Beginning of the Holidays

It took some serious convincing, but eventually Josh (always the salesman) persuaded me to stop in NYC on our way down to Philadelphia for Thanksgiving so we could take Anna to FAO Schwartz and World of Disney. Figuring it might be our last chance to do anything like that for a while (thanks to the immanent arrival of baby Jack), I gave in. I'm not sure Anna will remember any of it, but we definitely had fun watching her check everything out. At FAO they had an entire corridor devoted to princess wear which practically gave her a toddler heart attack. She was also super impressed with the Barbie fashion runway. Such a girl!

Our Thanksgiving trip turned into a bit of a whirlwind, as usual, but we did get a chance to catch up with a few friends, even if it was only for an hour or two. I snapped this cute photo of Anna and Eowyn playing together. I still can't believe how well they get along... very little "mine, mine, mine" when the two of them get together. (Maybe that's because Anna knows that her good behavior will be rewarded with Aunt Lissa's insanely rich homemade chocolate cookies?).

Since we got back, we've managed to get the whole house decorated for Christmas and our Christmas cards might actually make it into the mail before week's end (fingers crossed). We also managed to make a "perfect" gingerbread house at the annual gingerbread party. This was the first year Anna could really participate in the construction which forced me to relinquish my type-A tendencies and allow her to slap anything anywhere she wanted. Josh is now in the process of slowly eating all the chocolate pieces off our confectionery creation. Not sure that was the idea, but whatever.