PCMC's Festival of Trees

So the day after my birthday we decorated our tree. The day after that, we went to the Festival of Trees at the Southtowne Expo Center. Gorgeous beautiful displays as always. All of the displays and trees are donated to the festival and the proceeds go to Primary Children's Medical Center.

There were soooo many trees. The expo center is 243,000 sq feet, and it was full of displays, trees, and goodies! Warms my heart to know that all the many people there were supporting such a worthy cause. Every year it is amazing, and this year was no exception.

Such a wide variety of displays, goodies, wreaths, quilts, gingerbread houses, and of course trees. There were:

I loved the Warm Fuzzy tree!

Very unique trees, everything from Robots, to hand carved wood trees, to soda can trees.

Harry Potter trees, complete with Sorting hats, Gryffindor colors, broom sticks and of course, Harry. ;o)

Tons of University of Utah UTES trees! (YAY!!! I'm a UTES fan, hubby is a BYU fan)

There was even a tree decorated BYU style.

I love what the sign says, in case you can't read it, it says, 14 years old, 34 surgeries in his lifetime, 8 procedures from 2008-2009, 10 discs removed, 2 rods inserted in his spine, Total 100% BYU fan. (Even though I'm a Utes fan, I just loved this tree. So sweet!)

There were a lot of displays. All of them were touching, unique, and stunning!

I love the Quilt displays. So much work and love goes into every stitch. Gorgeous!

The Gingerbread Village is always a crowd pleaser. Can you tell why?

PCMC is very near and dear to our family. Because of PCMC we have our Valerie. Valerie is our neice (Jacob's sisters daughter). She was born with a condition called Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. Prognosis for children born with this condition is not good. Survival rate from the many surgeries that the babies need is not high. But Heavenly Father knew Valerie had some work to do here. And she is a fighter. Firey red head for sure! We have been so blessed to have her these past 7 years. And even though we know our time with her is drawing closed and she will soon be called home, we have cherished every moment with her.

It is for this reason that I decorated a tree the year after she was born. I hand cross stitched little tiny teddy bear ornaments (each took about 30 hours to do and it was worth it) and did bears of all kinds all over the tree. It was donated to the Festival. That Christmas was the last Christmas we spent in Utah. Jacob was in basic training for the Army at the time. So I was not able to continue doing trees. But now that we are back, I can do trees again. I didn't have the opportunity to do one this year since we didn't get here until September (this year there was a waiting list for people to donate trees). But I have already started next years. And while we were visiting the festival this year we talked to the Executive Director and gave her our information for when she does next years list. I can't wait! Valerie will be 8 next year, so the tree will be all white. I just pray, that she will be there to see it, and if the Lord sees fit to bless us with another year with her, she will be. We love you Valerie!