First up the Heber Valley Railroad provides a nice little Polar Express ride during the holidays. We enjoyed Hot Chocolate and cookies, a reading of the Polar Express story, a beautiful moon light view, Christmas Carols, and Santa of course. Our neighbors joined us for the adventure. I’m really glad we did this Ellie and Zak were in awe. It was a good first interaction with Santa for Ellie. He was kind enough not to scare her too much and offered her a jingle bell. When he had to leave she kept saying “bye bye Santa”.

Next up we teamed up with our friends Jen and Zak to make Gingerbread Houses for the Midway Cottages for the Children Fundraiser. They came over Wednesday evening and we built our little gingerbread neighborhood. Zak and Ellie helped for a little while but then decided playing and running around was more interesting. So it became a Mom project. It turned out pretty good. The next morning Ellie checked it out for a while with big eyes naming all the gingerbread animals we scattered around the cottages.

Finally, on Thursday we picked up our Christmas tree. We were particularly excited because it is our first little family Christmas Tree. Getting a tree and decorating it was one of the little events I was really looking forward to this year. I did missed decorating the tree Marcoccia style late into the night with the scratchy old record player. I was worried we wouldn’t have enough ornaments or lights for it but it turned out just right thanks to what we have collected over the years from family and friends. Ellie got right into it hanging up bells and ornament, enjoying hot chocolate, and dancing to the Christmas music. It was a good night in our wee little home.

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