festival of trees

Last week the kids, myself and my mom went to lunch and then to the Festival of Trees. Over 800 trees are donated (often in honor of someone who has passed away) and for sale, with the proceeds going directly to the Primary Children's Hospital. The festival also includes gingerbread houses, wreaths and play houses for sale. There's entertainment, food and crafts for kids. My girls loved it and had so much fun trying to choose their favorite tree. Sarah got a bit sad when the person who passed away was a baby--she really hated that part.

There were some incredibly creative trees and I could easily post 100 pics with the variety they had! There were trees made out of rocks, paint brushes, umbrellas and tiered wooden carousels. Of course most were actual trees (although artificial) but decorated with very clever themes and almost always presented with a ton of stuff--gifts, furniture, framed art and even camping supplies!

After making our way through the maze of trees we watched some dancers and then let the girls choose two crafts each--they each wanted a wand with tinsel streamers on the end (very girly). We have both of our Christmas trees up (the "grown up" tree with glass ornaments upstairs and the "kids tree" with wooden ornaments downstairs) and you can see the kids tree on the post below. I'll post a pic of the other tree soon.

Grandma with Emma and Sarah at the Festival of Trees.

A cowboy themed tree. These trees run into the thousands of dollars and who ever bought this one also got the characters and horses off to the side.

Often times businesses buy the trees, but also individuals. This tree came with all this Santa bakeware, ceramic cookie jars, etc. One tree came with a flat screen TV.

This tree was my favorite!

This is a close up detail of a 4' wooden tiered "tree" and on each level is a different nativity set--it was stunning!

We all liked this soda fountain/malt shoppe tree.

Another close up of a tree decorated with blue and silver origami cranes.

This tree was more like a chandelier, but my girls liked it.

Sarah with her favorite tree (the girl loves blue lately).

These gorgeous ornaments were tatted by a lady in my ward. This is probably my second favorite.

This tree was done by the wood carvers group that my step-dad belongs to. All the ornaments are hand carved and it also comes with a wooden doll house & cars.

I thought this "Grinch stole Christmas" tree was so clever!

This entire 5 foot tree is made entirely out of fondant, including the train on the ground!

Morgan clapping at the end of a performance--she really loved the dancing!

The house from the movie Up! made out of gingerbread and the balloons are jelly beans.

Ok, this one was amazing! It's 4 feet tall and constructed by cutting the gingerbread into "bricks" and then layering & includes "stained glass" windows. It took 100 lbs of flour, 30 lbs of sugar and 20 lbs of butter and sold for $1,700!

This is a gingerbread bird house--very pretty.

I love classic gingerbread houses like this one. My second favorite (not shown) are the "thatched roof" barn type made with shredded wheat, pretzels, etc.

This is the house from the movie The Nightmare Before Christmas! So, so creative--all the attention to details and the painstaking hours--sheesh! There was also a gingerbread eight-car train, and outhouse and a "Whoville" city...I could go on and on.