Christmas Is On It's Way

For our Christmas ward party I signed up to take cupcakes/cake pops. Since I like to bake and don't really do it all that often I chose cake pops. I had to look them up on the internet because I had never heard of them let a long know how to make them. They looked so fun, and not too complicated. They are basically a baked cake crumbled up then mix the frosting in to make a dough. Then stuck with a stick and dipped in chocolate. These were my first try! Not too bad, if I say so myself. I learned a few tricks as I was nearing the end, and I think they will be easier next time. I had so much fun with them and they are soooo good that I think I will take them around to the neighbors as my Christmas treats this year.

Anyone that knows me and picking out Christmas trees would know that the next picture is not a picture of a tree I would typically pick. Lets just say I have a thing with picking really good Christmas trees. Well, this year we were discussing if we wanted a bushy tree or one that you can only get high up on the mountain, like the ones around my cabin, and are not found too much here in St. George area. We wanted a perfectly spaced, green, triangle shaped tree that you get high in the mountain, but since we were only going up on Pine Valley, a bushy tree like the years past was what we were going to get.

We dressed really warm and drove up near Pine Valley. We started hiking around looking for the perfect tree. After about an hour of looking we found one tree that was not a typical tree for this area. Since it was like one we wanted and knowing we wouldn't find another one like it we decided to go for it. it was actually three trees in one and was really tall. Yes, we topped our tree. Alan climbed several feet up and started sawing. Our saw was not a good saw but it was all we had. It took about 30 minutes to finally cut the tree down. Once it was on the ground we realized it was way too tall. So I laid down on the tree to measure out and we went back to sawing. As Alan and I took turns the saw blade began to stretch. We did the best we could but the tree put up a fight. Just before we were all the way through the tree the saw broke completely. We had to just break the rest off and call it good.

We stood the tree up and realized that it was not a good looking tree. In fact it was quite ugly. But, we had no saw now, and we had put so much effort into this tree that we decided it was ours for the year.

It now has pretty lights and lots of decorations, yet it is still ugly. It is our poor Charlie Brown Christmas tree. But even though our tree is ugly, misshapen, and has sparse branches I LOVE our tree. It grew on me. I know what you might be thinking... but thats okay, we still love your tree.