Holidays

Chase participated in "Movember" this year, and one weekend went through several stages of facial hair:

The goatee:

 The handlebar/creeper:

 Mustache and soul patch:

Just  mustache:

 I was more than a little relieved when he shaved it all off in time for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is not complete without a visit from Santa!

I have more pictures from Thanksgiving, which you will see later in the post. It's too late at night to organize all of this.

Linkedin had a Christmas party at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It was "Clue" themed. We went as Mrs. Peacock and Professor Plum, respectively.

 Have I ever mentioned that Jane likes exploring in bushes? Because she does. If I ever lose track of her at a park, or at church, or on a walk, I can bet she's buried herself in bushes somewhere.

 Christmas outifts

We went to the Fight Hunger bowl game after Christmas. BYU had a rather unfortunate loss, but it was fun to attend nonetheless!

 Reading bedtime stories with Grandpa Baldwin

 Ah, here's Thanksgiving!

Later that week we went to a Mexican restaurant with live Mariachi music. So much fun!

 Back to Christmas, we saw the Bethlehem reenactment in Santa Clara,

 picked out a tree,

 and saw the giant, two-story gingerbread house at the Fairmont in San Francisco.

 We also spent a day visiting my grandparents and Uncle David.

 Thanksgiving again! Photo credits go to Laura and Austin

Jumping in leaves

Playing in the backyard

 Homemade apple pie

 aaaaaand back to Christmas!

Here's another shot from when we went ice skating. Liv was so proud of herself for going in the middle all alone. I love that we were ice skating underneath palm trees in 60 degree weather.

 Visiting St. Nick

 Jane is such an independent spirit. While the other cousins played together, I'd often find her off by herself, playing or reading quietly.

 Christmas morning!

 Cousins in matching jammies

 We took the older girls to the Nutcracker

 And we visited The Tech museum, where they had a Star Wars display, complete with original costumes.

Loved it.

Chase had a few days off work and came grocery shopping with me. With an extra adult around, I braved the mini-carts at Trader Joe's. Jane was in heaven, and all business.

 And lastly, here thy are holding hands on a walk this morning. These girls fight sometimes, but they also play together so well. I'm so happy they have each other!

And that, in a nutshell, is what we've been up to these past two months. It's been grand!