There once was a boy who loved engines...

This is the boy.  His name is Owen.  Owen loves engines.  

Allow me to introduce you to his collection.   

 Ladies first. 

From left to right: Mavis, Belle, Emily, and Rosie. 

   

 Percy and Kevin the Crane.

 The Troublesome Trucks (who like to cause confusion and delay!)

 Twin engines, Bill and Ben.

 The Logging Locos from Misty Island, Bash (L), Dash (R), and Ferdinand (C)

 Diesels: Scruff, Den, Salty, Diesel, and Diesel 10.  Front: Dart

 Spencer, Hiro, and Gordon along with their respective tender cars. 

Back: Toby the Steam Tram, Flynn the Fire Engine  Front: Stanley

And who could forget Thomas?  

These are all of the Thomas trains Owen owns...in the back we have a bath toy, a pull back engine, 

battery-operated Trackmaster Thomas, and another bath toy.  

In the front are his engines that are part of the magnetic collection featured in this post.  

Every train needs a caboose and what better place to put a picture of one but at the end of the post!

The collection started at Christmas when Owen opened one of his presents from Gramommy.  It was a Thomas and Friends Wooden Railway set with an oval track and three "characters": Thomas, Percy, and the caboose pictured above.  Percy has since gone to engine heaven after one of his plastic wheels became a chew toy for one of Grammie Lu's dogs recently.  We got the metal one in picture #3 above to replace him.  RIP Wooden Percy.  :)

Owen played and played with the trio and loved sticking the magnetic ends together.  We took him shopping with some of his Christmas money to buy more but found that the Wooden Railway line of engines was quite expensive.  A similar line, the metal Take-N-Play engines were cheaper and just a tad bit smaller.  We let him pick out a couple that night and in the last three-and-a-half months, the collection has grown.  For most of the engines, I can remember the reason for getting them, but in some cases, they were just given to him for no reason.  Today, for example.  We had a little tax money leftover, so we ran to Toys R Us after we went to the park and let him pick out Scruff and Stanley.  Here are the others I remember.

Rosie - Owen had been pretending to shop at the toy store with his shopping cart and kept going to the back door (the toy store) and grabbing at imaginary engines.  Before his third trip over to the back door, I grabbed her (we already had her put up for his Easter basket) and taped her to the window.  When he went to grab for his imaginary engines, there she was.  He has been wanting her for a long time, so he was thrilled!

Emily, Bill and Ben, The Logging Locos, and Hiro - all gifts from Grammy!  She also has several more put up to give him when she sends packages or when he comes to visit.  Owen and Grammy had a fun time online shopping several weeks back "adding to cart."

Spencer - We bought Spencer on Tuesday evening, March 13, just two days before we went camping with the Johnsons.  We told Owen that when he started going tee-tee on the potty, he could get Spencer.  Wednesday morning, I made the mistake of showing him Spencer all packaged up.  You would have thought I amputated Owen's leg!  I learned that he is too young to be bribed/"teased" like that.  Anyway, he calmed down eventually and we all survived that day at work and PDO.  That evening, the three of us were in the living room when Owen suddenly says, "I'm going to go tee-tee real quick" as he proceeded to run toward the bathroom door.  Sure enough.  The kid went tee-tee for the first time on the potty and earned his beloved Spencer.  From then until now, Owen is continuing to go potty either on his toilet seat on the toilet or on his Baby Bjorn potty chair.  He isn't to the point where he tells us he needs to go, but he goes on the potty without fail every 2 hours or so.  He wears pull ups during the day, but the last couple days we have put him in underwear while he's at home and still no accidents.  It's just a matter of time before we go to underwear all day.  They are being very supportive and helpful at PDO so that is really helping too.  We still do diapers at night even though he wakes up several days a week dry as a bone!  We are so proud of our big boy!

Next weekend, we have something big planned that involves a 15-ton Thomas replica!  All aboard!!   

:) Carianne