All The Christmas Things

 It's the holiday season! And I am loving it! Sure my to do list gets long, but crossing all the things off of it always feels so good. I'm a list maker. Lists bring me a weird joy.

 Thanks to COVID the Temple Square lights, that we always go see with Kyle's family, were virtual this year so Mel took us all to see the Christmas in Color lights instead! First we stopped by Grandpa Bowen's house to see him for what would be the last time and sing him a couple Christmas Carols, ate dinner at Cocolitos, stopped for some ice cream at Culvers then drove through the Christmas in Color lights. Kasen was loving it cause he got to sit on Kyle's lap and "drive the car without even having a drivers license!" 

Kasen let us know that his favorite Christmas music is Trans Siberian Orchestra. He loves when it comes on the radio and was telling Tai all about the instruments he can hear when they play. "This is a piano, that is the drums, this is a guitar and this is a rock and roll guitar!!" Haha I was pretty impressed. His other favorite Christmas song is "Santa Claus is Coming to Town"

That morning the Bishopric brought Santa by on a golf cart to hand out a little bag of treats to the kids in lieu of a ward Christmas party this year.

We also drove by a house with their holiday lights display dancing to music. The kids loved it!

Kasen and Tai definitely earned their Christmas tree ornaments this year! We've about exhausted all we can do with these 2 characters by meeting them at Disneyland, dressing up as them for Halloween and each having themed birthday parties.

For this years friend/neighbor/teacher gifts this year I made this peppermint muddy buddy Grinch mix that I found on Pinterest! I still had the red vinyl from cutting out red K&A letters to put on hot chocolate cups at our wedding reception. I was also in charge of getting the Young Women's Christmas gifts and thought they turned out super cute too!

I don't ever remember writing a letter to Santa growing up and I like the idea of not writing lists of things that you expect other people to give to you, but Kasen and Tai asked me if they could write letters to Santa after I told them we probably wouldn't see him this year. So we did it! Kasen wants Hot Shot from Rescue Bots Transformers and Tai wants Elsa III (they think the Frozen short films are Frozen III and IV). She also like Whirl from Rescue Bots, but she cannot actually say Whirl. It sounds like "Will" so it took us a while to figure out what in the world she was talking about. Anyways, we got the cutest personalized letters back from Santa at the North Pole! Totally worth it.

Tai has found a new buddy to twirl and sing with because the Christmas bear I got back in 1992 still plays Christmas songs! So Tai twirls with the Christmas bear while singing Jingle Bells and it's adorable.

Saturday night we had a 4Gold Christmas Party where we got to wear our Christmas sweaters. We had dinner and treats and played Sequence!

Monday night we took the kids to see The Polar Express movie at the movie theater. It was Kohen's first time going to the movie theater and he did awesome! I personally forgot how creepy that movie is, but I still like the quote, "Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can't see." We came home and had hot chocolate and then turned on Elf while we fell asleep underneath the Christmas tree.

Wednesday we went to Grandpa Albert Bowen's funeral. (Melanie's dad) Kyle had been exposed to Covid at work so we didn't go to the viewing the night before and the next morning Kyle hurried up to Salt Lake at 10am to get a rapid Covid test. Luckily it was negative so we hurried over to the funeral, making it just in time for Kyle to give the family prayer.

Later Kyley and Jordan were over and we had a very special visitor! My kids didn't get to see Santa Claus this year, but I think the Grinch was even better. He was HILARIOUS and Kasen was loving it! "I have seen your movie! I have seen your movie!"

Coming up the stairs he said, "I cannot even believe he is real! I did not see that coming!"

Later Kasen told me that he thinks the Grinch had his big heart.

Chandler Fausett's Grinch is probably better than if Jim Carry had been here himself. I love the Grinch. New best Christmas memory ever.

 Thanks everyone that's shared the Christmas fun with us so far!