Thanksgiving 2015

Today is Thanksgiving and it seems so crazy that 2015 is almost over!  I feel like this year has gone by so quickly and I can't believe that we've been here a year and a half already!!  Tom, Tony, Shannon and Mike joined us for Thanksgiving today which was so much nicer than all of the Thanksgivings I have spent with just the kids while Brendan was deployed.  Not that I don't enjoy spending time with the kids - it's just really fun to be able to cook lots of food!!  (Click here for lots of past Thanksgiving pictures!!)
I don't even think that I got any pictures of the food - a shame after all of that work!!  We had turkey, stuffing, cranberry relish, gravy, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole (with sweet potatoes from our garden!!), salad with goat cheese and candied almonds and cranberry nut bread with pecan pie and cheesecake for dessert!!  It was a feast and we all probably won't eat for days!!  We also put all of the china, silver and crystal out - I love being able to use it all on special occasions and it reminds me of all of the people who gave it to us for our wedding.  It's something very special to have and be able to use!!!  Emmy and Aoife worked so hard and made beautiful hand turkey place cards for everyone - it was the PERFECT touch to our Thanksgiving table.  My children and husband are what I am most thankful for!!
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!  Now - on to Christmas!!

Meadowlark Winter Walk of Lights

We went with our friends, the Sharps, to Meadowlark's Winter Walk of lights tonight.  What a great way to start the Christmas season!  The weather couldn't have been better and although the kids are bundled up in the pictures, it really wasn't that cold!  It's always nice to have outings with the Sharps - their kids line up exactly with Aidan, Emmy and Aoife and they all get along really well. 
You have to buy tickets for a time slot to go see the lights, but there is plenty to do for a few minutes while you wait in the entrance building.  You can write letters to Santa, look at the fish in the fish tank, take a picture in a sleigh or sit by the fireplace.  Once we got in, it took us about 45 minutes to walk through all of the lights.  It was beautiful and there were so many lights - it was very impressive. 
We had a great time and I am excited to make this one of our winter traditions!!

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:

Happy Easter

Happy Easter! Today we celebrated with Mimi and Big Dan who came down from Marshfield to visit us for the weekend. The weather was really nice today - 50's and sunny - perfect for an early Easter! We joined the Army-Navy Country Club last month so we went there for brunch (and the age 0-3 Easter Egg Hunt). Aidan found the special egg and won a cool prize! He didn't really care - Brendan and Big Dan were proud! The Easter Bunny was at brunch and much to my surprise Aidan LOVES the Easter Bunny - we couldn't get him away - he kept wanting to go up and give the bunny hugs - the person inside must have been cracking up!!Aidan, Mimi, Emmy and Big DanAidan and Emmy - she really is laughing!!Isn't Emmy's dress just the cutest thing??Hunting EggsLoving the Easter BunnyHugs for the Easter Bunny - good thing there was no one in line!!