making sugar cookies

the kids and i spent christmas morning rolling out and cutting sugar cookie dough! what great helpers i have this year! :) even little b.c. wanted in on the action! he got a big kick out of stuffing the cookie cutters FULL of dough! :) kam tried so hard to get the cookie cutter far enough into the dough to cut the shape . . . but only managed to make a few! :) ken and mck insisted on rollingout their own dough and cutting all their own cookies! kind of nice to not have to do all the work on my own! :)

president's pie!

the girls and i had lots of fun making "president's pie" with directions from mck! she made this at school and directed us through the whole process! what fun! :) it was a sickening sweet treat (oreos, cherries, and whip cream!) .. . but they gobbled it up! and we had fun squirting whip cream too! :) thanks ms. b for the great idea. . .. next year we'll be more timely and have it on president's day! :)

homemade sugar cookies

the bailey bunch has always been a big fan of baking cookies. . . the kind where you open the package and stick them on the cookie tray! :) but, after trying some homemade sugar cookies at a friend's house we were hooked on how yummy they could taste if we made them ourselves! so the girls and i made a giant batch to freeze for christmas eve. yummy! mck and kam love holding the mixer and "doing it myself"! ken was busy making chocolate covered pretzels . . . she got really good at it, but i forgot to snap a pic! :)

fall goodies!

we've had so much fun making fall goodies lately . . . two of our favorites . . . caramel popcorn and chocolate pops! :)

who knew homeade caramel popcorn could be so darn good? kam and i had lots of fun making it while the girls were at school!

ken and mck loved making the chocolate pops while kam and b.c. were napping! they were a little too rich for their taste buds, so most of it ended up in the trash, but it sure was fun filling up the molds! :)

the girls are already thinking of ideas for chirstmas goodies! :)

time with the kids

i have been a huge slacker! i had this great idea before kam was born to spend time with each of the kids - one on one each week by taking them to do something special . . . well, that lasted all of a few months. i have been wanting to start doing that again, but with b.c.'s birth, it seems like 4 kids and only 7 days in the week make it really tough . . . so, i devised an easy little plan . . . cooking with them!

dinner has to be made every night. the kids always want to help, but three little ones in the kitchen make dinner preparation painstaking at times . . . especially when b.c. picks that time to be fussy . . . so everyone now has a "night" that they help me cook!

ken helps mon, mck helps tues., bailey does dinner on wed. (this after i said i need at least one night off!), and kam helps on thurs.! they get to pick (from a couple of choices) what we're making and they get to pick what everyone has for dessert! they help set the table and do as much as they can to help get everything ready! it has been really fun! they actually want to know when their night is to help! :)

this great plan is allowing us the one-on-one time the kids and i both need without spending money . . . and we're getting something done that has to be done anyway! :) can't beat that.

rain and rice krispies!

we had planned to spend the afternoon at the park and getting an ica cream . . . but we got some welcome and unexpected rain! so, we decided to make rice krispy treats! the girls loved stuffing their mouths with the marshmallows!

mck cooking with mommy

mck and i spent some time all by ourselves in the kitchen making blueberry cookies! :) (ken refused to help because she "doesn't like blueberries" and kam was napping) she loved getting to do everything herself . . . i think sharing/splitting everything gets old after awhile! she kept commenting "mom, i get to do EVERYTHING. we should make things ken doesn't like more times!" :)

the cookies were actually really good . . . very soft . . . almost like a breakfast cookie and the blueberries were soooooo yummy in them! :)

pinkalicious cupcakes

the girls are in love with the book pinkalicious (and it's sequel purplicious!). i think mck chooses that for her story at least 3 times a week! :) we were reading it last night and decided that we should make our own pinkalicious cupcakes . . .

so this afternoon (a perfect afternoon for cooking!) ken, mck, and kam made their own pinkalicious cupcakes . . . complete with pink icing and goodies on top (we didn't have any cherries like it shows in the story, so we opted for a mix of what we could find in the pantry!) kam loves that she gets to be a part of things now, mck loves making anything that invlolves sweets, and ken was mostly concerned with whether or not the cupcakes were like the ones in the story . . . with cherries, that i didn't have! :)

the girls could hardly wait until they were done.

yummmmmy! :)

cooking with kam

when her big sisters are home, kam rarely gets a chance to help cook, so today, while the girls were at school she helped me make rice krispie treats! :) she got such a kick out of pouring each thing in and especially loved adding the sprinkles! :) of course, she was freaking out about the little bit that got on her fingers and insisted i clean her fingers off constantly! :) she loved being the center of attention and was so proud to tell her sisters what she made for their afternoon snack! :)

a yummy morning . . . kik for mck

this morning we had mck's cooking playdate! we made blueberry muffins at miss jill's house! she had the cutest little baking cups! :) of course they were DELICIOUS (and sort of healthy too!) i think mck and kam gobbled them up so quickly because they've never had a muffin from scratch . . . my version of muffins is straight from the box! :) these muffins might convince me to "go for it" every once in awhile! what a yummy morning!

the baking bailey girls

the girls got all decked out in their holiday baking gear to make christmas cookies. ken and mck were so into picking the sugar cookie shapes they wanted to cute out . . . kam was content to eat the decorations! :)

bailey and i frosted the cookies to keep the mess to a minimum and the girls went crazy decoration with all sorts of sprinkles and frosting tubes. mck would dump a whole bunch of sprinkles on one spot of the cookie. we tried to have her spread it out, but she was adamant that that's how it was supposed to look! ken took great care in trying to make the cutouts look "real" . . . candy canes decorated with candy cane sprinkles, gingerbread men with gingerbread sprinkles! :) little kam just tried to eat as much sugar as she could before we cleaned up! :) they are sooooo different, but each so wonderful in their own way! :)

gingerbread village

thanks to our breakfast at nordstrom's, all of the girls had a gingerbread house to decorate! :) we spent a large majority of our day sunday assembling and then decorating them! ken knew exactly how she wanted hers to look, mck ate more candy than she put on the house, and kam was happy just to watch the commotion and eat an occasional gumdrop!

after we put the houses together the girls decorated the village with christmas marshmallows. they are so proud of it and are having trouble keeping their hands off! :)

butter, muffins, and water experiments!!! a busy morning!

this morning was a combination kitchen and science playdate with our playgroup - the doodlebugs!

mck had fun making butter and blueberry muffins, but of course eating them was the best part! :) even kam got in on the action and stirred the muffins with help from mck! :)

we also did a sink or float experiment. she brought her bath barbie and a small dino from home and had to make a hypothesis about what the items would do in the water. what a smart cookie! she was right about both of them! :) kam had fun throwing blocks in the water - over and over again! :)

cupcakes with kenzie

okay, just another reminder of why i need to spend time with the girls individually . . . mck was soooo excited that she got to make the halloween cupcakes all by herself. she kept saying things like "i get to pour the water?", " only i get to do the sprinkles?". so sweet, but also made me realize just how often she has to share. poor middle child.

she did an awesome job on the cupcakes, taking extra care to position each ghost on top "just right"! she was so excited to share her cakes with friends at the park and with her teachers at school. they were DELICIOUS! :)