Holiday Concert at Lucas

 Aidan and Emmy had their holiday concert at school on Thursday (Emmy) and Friday (Aidan).  It was very nice and the kids sang some fun songs.  Poor Aidan looked terrible throughout his and he was inching away from the rest of the kids the whole time.  We figured out why when he threw up in the car on the way home.  He was the third one to catch the stomach bug that has been ripping through the school.  Emmy had it first on Monday, then Declan on Wednesday, Aidan on Friday, me on Saturday, and finally Aoife on Tuesday.  I'm just glad that we are done with it before Christmas!!

Declan LOVES Christmas

 So far Declan loves everything about Christmas.  He hasn't met a cookie that he didn't LOVE. He hasn't met an ornament that he couldn't get off the tree and he hasn't heard a Christmas song that didn't make him dance.  He hasn't even gotten to the best part yet! I can't wait to see how he reacts to all of the presents!!!

Basketball

 Aidan and Emmy wrapped up their basketball season on Saturday.  It was such a fun season.  I love watching them play and they seem to have a great time as well.  They have both gotten so much better since the beginning of the season and Emmy even scored in the second to last game!  She has a great shot but isn't really aggressive and doesn't get her hands on the ball that much.  She and Aidan are both great at defense since they are bigger than everyone!!  Aidan has gotten much more confident and scored in a few games but really increased the number of shots that he took!  I'm so proud of both of them and I'm looking forward to next year!

Brendan and Duck Dynasty

I finally got a picture of Brendan in Afghanistan!  He didn't actually send it to me - he tweeted it - but I'll take what I can get!  Here he is with two guys from Duck Dynasty and Matt Light.  Pretty awesome!!

The Ice Storm Cometh

 We had an ice storm last night! I love ice in this amount.  Just enough to have school canceled but not enough to bring down trees or really cause many problems.  It was so pretty and made everything sparkle!

A Horse is a Horse

 After school today we went up to the WALMART - yes, we live in KY - to see one of the Budweiser Clydesdales.  They are in town to do some Christmas stuff on Fort Campbell and in Clarksville.  The horse was the sweetest thing and was HUGE.  It was by far the biggest horse I'd ever seen - not that I'm a horse expert - but it dwarfed the men that we taking care of it!  Emmy wanted to take it home.  Sweet girl!!

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: