Deck The Halls

With boughs of holly. Fa Lalala lalalala. Tis the season to be jolly. Fa Lalala lalalala. Yes it is! Its quite the jolly festive time in the Grover household nowadays, especially with the anticipation of baby Jax (ha ha sounds a lot like Baby Jesus!) Our holidays have begun, and its so warm and sparkly at home:
We have our outside christmas lights on the balcony and around the windows, the wreath is on the door, and the poinsettias greeting our guests. On the inside, our mantle is glittering with more lights, the tree is exuding the spirit of christmas, our Christmas Clock is counting down the days, and our stockings (including Jax's) are hanging by the fire. Proudly, we did all this in the last week!

It all started last weekendwith CDM's annual Christmas Walk. Our little town threw a street party with lots of food, drinks, a band on every corner, and people just kind of strolled down the sidewalk of PCH and hopped around from restaurant and bar. This year was a huge turn-out, they even had a santa taking pics with kids. We left our kid at home with the babysitter for the first part of it so we could go over to our newly married friends Griffin & Jane's annual Ugly Christmas Sweater pre-party brunch. Then later in the afternoon Taji came by to say hi to everyone and we headed home while dada hit the local bars and partied on with everyone else:



This last Saturday we took Taj to pick out his Christmas tree; we just love the smell of a real noble fir in the home despite the messies. We took this family pic by the Grand Wagoneer, can you see our tree on the top of the car?
Then just in time for the holiday season, Taj got his 2nd haircut by the same lady who cut it the first time. So funny our little boy has his own stylist! She does an excellent job and Taji always has fun "flying" the planes. Look at Mr. Handsome with his short 'do, very proper for the holidays!

Since Baby Jax was nowhere in sight and mama was feeling good, we decided to continue our Christmas spirit by taking Taj to Disneyland for the 1st time on Sunday. Since he is older now, and so observant and captivated by all the Christmas decorations and lights, we thought it would be fun to show him the grand display of decorations only Disney knows how to do. Plus, Brad and I have been wanting to go to Disneyland during the holiday season for this exact reason. We planned to make an evening out of it, to see the sights and sounds, ride a few of the family storybook rides, watch their christmas parade, have a yummy dinner under the twinkling lights of the princess castle, and make our way home after their fireworks display. We even made plans to meet up with our friends, the Jacobsen Family. We got there just in time to see that last half of the parade, but it was completely impossible to find the Jacobsens! :

Then, benounced to our expectations and hopes, we got caught up in the BIGGEST crowd. Seems like everyone else had the same idea as us. There were SO many people it was very difficult to walk, to see anything..... to enjoy ourselves. We attempted to see the "Small World" light display and even got caught up in the snowfall at the castle...... however, we were miserable so fortunately Disney refunded us our tickets (we were there for less than an hour).

In the end, we actually got to see the holiday highlights of the theme park (along with the annoying and overwhelming crowd and chaos,) and it was all free thanks to Disney's hospitality. We walked back through Downtown Disney and had the most fun there. We grabbed dinner, Taji loved running around the fountain, and we took him into the huge Lego store where he picked out his favorite Lego set Santa will put under the tree for him. I think he enjoyed himself the most at the Lego store, playing with the legos!:
On our way home, we actually got to see the fireworks, so I guess we were somewhat successful in our Disney plan of the night! I told Taji this visit didn't count, so his first official Disneyland excursion will be sometime soon, and on a weekday when its not packed, so we can relish in the beauty, imagination, and fun the park has to offer. Plus, Taj will be a bit older so he will probably be more into it anyhow...... can't say the same for Baby Jax, but he'll like people watching and hearing his older bro giggle!