throw in some black, brown, and silver balloons and now you have a subway themed balloon bouquet.
Liam wanted vanilla cupcakes, so I made him vanilla cupcakes. There aren’t any subway cake toppers out there, so I crafted some subway themed cake toppers. I created this printable, printed them out, and taped them to toothpicks (shoutout to my wife for cutting them out).
And that’s it! The grandparents and cousins joined us at the at the zoo, enjoyed the cupcakes, and the balloons provided entertainment for the kids for at least a week.
Liam’s love of trains doesn’t stop at subways. Check out his YouTube Channel dedicated to all things trains.
