Day of Love

Matthew and I love Valentine's Day. We met the day before and so it's just a lot of fun to celebrate with each other. Matthew got me the first season of a tv show and also a couple of cds that I have loved listening to. But, I think one of my favorite parts of my gift was the tag on the gift bag.

 It was a Taylor Swift Collection, so of course my husband wrote...

 

There should be a song about that. 

What We Do For Snow

 We don't have much snow going on here in Nashville so on the rare one day a year occasion that it does snow, it's kind of a big deal. Not to mention a huge reason for that is that snow comes in a bonus package. Snow and Black ice make for crazy road conditions. So, there's a good chance that if it snows, the kids will have school out. William's teacher said that she's been praying for snow and advised the kids to perform a ritual to help speed things along. My kids were all for it. They wore their pajamas backwards to bed and flushed 2 ice cubes down the toilet. It took a few times, but low and behold, we had a snow day.

 It was fun to get some snow pictures, but it was definitely more fun to watch William and Lily gang up on Matthew in a snowball fight. William and Lily's snow bibs were small for them last year and this year.. well, they're more like capris. It's definitely the last time they will ever wear them, but at least we got good use out of them!

December

 We started the Christmas kick-off Thanksgiving weekend. We went to the Opryland Hotel and saw this humongous Christmas tree.

 And this awesome Nutcracker, which Lily was all about because the Nutcracker was so in this year.

 But mostly we went for a free show called Shrek the Halls. We got to see some of the characters from Dreamworks movies. They danced around and sang songs and we hoped that some of these people were paid generously for what they had to do. It was definitely something fun and different to see and something perfect to start off the Christmas season.

 We also had our friend, Red, come from the North Pole to check on the kids and get into a little mischief. William and Lily absolutely LOVE Red and they counted down the days until he showed his rosy-cheeked face.

 Lily got sick one day in December and missed out on a class activity to make ice cream cone trees. So, thanks to Grandma, we were able to do them at home. Of course, William was excited to do one too.

 One of the things that Red brought the kids this year was a gingerbread house decorating kit. Since William and Lily had over 2 weeks out of school, this was a perfect activity to do.

 We did our annual new ornaments this year! William's took up most of our tiny tree, but he definitely loved it. I think we're going to have to upgrade to a bigger tree soon! It was a lot of fun this year to go through all of the ornaments we had all picked out over the years. It's one of my favorite Christmas traditions for us. It gives our tree a lot of trinkety character.

 The kids had fun with the decorating.

Also in December, William informed us that he wanted a new hairstyle. No more spiky faux hawk, he wanted a part. I think it makes him look older. The Sunday before Christmas, we had the kids dress super festive to church. William wore the sweater Matthew wore as a child and Lily wore a skirt I made for her the day before.

 They were awesome sports to let me take some pictures of them.

 But, of course, the perk is that if you take a good picture, you can take a series of silly pictures. It's funny because the silly ones end up being some of my favorites.

 On Christmas Eve, the kids sprinkled out Reindeer food and even saw a bright red light moving around the backyard. Of course, it was Rudolph.They all sang "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" at the top of their lungs to try and coax him closer, but I'm pretty sure they scared him. William and Lily opened their pjs. I made their pants and bought shirts to go with them.

  They put out some cookies for Santa, carrots for the reindeer, and gave Red a big hug goodbye with hopes of seeing him again next year. And Lily can't help herself...

 This year, our staircase lineup was a small one, but they still were excited, can't you tell?!

 William got his dream present from Santa. The Ninjago Great Devourer. A gazillion pieces and 4 hours later, Matthew and I had finally put it all together for him.

 Chef Lily got an Easy Bake Oven. She couldn't wait to try it out. I made her an apron with an "L" and a small spatula. Lily made us all cupcake sandwiches.

 

We had a good Christmas. Stressful, yes, but good. All I have to do is blink and it will be here again!

November

 In November, we went to Blue and Gray Days at the Carnton Plantation. This is something that we had been planning since the summer! Pretty much when we found out about it, we knew we wanted to go.

 The kids met Abraham Lincoln and since then, they've been on a first name basis and talk of Abraham like they've known him all their lives. William enlisted in the army. We saw a woman making thread from all sorts of crazy things. We were able to see and hear about a lot of cool things that were popular or available during the Civil War.

 We saw reenactors and got new hats for the kiddies!

 And saw a kind of lame reenactment of the Battle of Franklin.

 We took a tour of the Carnton House which was converted into a Confederate Hospital. There were still bloodstains on the wood floor. Before we left, we walked through the Confederate Cemetery on the Plantation. The owners donated the land for the Confederate soldiers who were not given a proper burial due to the fact that they fought for the losing side. There were thousands who were buried on this property. It was very sad to look at these headstones and also see how many were unnamed. We had a lot of fun going to Blue and Gray Days, however, I'm pretty sure we still are wanting to go to a more exciting reenactment.

 Thanksgiving was really relaxed this year. But before William and Lily were out of school, all of the Kindergarten classes had a Thanksgiving feast! Lily was so excited. They had their long "table" that just about went the length of the whole Kindergarten wing.

 Lily was Princess Pink Peach. They decorated their vests, made necklaces, and head dresses. I had so much fun helping out in a lot of the Thanksgiving activities at school. The Kindergarten teachers are so great to work with and the children are all wonderful and hilarious.

 

It is no secret that I love the fall in Tennessee. I was definitely sad to see it go, but I'm looking forward to the Spring now!

Pumpkins 2012

 I figured that before Thanksgiving, I should put up the pictures of our carved pumpkins from 2012! We got them from the pumpkin patch on Fall Break and we waited until the weekend before Halloween to carve them and have a family Halloween Party. We had Grandma, Grandpa, Savannah, and Zachary join us. It was full of yummy junk food and watching Igor and Hocus Pocus. It made me feel a little old to realize that Hocus Pocus came out almost 20 years ago. We had a little mix and match with our pumpkins this year. I carved William's, Matthew carved Lily's pattern on my pumpkin and also carved his own, and Savannah drew her own pattern and carved Lily's. Zachary helped take the tops off of the pumpkins and helped William and Lily get the "ew..nasty" part out of the pumpkins!

We lit them up inside and Lily had to get this little pose in before we moved them all outside.

Howdy!

 For our anniversary this year, Matthew took the whole day off and we decided to be tourists of Nashville. We had plans to go to the Grand Ole Opry House and the Ryman Auditorium to take tours, but the Ryman closed early for an awards show so we didn't get to see it. But, the Grand Ole Opry was awesome. We got to play on stage!

 Okay, not for real. This is a painted background with instruments that only have like 2 stings. We rocked it though!!

 We got to see where the members of the Grand Ole Opry get their fan mail. We also learned that their all in alphabetical order except for one.. Little Jimmy Dickens. They had to put his lower so he could reach it.

 Here is one of the many dressing rooms they had.

 This painting is in the "Green Room" where the performer's family waits.

And then we finally got to go on the stage.

 We got to stand on the legendary circle of wood that was taken from the side of the Ryman's stage. All the stars have stood or walked on this and they were able to have it even after Nashville was flooded. It was pretty cool to have stood where greats like Minnie Pearl did as she yelled "Howdy!" This was one of the trivia questions on the tour and I totally surprised Matthew by knowing who said that!

Matthew and I had SO much fun touring the Grand Ole Opry. We were the youngest people there. Matthew was worried that we would be the only people there to tour it, but much to his surprise, there were tour groups from Germany and France that were there. See? Told you it was cool, Matthew.

All we did was take a tour, but I'm pretty sure we'll be planning to go see someone play there soon.