Thanksgiving Day and our First Day of Christmas

This year, we started our day at home watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. I always enjoy watching the parades, and I'm glad Ella does too! She loved all the singing and dancing, the music and the bands. She kept pointing out all her favorite character floats. That afternoon, we enjoyed Thanksgiving lunch with Mom's side.

This was Heather and Kaleb's first year as a married couple (as a couple actually!!!), and they decided to spend the day with the HUGE White family:) I know lots of people travel for the holidays, and most families are spread across different cities or states. Since the Worley/Lawson families all live in town, we've never had to split up! It seemed strange not to have H and K there! I guess that's part of growing up, huh? :)

Here are a few pictures we took at Thanksgiving...before all the eating.

Of course, our attempt is always to get a good picture of the four of us. Sometimes, the 3, 4 or 20 takes before the good one end up being worth just as much.
Our typical 2-year-old...can't stand in one spot for more than 2 seconds
I love how many pictures we have of the side of Harper's face! She's ALWAYS watching her big sister:)
Ella and her Grandma enjoying an after-dinner tea party
After lunch, we went to the Fantasy of Trees to kick off the Christmas season. It gets more fun every year. Ella got to participate in some of the games and crafts they have set up for kids this year. I remember taking a family picture there last year. We didn't even know about Harper yet. It's crazy to think about how much Ella has grown since then and that she now has a baby sister! Even harder to realize that Harper will be old enough to participate in the festivities next year....they are growing so fast!
Surprisingly, not a huge fan of the carousel. I guess it was a little overwhelming. She tried it though!
Heather and Harper watching us ride the carousel:
Decorating cookies!
They had face painting, but Ella wanted to get fer hand painted instead!
She was so proud of her candy cane:)

Harper's favorite things

I didn't realize how early a baby can become attached to an object, but here is Harper's lovie:) She loves this giraffe/blanket. It always seems to soothe her, especially when she's fighting sleep.
This purple hippo is attached to Harper's playmat
While she might not look like it here, Harper loves being able to sit up. She usually just watches whatever Ella happens to be doing but loves playing with these little toys also
Her face cracks me up here! She looks very suspicious of this bee:)

These boots were made for walking

So, we got Ella some new boots...and she loves them! She asks me to put them on all the time, even when we're home. She just loves to stomp around in them:) Here's an attempt to get a picture, not that she would stand still!
Harper has boots, too:)

just like Daddy

This is one of Ella's new things lately. Stephen's been gone a lot more recently with his crazy holiday schedule, and I think she just misses him! Just about every day, she wonders into our closet and comes out with something of his, usually a hat. Sometimes, she even tries to walk around in his shoes;) What can i say? This girl LOVES her Daddy!

Faith In Focus

Our friend and extremely talented photographer, Casey, spent an afternoon with us back in October. I'm sure a cranky newborn and an uncooperative almost-two-year-old who has a very short attention span weren't easy to photograph, but we came away with some amazing shots! Our original goal was newborn portraits of Harper, but she managed to get some great ones of Ella and all four of us as well.

Check her out at faithinfocusphoto.com

Here are some of my favorites:











Thanks again, Casey! These are priceless!

close-ups

This might be my favorite picture of them to date. Taken 9-9-10. Harper was only 3 weeks old, Ella 20 months.
Harper: 6 weeks
Ella: 21 months (lashes from Daddy)
(hair from Mommy)
Harper: 10 weeks
I love her crazy hair!

Ella aka SASSY: 21 months:
Harper: 11 weeks
Ella: 22 months, love that profile
Ella: 23 months (Daddy decided to see what happens when the jets are turned on during a bubble bath!)

Storytime with Ella

A time of hot chocolatey mornings and toasty marshmellow evenings:)

For the unfortunate ones who don't recognize the title of this post, it was taken from Winnie the Pooh:) He is Ella's absolute favorite right now!

Fall is our favorite time of year! Especially after the ridiculously HOT summer we had, it's so nice when the cooler whether starts rolling in!

Below are several pictures of fun things we did in October.

I don't use photoshop or anything, (in fact, I really don't even know how to use my camera other than the automatic setting), but every now and then, I get a picture where the color is so good, it looks like it could have been edited (especially of the girls' eyes!)

She looks so cute when she runs...check out those hands:)
Ella has seemed so big to us since we brought Harper home. It's when we get out and about that we realize how tiny she still is!
Another park day:
That's pretty much all Harper does when we go to the park:)

I'm so glad we live so close to the mountains. Here's a few in the Smokey's: