Jubilee of Trees 2013

The Jubilee of Trees is an event that goes on every year here in St. George where you can browse designer trees, wreaths, and gingerbread houses as well as take your kids to see Santa, play games, and make crafts. All the proceeds of the event benefit our local hospital. We went last year and it has since become a wonderful tradition!

The festival is put on before Thanksgiving because each of the trees are auctioned off for people to display in their homes throughout December. So technically, all of this happened before my previous Thanksgiving post, but I didn't want to post anything Christmas-y before I had even talked about Thanksgiving!

So, we had a great time as usual at the Jubilee this year. When we got there Vincent decided he wanted to see Santa first (of course) but when we got there, there was a long line. So we decided to let the kids do some games & crafts while we waited.

So, first we let the kids play the fishing game, where Eva got a little stuffed panda bear and Vincent got a punch balloon. Whoo!

Then we moved on to decorating cookies

Then we sat down and watched a little bit of some kinda Smurfs X-Mas movie while the kids ate their cookies. Then Vincent wanted to get his face painted, but I knew Eva wouldn't like that so I took her to make some sand art instead.

Eva did a great job!

I wasn't there for Vincent's face painting because I was helping Eva, but apparently this is supposed to be snowflakes? With 5's next to them for some reason? No idea. But he seemed to like it. Anyway, then of course he saw Eva's sand art and absolutely insisted that he should make one too. So back to the sand art we went...

Vincent's turned out great too!

Then finally it was time for the kids to see Santa!

Vincent asked Santa for a "bell like from Polar Express" (awwww), and Eva was too shy to say anything to him, but as soon as I placed her on his lap she immediately started cuddling his fur coat. It was soooo sweet!

Then it was time for looking at trees...

Max & Vincent's favorite tree

Marilyn Monroe tree

My favorite tree - made out of scraps of metal and chicken wire. Totally something I could have seen Max making!

Eva's favorite tree - the Island of Misfit Toys from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Those were only a few of some of the awesome trees we saw there! So cool! Then we looked at gingerbread houses...

Gingerbread lighthouse. Awesome!

Loved the water wheel on this one!

I think this one is supposed to be the North Pole village. Super cute!

Then we looked at wreaths...

Max & Eva walking into the wreath exhibit

Our favorite wreath - the monster wreath from Nightmare Before Christmas!

This one made me giggle, plus it was super cute!

And then we looked at the mini trees...

Peacock mini tree

The Frog Prince mini tree

It was tons of fun! I took quite a lot of pictures actually, but my camera died halfway through and so most of them were taken from my phone, which made most of them turn out blurry - it's hard to hold my phone still while taking pictures when I'm busy chasing 2 kids around lol!

Anyway, that was our Jubilee of Trees experience this year. It was such a great time and we are so looking forward to doing it again next year!

Thanks for stopping by!

The Smiths

Thanksgiving 2013

Our Thanksgiving was so great! We had an amazing time. Unfortunately we didn't have the time or the funds to plan a trip to Cedar to visit family this year. I'm a little bummed that I didn't get to see my side of the family this time around, but there is always X-Mas! But luckily for us, Max's side of the family was fine with traveling to see us for an early Thanksgiving on Wednesday! You know what that means - I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time ever!

Wow, it was crazy trying to put everything together in my tiny little kitchen! We had turkey, mashed potatoes, rolls, deviled eggs, potato salad, stuffing, mac & cheese, apple cider, egg nog, cranberry juice, chocolate mousse pie, apple pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, striped delight, and one peach cobbler that went horribly wrong lol! Needless to say, near the end I was getting a little overwhelmed. Luckily for me, my girls Brittney & Brett came to my rescue and helped me get it all done!

Once we finally got everything on the table, we chowed down! I am so sad that I didn't manage to get a pic of everyone eating - or the kids' table for that matter. But I was busy scarfing down some awesome food haha! It was a fabulous dinner, and when we were finally full we all sat around laughing and playing Nintendo Land.

It was great fun! The kids especially had a blast with it, and when they weren't playing games they would take a break to play with Sara's puppies that she brought with her. It made for lots of memorable moments! Another one of the most memorable from Thanksgiving was Max and Kenny's epic arm wrestle.

It was so fun cheering for them, hearing them grunt and groan in agony and watching their faces turn red haha! Ultimately, Kenny won with their right arms and Max won with their left. It was awesome! Each round lasted for quite a while - they are pretty evenly matched!

Alright, alright, moving on. The day after Thanksgiving Max happened to have yet another day with no school and no work. This never happens! It was amazing! So we decided to take advantage of the situation and use actual Thanksgiving to decorate the house for the Holidays.

The kids did SUCH a good job decorating the tree! I was so shocked! Vincent could reach way higher on the tree this year, and I didn't even have to teach Eva how to put ornaments on the tree - I just handed her one and she went over and did it! Crazy! I set a few ornaments aside for myself to put at the top of the tree where they couldn't reach, and it turned out amazing. They didn't even clump the ornaments together too much - they totally blew me away!

It was a great day that just totally flew by! We did the decorating, ate Thanksgiving leftovers, watched the movie "Planes" for the first time (sooo cute!), and then just spent some awesome quality time together at home as a family. It may sound cheesy, but these past couple of days have left my heart so full of joy. I feel so lucky to have the best family and friends in the world, and that I get to spend the rest of my life celebrating holidays with them!

Guess that's it for now - we have a busy few weeks ahead of us. Max has finals the 2nd week of December (wish him luck!), and we'll be getting things ready for X-Mas and planning a trip to Cedar to visit family for the holidays. So check back in soon! Thanks for stopping by!

The Smiths

Halloween 2013

Ok, once again I know this is a little late (ok maybe a lot late) but here's what we did for Halloween!

First thing we did was Vincent's first school carnival. It was actually called "Math Night" because even though everything was Halloween themed, the main goal was to go to as many classrooms as you can and play math games to earn tickets for prizes at the end. And let me tell you, everyone and their mother showed up - the school estimated that about 700 people were in attendance! So because I was busy maneuvering the kids through the crowded hallways and helping Vincent with the math games, I didn't get very many pictures - and the ones I did get were just with my phone and kind of blurry! Dang!

So these ones were taken after we had played the math games and were eating pizza in the cafeteria/gym. There was Halloween music blaring on the speakers and Eva was dancing to it instead of eating her pizza. Silly girl!

This one was when we were waiting in line for the prize counter. I wanted to get a picture of how PACKED the cafeteria was, but it turned out blurry so you can't even really tell! Oh well. After this we went out to the parking lot and did some trunk-or-treating. It was pitch black out there and there were SO many kids and not very many cars, so it was crazy! But still worth it - the kids thought it was quite an adventure!

The next Halloween thing we did was our normal traditions. Carving pumpkins, making ghost suckers, and playing Halloween bingo!! Normally it's just the 4 of us, but this time Max's sister Brittney and her boyfriend Broc were able to join us for the fun!

So first we carved pumpkins...

Brittney was a master at ducking out of all my shots. Darn it!

Vincent with his and Max's pumpkin.

Brittney & Broc's pumpkin

I didn't get any great pictures of mine and Eva's pumpkin, but here's a decent one of it with the other two.

Then we made ghost suckers!

Vincent's and Brittney's ghost suckers turned out soooo cute!

Broc's ghost is rocking out on a guitar and sporting a gold chain. Lol!

Mine was supposed to be a skull... Didn't quite turn out how I envisioned lol!

And Max helped Eva make a butterfly sucker. It turned out super cute, and obviously Eva couldn't wait to eat it!

Then we played Halloween bingo! Ok, technically we made our suckers and then put them in the fridge and played Halloween bingo before all the pictures above, but whatever! No one's keeping track!

Eva had all the luck with bingo this year! But as usual, it was a blast. We had tons of fun.

So then actual Halloween came, and really the only thing we did that day was go trick or treating!

Vincent went as Luigi. He got to wear his costume to school, which he was excited about! But he was even more excited before trick or treating because I finally let him wear his mustache!

Eva went as Little Red Riding Hood. She looked SOO adorable!

Max and I just wore our costumes from last year - which we didn't mind. They are sweet costumes lol.

The kids' Halloween candy haul.

After trick-or-treating we stayed home and handed out candy to the few trick-or-treaters that we got, watched the Great Pumpkin, and let the kids get a sugar high and run around like crazy people until they finally passed out. Then Max and I got to enjoy the leftover candy while we stayed up until midnight so he could be the first to wish me a happy birthday! Haha. It was a great Halloween.

I guess that was about it! We've got the Holiday season approaching, so hopefully I will have some more fun stuff to post soon, though I am sorry in advance if it takes me a while to get around to it. Thanks for stopping by!

The Smith Family