Decorating the Tree

 We got a new fake tree this year - after just getting through last year with a half lit fake tree! It's a pretty good fake - most people have thought it's real! Declan, Aoife and I decorated it this year - every year fewer and fewer people help me! :( 

It looks great - so Christmasy in the house these days!!! Only 2 weeks until Christmas!! 

Decorating the Tree

 Since we were away for Thanksgiving this year, I feel like we are super late in decorating for Christmas!  We finally got everything out of storage and Brendan and the kids bought a new fake tree this year because I was done with the mess of a live tree.
As always, we had a fun time decorating the tree. It's always fun to pull out the ornaments every year and remember where we got each one. We are going to start having to have two trees since we have so many ornaments and I'm not willing to stop buying them!!

Tree Ornaments

Decorating the Tree

 This year we got our tree at Merrifield Garden Center.  It's such a fun place to visit with so many trees set up and thousands or ornaments for sale!  We had a great time decorating the tree!!

The National Christmas Tree

 Tonight Gramma, Daddy Jim, Aidan, Aoife, Declan and I went to see the National Christmas Tree.  We had to leave Emmy and Brendan asleep in bed - neither of them is feeling well.  It's so not fair to be sick over Christmas!!! 
The tree was great - lots of lights and we watched the trains go around and around for a while!!  After we escaped the crowds, we walked back towards the car and went up to the Washington Monument.  It is so beautiful when it's all lit up!  When you stand up on the hill that it's on, you can see all over DC - to the White House, back to the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial.  DC is just a gorgeous city at every time of day!!

Trimming the Tree!

 We got a real tree this year although I am still scarred from our bug infestation a few years ago!  The ceiling in this house isn't very high so we got a small tree but it's still really nice and super cute with all the ornaments and lights!  The kids had a great time decorating it and Declan loves to undecorate and redecorate it everyday!!  They are too funny!!

Christmas at Cheekwood

 I love Cheekwood and we are really going to miss it when we move in the Spring!  On Sunday, we went to the opening weekend of Holiday at Cheekwood.  It was great!  There was cookie decorating (the kids' favorite), craft making, pictures with Santa (Declan's NOT favorite) and live reindeer!!!  It was really fun - despite Declan hating Santa!  We also walked around inside the mansion and looked at all of the beautiful trees!  It was a great start to the Holiday season!  Since I had a tiny baby last year, we didn't do a lot Christmas activities but hopefully we can do a lot more this year.  There really is a lot to do in Clarksville and Nashville!  Hopefully the weather will cooperate and it will stay mild!

 Cookie decorating - Declan skipped the decorating part and went right to the eating part.

 Reindeer!!!

 Gorgeous trees in the mansion.  The theme this year was "color".  Each tree was a different color - it was really neat!

 The silver tree:

 Aoife's favorite - the PURPLE tree!

 orange:

 blue:

 inside the mansion:

 red:

 more reindeer!

 watching the trains: