O Easter tree, O Easter tree!

Service is always important and especially so in an economic time like ours. There is no better way to forget yourself, your worries and your pity party than by serving others. And in today's world of "entitled" children, there's no better time for teaching our families the importance of service. It is an easy and wonderful way to remind them what's really important is not what you have but what you can give.

I recently had the opportunity to attend one of Mom It Forward's service projects. On March 28, 2009 Mom It Forward joined with Make and Takes to host a family-friendly service project benefiting The Christmas Box House in Salt Lake City, Utah. The Christmas Box House provides "greatly enhanced services to abused and neglected children and reflects a statewide model for delivery of best practice assessment and treatment services to victims of child abuse."

Inside the home is a large Christmas tree, which groups and individuals newly decorate each month. We had the month of April so a group of moms and children arrived on Saturday morning ready to craft! Marie from Make and Takes came with an arsenal of craft supplies provided by Provo Craft. We created tissue-paper chicks, paper Easter eggs, wooden Easter ornaments, tissue-paper flowers, styrofoam bunnies and various springtime pipe-cleaner designs.

Once our crafters were done crafting we carried the decorations to the tree and all the children helped strategically place them on the branches. (Okay, not so strategically but the effect was no less stunning!) The tree went from forlorn to fantastic in record time and the effect was very refreshing. Our kids gave that tree the Easter-y pick-me-up it needed!

After all our hard work glueing, taping, twisting and coloring we enjoyed the most decadent, scrumptious mini cupcakes from Cupcake Chic. I think I sampled all four flavors; my favorite were the ones that tasted like orange rolls--to die for! (A big thank-you to Cupcake Chick for donating the goodies...they were a huge hit!)

We had a really enjoyable time getting together with old friends, making new ones and thinking about someone other than ourselves for once. We are already looking forward to the next Mom It Forward service project. Until then we'll enjoy watching the slideshow from this one! --Emily