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!

2013 school picture

Working on my goals

November and December are always incredibly busy for me, and this year was no exception. I did, however, manage to complete a few more of my goals during that time period. (To be honest, I'm not sure quite when I finished some of these. I may have even already recorded them. Don't worry about it.)

5. Go on a bike ride

I went on a nice ride around the neighborhood with my little brother and sister over Thanksgiving. It was lovely.

17. Eat at Five Guys

It's located right next to Panera and Pinkberry, so I always opt out. But one night we tried it, and it was pretty good!

39. Do 25 real push-ups in a row

You guys, this one is huge. This one took me months to do, seeing as I was starting from ONE push-up. It took me a couple months of consistency to get up to 12, and then after that it went quite a lot faster. I kept it up for a couple of weeks after I hit my goal....and haven't done any at all since then. Whoops.

42. Go ice skating

50. Organize my filing cabinet

This is one that I did awhile ago, so I may have already mentioned it. All I can say is, it feels so good to know where everything is, and also to have a place to put the zillions of papers that I get that can't immediately be recycled!

54. Find a form of oatmeal that I enjoy eating.

That would be baked oatmeal. 

55. Build up food storage

Christmas this year was food storage. Hooray for preparedness!

61. Attend a Bollywood class

I really enjoyed this class. It's a shame it's too pricey to be practical for me right now. 

97. Finish reading The Book of Mormon as a family

We finished just before Thanksgiving and had a party to celebrate. And then started right back up again at 1 Nephi. The girls only pay attention about 30% of the time, but at least it's forming a habit, right?

That's 44/101 as I head into the new year. I've got a few more in the works right now, and I'm really hoping to get several of the organization-type goals crossed off within the next few months. Wish me luck!

October in pictures

In October...

 My brother Perry came to visit. We spent a fun day in San Francisco in Golden Gate park...

...and at Mama's.

Liv lost another tooth

 We went to a pumpkin patch with their cousins

 Jane was fearless and managed all sorts of bounce houses that I thought were too big for her.

 We got pizza afterward

 Livia had her first school field trip...and enjoyed showing off her math prowess and gardening knowledge to the docent. I didn't even know she knew those things. It was equal parts embarrassing and gratifying.

 I went on a fun weekend trip to Utah for my cousin Will's wedding, and for my cousin Annie's missionary farewell.

Here are my brothers waiting outside the temple

My mom and not-so-little sister

 Will and Jenn

At the reception

 So many of the Fitt cousins were there!

We had a pumpkin carving fest

 The girls and I painted our toes purple for Leah

 Jane enjoyed the car wash

 I was reminded how much I love our neighborhood

 Jane crawled out of her crib during nap time, but fell asleep anyway.

 Fall festival at Livia's school

We carved some pumpkins of our own

Liv wielded the knife for the first time

 Livia had a mini recital in ballet class the day before Halloween

 Jane and I spent a morning wandering around Stanford

 Love that campus

 Halloween parade at school

 Ready for trick-or-treating!

 Some more cousin time

And Livia decorated the house in white paper towels, then played "church" all afternoon one day.