After Thanksgiving & Julia's dedication

The girls had a great time climbing on dad, playing Popeye with him, and generally piling on top of him...

On Sunday, we had Julia's baby dedication. We were glad they were able to fit the dedication in while mom & dad were here.

On Sunday afternoon, we decorated a gingerbread house. The girls really enjoyed putting the candy on the house to make it look beautiful (and I was very grateful for a 2nd set of hands to help).

Thanksgiving

Joe & Jenny (& their dog, Bliss) came up from Washington, DC to spend Thanksgiving with us. Chloe & Gracie absolutely loved spending time with them...wanting to sit by them at the table, and having a great time playing with them.

Here are Bliss and Julia looking out the window.

On Thanksgiving morning (while the turkey was cooking), we went out to a trail near us that runs along the Lehigh River. It was a cold morning, but nice to get out, stretch our legs, and let the dogs run free.

Then we came back home, for a nice Thanksgiving meal.

Our Fanning tradition, (when we were growing up) on Thanksgiving was to take a picture of each of the kids with mom (& then some family shots as well). It's fun to look through the Thanksgiving albums and watch the kids grow up, so we've continued that tradition with our family.

Unfortunately, we didn't get a good shot of our whole family...we took about 10 pictures, but this is the best we've got...

Here's the whole crew together.

Here's Grandmama & Grandaddy with the girls.

On Friday, we went for a walk around downtown Jim Thorpe. Here we are in the square (with the courthouse behind us and the girls on the huge piece of coal)

Here we are with the statue of Jim Thorpe (notice that Julia is looking at Jim Thorpe and not at the camera...she was fascinated by this huge man above us)

Before Thanksgiving...fun with Grandparents!!

We had a great time with family over Thanksgiving. Mom got to come up early to spend time with us, and she got to see what our day-to-day life is like (...crazy, busy, but fun...)

There was lots of time for reading...

And baking (Mom, Gracie, & Chloe made a good portion of our Thanksgiving meal together, plus some yummy sweets)

We had our first snow on the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Thankfully, it wasn't too much, so it didn't keep us from church (and it was gone by the afternoon).


Mom got to come to the girls' gymnastics classes with us. It was fun for them to get to show her all the things they're learning.

Then, on Tuesday, Dad came (he actually took an overnight bus from Boston to Jim Thorpe)

Here we are picking Chloe up from school.

Gracie loves to unlock the door for us whenever we get home (and it's actually a big help to me since I often have my hands full). She's very good at it!!

Dad was ready for a nap since he hadn't gotten much sleep on the bus, and Gracie was excited to lie down with him...he slept, but she was back up within a few seconds.