Happy Mother's Day!

Ahhh - Mother's Day. It's different when there's no Dad around!! No sleeping in - no breakfast in bed that turns into breakfast in bed eaten by three children that leave you with a bed full of crumbs.
Emmy and Aidan both came home with beautiful cards from school and Brendan was very thoughtful to order gifts for me. Both my parents and my sister sent me flowers which was very sweet.
We got up and had a little bit of a slow morning since we didn't need to leave until 9:30. We went to Cheekwood, which is a very large estate in Nashville that has been converted into botanical gardens. It was beautiful and the kids really had a great time running around. Aidan kept saying, "This is really fun! I think we should come back here lots of times!" It may have also had something to do with the large model train exhibit that the kids found enthralling! There were many gardens with lots of different flowers from the color garden to a Japanese garden to rose gardens, perennial gardens and even an herb garden. It was really hot - 92 when we left - so we ran out of steam before we saw a lot of it but that just means we'll have to go back! Here are lots of pictures I took today - they are in no particular order:
Aoife in the Japanese garden:A cardinal:Emmy:Me with the kids during our picnic - I used my mother's day gift - a tiny portable tripod for my camera! It's perfect and maybe there will be more pictures of me in the future!Aidan:Emmy and Aoife playing in the fountain. It was so hot and keeping Aoife out of the fountain was a full time job!Can I just say how much I LOVE their curly hair???The kids walking through the color garden:Us - outside the mansion:this looks like a huge lantern or bird cage!The end of the day - not so much in the mood for group pictures!Dancing on a mosaic:Watching the model trains: