CHATEAU MABILE

Biffing, bashing, crashing, smashing, and chugging....ALL DAY LONG! Liam has gone absolutely train crazy. Right before Christmas (after we had already purchased all of his presents of course) he started playing with his train set more and more. Since then he plays trains for I'd say at least 3 hours every day. It's an amazing amount of time for his little mind to be so involved in something. He tells stories and sings songs while he plays with them. He rearranges the track in tons of different ways (he's getting pretty fancy with it). We used some of the Christmas money they were given to buy them BOTH (because Ginny wants to do whatever he is doing) more tracks and trains. I found a slammin' deal on Craigslist. Remember the train table we got him for his birthday last year? Well that thing is pretty much pointless now since he uses the play area and hallway floor as his set-up area. We asked him how he felt about us selling it and he said he wants to. He keeps asking me now if we can put it out of the way, lol. We have promised he can use the money to buy more track and trains from Choo Choo Bob's.

Taking a quick picture break.

We paid $50 and got the following from someone on Craigslist: a roundhouse with turn table, that sir Topham hat,

This cool working draw bridge,

Another kind of bridge and tons of track pieces,

This neat case that doubles as a train carrier and portable track,

(it was filled with trains)

(chugging away...he now likes to link it with the tracks)

Tracks that lead to the living room ( I don't let him put them in there though because I don't want train tracks everywhere!)

Ginny-Beth is literally getting a leg-up in life with these trains. She has had to learn how to step over and navigate around them on her little toddler legs and is getting some impressive balance!

Re-creating Gordon and the Snowstorm. I had to help him out with this one. That's some quilting fluff.

He loves curving them under and around things.

He went through a curvy phase. Now he seems to be more focused on maximizing the length.

Yep, that was inevitable. I love seeing his different track ideas everyday!

Here are all the trains we got in that $50 lot. These are minimum $9 a piece for the ones without a tender and minumun $13 for the ones with. Oh and just look up how much that roundhouse is on amazon....tell me I didn't find a CRAZY good deal!

I made him pose with his trains. I do not know how long this trains obsession will last, but it sure is fun for now. He got his first basic set for Christmas when he was 2 1/2 and always liked it, but once he realized he could change the set up of the track around all by himself he was hooked. He and his friends here have had a blast with them , and of course Ginny thinks they are the best thing ever. Greg and I have already decided we are not selling them when they get bigger. We want to be the cool grandparents with the expansive Thomas train collection!

I was cooking one day in the kitchen while he was having rest/video time. When I peeked around to check on him he had set up some track in front of the tv.

Some days it's just hard to tear yourself away from things.