Festival of Trees 2011.

This post is mainly pictures. I love the Festival of Trees and I take a million pictures while I am there. I then have a hard time picking out which ones to share.

First off, before I get to the Festival of trees, for the first time I got some Christmas clothing for Ayla this year. I usually only do this for Halloween but I couldn't resist some of the cute Christmas stuff.

Here is the first thing I bought. This cute snowflake outfit! I will show her 2 Christmas shirts that me and my sister, Marion got her in later posts. I just wanted to show this one because Ayla wore the shirt to Festival of Trees.

Before we went to the Festival of Trees we ate at Arctic Circle.

Here is Ayla eating some of my Egg Nog shake.

She had a lot of fun playing on the playground while we were there.

Fun!!

Now for the Festival of Trees.

The first tree we ever saw was, Marion's friend, Brynn's tree. Brynn died earlier this year while riding her bike. She was hit by a car. She was a nurse in the same unite as my sister at the U of U hospital. I loved how they had quotes on the presents that Brynn lived by. I couldn't believe when I went to her funeral, how much this girl did in her short life. The cool thing was we had just gotten to the Festival of Trees and were heading to the restrooms when Marion suddenly stop and said, "Brynn has a tree!" We were not expecting it but it caught Marion's eye right off. She didn't even know Brynn had a tree.

I love red, sliver and white trees! Our tree is red and sliver. It has red bows all over it.

Here are some of the red, sliver and white trees I liked.

I thought this snowman one was adorable!

I loved this one!

I really liked the top of this one!

Now for the other trees I liked.

This tree belonged to the two younger sisters of a girl that my friend, Amanda watches.

This tree was just so beautiful! I really loved the tree skirt!

This one reminded me and my sister, Marion of her wedding we did in August (something I still have to post.) It had some of the exact material we used for her wedding.

I really liked how they hung the ornaments off the frame.

Marion and Ayla as we were walking around.

I thought this one was different. It was the "Eiffel Tower" made into a tree.

I like this one because it had all 4 seasons on it.

I loved the "Up" tree! I loved how Kevin was sticking out of it! So cute! It even had the mailbox off to the side.

This one was a "Tangled" tree.

The painting was my favorite thing about that tree!

They had "A Christmas Story" tree! Hilarious!

Now for the trees I thought were the most amazing.

This one was my favorite!

I thought the bed was unbelievable! Someone had to have made it by hand. Not to mention it was a Mickey and Minnie tree! I so love Disney!

I loved how this one had a tower of presents leaning into the tree!

This one was just huge! The dog house was giant! This one actually had a ski lift with it. I liked this one because I love "The Peanuts!"

I couldn't believe this one had a piano with it!

This one was just gorgeous! It had a beautiful chandelier hanging from the arch but you can't see it because of the flash of the camera is reflecting off of it.

I loved this white set up! It was beautiful! It reminded me of my friend, Ann. She loves things white.

Now for some of the smaller trees.

An "Oreo" tree!

I love Oreo's! They are my favorite! I have a friend who used to pay me with Oreo's to watch her little girl because she couldn't afford much at the time.

This "Rudolph" tree was adorable!

A "Nightmare Before Christmas" tree!

I love "The Nightmare Before Christmas!"

This one was interesting. It was upside down!

That's all the trees I am going to share.

Now onto the gingerbread houses. I love to see the gingerbread houses because it is a little like decorating cakes and I am a cake decorator.

Here is a "Nightmare Before Christmas" gingerbread house.

They had a "Tangled" one.

This one was amazing! It was our capital building.

This "Madagascar" one was well done! It was so cute!

I loved "The Peanuts" one!

This cabin one was well done.

This one made me laugh!

And last but not least, the "Up" house! Too cute!

While we were there Ayla got to see Santa.

Here is the picture I took.

Here is the pictures we paid for.

I love these two pictures of Ayla with Santa!

The funny thing was, I asked Ayla what she was going to ask Santa for and she said, "A teddy bear." As she said this, she was pointing at this huge teddy bear that had to of cost $300. I was mortified but then she added, "but I want a small one." I was relived!

We had a great time at the Festival of Trees!

We actually went to this at the beginning of the month but as usual I am behind. I do have 2 or more posts on Christmas.

Our Thanksgiving!

I want to share our Thanksgiving!

First, I am going to share our decor. It is not much but I am starting to get more Thanksgiving decorations. Usually I get one decoration for each holiday but I got a few things this year. They were all on sale and I couldn't resist.

The first thing I bought, is the wreath. It was originally a $40 wreath, I got it for $16. I then bought the garland, which was originally $24, I got it for $8.

Then I got this pumpkin for $6 and it was originally $12.

I got this turkey for free from my sister, Marion for my late birthday present!

She got it for 50% off. I think it was originally $40.

I then hung my little scare crow broom where the witch was for Halloween.

I then purchased this cute "Give Thanks" pillow, from my friend, Leah. I so love it!

I hung our "Harvest" sign where the "Bat Motel" sign was.

I got out our turkey Ty.

Now I am going to share what I made for Thanksgiving!

I made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. They turned out awesome! A lot better than the first time I tried to make them. I was so impressed!

Here they are not bake.
I was crossing my fingers that they would turn out.

Then they came out like this!
I was pleased!

Here is the plate of them. They were really good and easy!

Here is the recipe:

1 spice cake mix

1 15 oz can of pumpkin

1 12 oz package of chocolate chips

Preheat oven at 350. Mix all ingredients together. Spoon cookies onto creased cookie sheet. Bake for 15-18 minutes.

And that is all folks! That easy! You don't even need eggs!

And of course I made Oreo pie!
I make it every year.

And I made the candy yams and corn.

This year we had Thanksgiving at our house. I loved it! My family came and some of Kurt's came. It made it very easy for us. We didn't have to squeeze in two family dinners this year.

The food! Yummy!

My sister-in-law, Carolyn. She is my brother, Robert's wife.

My daddy!

You can see behind him that we set up 2 tables in our kitchen.

At the first table we have:

Lane, my mom, my sister, Marion, my uncle, Ruel and his wife Denise.

At the other table we had my brother, Robert and my uncle, Ernie.

Ayla just kept running all over the place eating from my plate and her aunt, Marion's plate.

We had some people in the living room with trays.
This Aaron and my friend, Melissa.

Here I am with my sister-in-law, Krista. She is Kurt's sister.

Then me with my other mom!
This is Kurt's mom.

One with my daddy!

The desserts! Yummy!

One with my sister, Marion.

Ayla with her Oreo she had been wanting all day! Happy girl!

One with my hubby, Kurt!

We had a great time with our family and friends and after everyone left we read from...

our Thankful Jar.

As we read them I was surprised how much I repeated myself.
Some of the main things I was thankful for were...

Spending time with family

Time spent playing with Ayla.

Getting rest that I needed.

The most crazy one was, I was thankful my sister, Marion wasn't killed on Thanksgiving. While she was on her way to work, she was driving on a on ramp and a car was heading the wrong direction. The car tried to have a head on with her and I mean he ment too. He must have been wanting to commit susicde or something. Marion called the cops. Later, Marion talked to her coworker (who drives the same direction) to see if she saw a car pulled over. She told Marion, "Yes and they had him hand cuffed." We were very lucky that day and we all felt thankful nothing serious happened to Marion or anyone else.

It was a great Thanksgiving! I have a lot to be thankful for!