Divalicious

I just realized that I never blogged about the Festival of Trees.  I'm not sure why... it was such a great experience!  It's been a tradition in our family to go to the Festival of Trees... not every year but we've gone a lot.  This year we decided to donate a tree in honor/memory of my beautiful sister Becky.  We decided we wanted our colors to be bold and bright- pinks, greens, turquoise, purple- and we also decided on all things glittery!  Over the year we collected ornaments, ribbon, decorations, etc.  We needed the perfect name for our tree and all of its glittery goodness... DIVALICIOUS is what came to mind and we all instantly loved it!

We hauled everything up to the Sandy Expo Center and the decorating started!  It took us several hours but it was so amazing to watch everything come together so perfectly.  It was so much more emotional (in a good way) than I thought it would be.  I teared up multiple times throughout the day- mostly having fun memories of my sister and thinking that she probably would have been making fun of us-- she was much more the decorator/artist than any of us!  It was neat seeing grown men like my dad and my brother get involved and tying little pieces of string onto ornaments, using the hot glue gun, and not being afraid to have pink and purple glittery specks on their clothes!  My mom, of course, thinks of EVERYTHING and she had brought a cooler packed with diet coke and a box of Dunford doughnuts!

The most important part of the process is that all of the trees donated go up for auction and every penny is given to Primary Children's Hospital.  It was a little sad to walk away from the tree... I fell in love with our Divalicious wonder!  It was a good feeling knowing that our hardwork was benefitting such a great cause... it was a good feeling doing it in memory of such an amazing person- a sister, daughter, mother, aunt, wife, granddaughter, cousin, friend, nurse, and much more... it was a good feeling being surrounded by family and sharing our love for each other and our love for Becky.  I hope whoever "bought" our tree could feel the love and emotion that went into to!

And now... MEET DIVALICIOUS!!!

it was very merry.

wow... quite the haul!

santa was definitely here.

jodi's favorite treat to indulge on... sprinkles cupcake mix from williams & sonoma
we made the chocolate peppermint ones.... yum, yum, yum

love the gingerbread house kit from costco... includes everything and looks great!

Tis the Season!

I haven't had time to answer questions and rather than go back and catch up, I'll just go on from today!

19. Snow. Love it? Dread it? Tolerate it?
**I love the way it looks and I don't think it would be Christmas without it but I HATE driving in it and I don't dig the cold all that much. I do think it's fun to take the kids sledding and I enjoy skiing (even though I haven't been in years)!

More questions!

11. What's your favorite holiday goodie to make and share?
**I love to make fudge (but I mostly like to eat it, not share it)

12. What's your favorite Christmas song?
**I love Christmas music... I don't think I have one favorite song. I absolutely LOVE the new Josh Groban Christmas album. I love hearing my kids sing Christmas songs too.

13. When did you learn the truth about the "magic" of Christmas?
**What truth? I'm not sure I understand the question... Christmas is still very magical! (Althouth I did always find it funny the Santa Claus had the exact same handwriting as my mom... wink, wink)

14. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
**Jammies! I love Christmas Eve jammies. We also open a family DVD to watch on Christmas Eve.

I got behind on Christmas questions...

8. What's on the top of your tree?
**A glittery, sparkly silver star

9. Do you have a nativity displayed through the holidays?
**Depends on the year. I have two nativity sets that I love. This year I opted for no nativities because we have a puppy who would destroy it!

10. Candy Canes, traditional or flavored? OR Chocolate Covered Cherries?
**I hate chocolate covered cherries so we'll nix that one immediately. I don't care too much for candy canes either but if I were to eat one, it would be flavored.

Christmas Questions!

I've seen this on a few other blogs and since I'm a LEMMING, I'm joining the masses and copying it too. Basically it's a countdown to Christmas with a new question each day... except today I will answer multiple questions to catch up!

1. Colored lights or white lights on your house or not at all?
** I prefer colored lights on the outside of my house.

2. Hot chocolate or egg nog?
**Hot chocolate for sure! My new cocoa latte machine is the BEST invention ever!

3. What's your favorite holiday dish?
**Homemade fudge (maybe this isn't your typical "dish" but it's holiday and it's on a dish and I love it)

4. Does Santa wrap the presents or just sit them under the tree?
**A little of both.

5. Do you hang mistletoe?
**Nope

6. When do you put up your decorations?
**Usually I decorate the day after Thanksgiving. However, it's December 7th and I still haven't put up one thing. Hopefully this weekend!

7. What's your favorite holiday tradition?
**My goodness... how on earth am I supposed to pick just one? I absolutely love Christmas Eve though. The kids get new jammies, we read lots of Christmas stories, maybe watch a Christmas flick and spend good time as a family. I also love Christmas books and I try to get at least one new one each year.

Cub Scouts!

Jackson is officially a Cub Scout!!! Isn't he so handsome? I cannot believe he's so big. He went to scouts this afternoon and absolutely LOVED it!