"UP" on the Roof Top

Our Festival of the Trees tree is finally done. We are so happy with it and so grateful to all those that helped. Thanks to many creative and talented people we think it turned out pretty good. We are crossing our fingers that it makes lots of money for Primary Children's Medical Center.

Some of the cools stuff around the tree.

Jeff C., Jessica, and mom working hard on putting the tree together.

Curtis Bryce is fighting cancer and has such an "UP"lifting attitude. The tree is dedicated to him and his family. Keep fighting Curtis.

Kevin hiding in the tree and the house topper.

All done. It was so fun. Thanks everyone!

Festival of the Trees

My family has decided to do a tree for the Festival of the Trees who's proceeds will go to Primary Children's Medical Center. This is a huge undertaking. If you have ever been to the festival, the trees are incredible. My family isn't the craftiest bunch, but with your help we think we can pull off a pretty amazing tree. We are keeping the theme a secret (because it will be so awesome we don't want others to steal our ideas), but I'll give you a hint, what does my family like more than anything?? Disney of course! If you would like to donate any time, talent, or make a cash donation we would really appreciate it. We are dedicating the tree to my cousin's step brother who is battling cancer right now and has such an amazing attitude. He is an inspiration.

A Work in Progress

After living in our home for 10 years we are finally going to tackle the backyard and make it our dream yard. The people we bought our home from loved to garden. I mean REALLY loved to garden. Half of the backyard is dirt. Well, having children and a life for that matter, have made it impossible for me to keep up with so we are doing a long overdue overhaul. See that big pile of dirt that goes from one end of the yard to the other? That was held up by ugly, rotten, tipping over railroad ties. Those went bye-bye one at a back breaking time. That took about a month since we are too cheap to pay someone else to do it. Now most of the dirt goes. This will be a long process (remember the to cheap to pay someone part) but one I'm looking forward to being over. We are hoping people will want this lovely dirt and come to take it away. Then the part where it doesn't matter how cheap you are it's going to cost a pretty penny, a retaining wall. I love having a yard that has a little depth and dimension and isn't just flat, but why in the world does cement poured into roughed up squares have to cost so dang much? I'm trying to talk Mike into boulders but he's convinced they will cost more and be really hard to get into the yard. I guess we'll cross that bridge when the dirt is gone.

Ethanism of the Day

"I don't want to get married. Well, maybe. I'll just skip the kissing part."

Jaycee and Ethanism's

Just a little taste of the conversations that go on in our family...

Jaycee, "There are places in the world that eat monkey brains. Be careful if you go there. You'll be eating monkey brains before you know it."
Ethan, "If I go there for a field trip I'm going to tell them I don't want dessert."

After getting mad at Jaycee for bugging Ethan she told me, "It's my duty to tease Ethan. That's what big sisters are supposed to do."

What Jaycee told me as we made a Valentine cake together, "One day you will have to pay me to eat one of my cakes."

Snowshoeing with the Family

We thought it would be fun to try something new this year and since we live in Utah we need to enjoy all of the snow sports right? We decided to give snowshoeing a chance. Mike and I loved it. We went up to Alta Ski resort and tackled a groomed trail for snowshoeing and cross country skiing. The problem was the kids wanted to ski and there were skiers everywhere whizzing by us. "This is dumb." "All we are doing is walking in some weird shoes." etc.....This is what we got to listen to the entire time. Oh well. At least we can say we tried. Ethan did get some enjoyment seeing me try to climb up an embankment, then falling backwards. I was dangling upside down by my snowshoes off the side of the trail. I'm only glad it made him laugh. Too bad Mike and Jaycee were ahead of us and missed it.

The Force

I had to blog about the conversation Jaycee and Ethan just had:

Jaycee, "Lets play Star Wars."

Ethan, "Ok, but it isn't real so we will have to pretend."

Jaycee, "Yes it is. It's all real and we are real Jedi's."

Ethan, "No we aren't. We are just pretend Jedi's and the force is just pretend."

Jaycee, "No it isn't. It is real."

Ethan, "Then how come we don't have real light sabers, just toy ones? And I've tried to use the force before. It didn't work!"

Jaycee, "We need to keep it secret for now that we are Jedi's so it doesn't work right now. When we are older it will work."

Ethan, "Well I try all the time and it never works for me so we'll just have to pretend."

I was cracking up listening to this conversation. What kid hasn't tried REALLY hard to use the force? I know I have and it didn't work for me. Mike tried a few weeks ago with the TV remote. It didn't work for him either.