The Princess and her train

As stated earlier Linnea loves all things princess and all things trains. Actually, she loves all things pretty and all things mechanical. And as a result of this dual passion her Christmas gifts unintentionally fell into the the theme of "princess and trains".

We really want to encourage her love for the mechanical. It is not that we don't care about her love for all things princess it is that we aren't so much concerned about it being something that she might struggle to keep. So Joe came up with the idea of getting her an electric train set that would be his and her's project. He would have her help him build a table for it, and they would slowly build a miniature train village (complete with a princess castle). We lucked out and found a GREAT deal on one at Costco complete with some track, the controls, and a steam engine (L's preferred engine) and all the cars. Joe went to the library and checked out a book on train set design, found one that would work for their project, and was able to order some extra track rather cheaply from amazon.

We waited till the excitement of Christmas morning wore down, before Joe announced to L that there was one more gift-a gift for them to share. She squealed in absolute delight when Joe got out the electric set, and seemed to understand the project in general. They set up a basic loop in the living room, and Joe taught her how to work the controls as well as how to slowly add cars to the engine. They both spent more time than I thought humanly possibly just watching the train go around the loop and adjusting the speed. I will try to make sure document their project as they go.

Checking out the train-she was especially drawn to the yellow car.

Listening intently as Joe explains the project.

Squealing in happiness at the prospect of it.

Telling Daddy how to get it out of the box to set it up.

Assisting ever so carefully in getting the tracks set up.

 Watching as the train backs up to pick up the last car, the caboose.

And the caboose is attached! They both look so serious about it.

Watching as the train is coming around the corner.

And there it is. Seriously they did this for over an hour. But it was rather cute, and I did take some video of the event.