Festival of trees

I love the festival of trees. If you have never been, you should go. It is awesome. It is really not a bad price either. $4 for an adult. Less for children, free under 2. It is over now. It ended on Saturday. The best part about it is that all the money goes to primary childrens hospital. There are thousands of trees, decorated and set up through out the whole South towne expo center. People start planning for these trees and gather things for them through out the entire year. Some are all bought, others are hand made. This year one family's tree included a entire life long Santa clause collection of a relitive who had passed on. The tree was selling for $3500. That was one of the most expensive trees but most sell for at least $500. Again it all goes to primary childrens. They have other things there as well besides trees. They have delicious scones and cinnamon rolls! YUM! They have entertainment, a little shop to buy mostly hand made crafts and stuff, door decorations, and my favorite.... the ginger bread houses. WOW! I cannot believe the talent that go into some of these things. It is wonderful. My husbands family usually donates a tree every year. This year they took a break but I think they missed it. I hope they plan to do it next year because I really want to help. Here are some pictures of our day at the festival.

This tree was made of glass. It had lights behind each leaf and it danced to the music that was playing. Very cool.

This is our family picture with the snow man. Tyler got a little bored and fell asleep. This ginger bread castle was HUGE! You cancompare it with the people standing behind it. I cannot imagine how much ginger bread they used.This was one of my favorite gingerbread houses. I just thought it looked cool. They had a awesome cabin gingerbread house but my picture turned out fuzzy. It was my favorite. Very detailed.

Tomorrow we are making gingerbread houses with my sister and her family. If only we had this kind of talent.

Also, we had our ward christmas party last Friday evening. It was a Christmas morning theme. We all wore our PJs and had a yummy breakfast meal for dinner. This is becomming a tradition in our ward and it is so much fun. We also had a visit from Santa Clause. I'm not sure if that was a good or bad thing. I'm not sure one child was smiling while sitting on his lap. Those that dared were not very sure of him. Most were screaming their heads off. Here are a few pictures of Tyler with Santa.....