christmas eve

a wonderful day at home! :) we made our gingerbread house, sugar cookies, and pretzels, played, watched the snowflakes, got dressed up, headed to church, saw more beautiful snowflakes, had a wonderful dinner of munchies, got matching p.j.'s (dorky, yes! but so much fun!), got ready for santa, and went to bed. . . such fun! :)

matching p.j.'s for our family of 6 . . . a new tradition for the baileys! :)

spinning underneath the tree

the holidays just wouldn't be complete without a spin or two underneath the zilker tree! :) (yes, bailey, we'll keep paying the $10 to park so we can spin!) and of course the trip wouldn't feel right unless we were there with our bff's! :) the girls had so much fun with spinning with their friends this year! :) we loved spinning b.c. for the first time! :) the trail was different and shorter, but the kids didn't care! :) and what could be a more perfect ending than playing in some snow? mck and ken had a great time . . . kam didn't like it quite so much! :) you can tell we don't have a lot of experience with the white stuff . . . ken thought she could make the hour long ride home with a snowball! :)

marble falls trail of lights . . .

this is always a favorite of the kids . . . a small trail of lights in marble falls . . . just perfect for the kids to walk through. we headed there again this year with our bffs . . . after a rather short stop in burnet to walk through bethlehem . . . we gave up after finding the wait to be over 2 hours! (poor ken was soooo disappointed . . . all sbe wanted to do was see baby jesus . . . is she my kid???) the kids had lots of fun. . . we followed it up with a stop at the bluebonnet cafe for some hot chocolate and pie! yummy! :)

snowman breakfast

we were able to continue our new tradition of the nordstrom's snowman breakfast thanks to ms. s again this year. this has to be the highlight of our holiday traditions! the super early wake-up (5:30! with everyone dressed up and out the door by 6:30!) was so worth it when we arrived to a table set up especially for us with a gift of yummy hot chocolate and pretty place mats for the girls to color . . . a yummy breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, and fruit . . . a personal visit by santa to our table (the girls were in heaven and b.c. was mesmerized by the big guy!). . . a balloon maker who was really fantastic . . . then we headed downstairs to be the first to talk with mr. c and take some pictures! the girls each got several minutes with santa and daddy snapped lots of pictures. even b.c. got a little attention! :) ken asked for an mp3 player . . . and of course, so did mck! kam asked for a "dora soft baby" and repeated it over and over but was so quiet that mommy had to translate! the girls got beautiful face paintings done, participated in a candy cane hunt, and decorated ornaments too! what a wonderful morning!

lights in belton

can you see the smiles on our faces? the lights in belton were everything i remembered about last year and more! seriously . . . this year was so wonderful! we headed there with our bff's after a great g'town dinner . . . okay, the wonderful didn't actually start until after we waited about an hour to drive into the lights . . . yes, an hour in the car with four kids. the minivan has never felt quite so small. i let them unbuckle, but told them they had to stay in their seats . . . well that lasted all of a minute until they were crawling all over the van. there were 3 little bodies right behind my seat and b.c. sitting on my lap! i felt sooooooo claustrophobic! mck was getting a big kick out of how frustrated i was getting and kept sticking her head as close to me as possible . . . with a big ol' grin. how can you not love that girl? :)

the lights were wonderful and sooo worth the wait! how can you not be completely in the spirit of the season driving through miniature trees and a huge tunnel that dance to the music streaming through the car radio?!?!? it was great! the windows were down, the heat was pouring out, and the kids were so excited! ken and kam hung out on one side of the car .. . kam sitting in ken's lap in a good part of the way and mck hung out on the other side . . . pointing everything out to b.c. who was sitting with me part of the time and helping daddy drive the other part! ken's fav part . . . "the baby jesus lights" (is she my kid?) :), mck loved the tunnel, and kam . . . "the baby lights and the baby trees" (if it's little and she can put the word baby in front of it she likes it!) :) b.c. was just in awe of everything!

it was late when we headed home. mck and ken passed out as soon as we left the lights. . . but little kam talked to us the whole way home! :) she wanted to know where the moon was and where its baby was and where the deer were and where the baby deer (and wanted all of them to wake up so she could see them!) were and why we couldn't have her baby music blasting in the car! :) it was a special treat for her to pull onto our street and see 2 mommy deer and 2 babies laying in the grass in front of the driveway! :) (she said, see they listened to me and woke up!") too cute!

is it possible for christmas time to get much better?

our first tradition of the season

nothing could have gotten us more in the christmas spirit than some cold weather, starbuck's hot chocolate, marshmallows to munch on, a beautiful christmas tree, and fireworks to top it all off! :) we had a wonderful time with our bff's at the domain tree lighting! we ate pizza, walked the sidewalks, listened to some great (but mellow!) christmas tunes, and finished the evening off with a trip to the bookstore. the girls had so much fun! on the way home each of them talked about catching glimpses of santa on stage . . . actually it turned in to more of an argument over who saw a better view of st. nick! b.c. had a great time too . . . he really was mesmerized by the fireworks! i cannot wait for the rest of our lighting traditions . . . the next month will be sooooo much fun!

annual bluebonnet pictures

well, we made the attempt to get some pictures of the girls in the bluebonnets this year . . . but we stopped on the side of the highway on the way home from their birthday trip. it was chilly, the wind was blowing, and we were all exhausted . . . so out of about 100 pictures, none of them are great, but at least we can say we did it! :)

zilker kite festival

as is tradition, we went to the zilker kite festival with our bff's! :) the kids had a great time! ken and mck were into picking out the "cool" or "pretty" kites and kam was just amazed by them all! every time we go outside now she wants to see kites! :)

there were seriously kites EVERYWHERE and the wind gusts were a little crazy. . . daddy had some trouble getting the kites to stay up for too long before they'd come crashing down on a poor bystander!

we finished the afternoon with a delicious lunch at hula hut on the lake and headed home! the weather was PERFECT! we couldn't have asked for a nicer day! :)

christmas day

well, i think this christmas topped all! it gets more and more fun with the girls each year. even kam was excited about everything this time. it was just so fun to watch their faces! :)

ken's favorite gift was a scooter from santa and a "real" camera from us. mck's favorites were her big wheel from santa and a "weal kids" camera from us! kam is so in love with her baby and all the goodies that go with it and loves her princess potty from santa! :)

the girls really tore through everything so fast! they opened and played with almost everything before we packed up and headed to grammy and grampy's house in houston for christmas dinner! it was hard to pack up three kids and two dogs after all the christmas excitment, but soooo nice to not have to cook! :)

we had christmas morning with the family the following morning! ken and mck were spoiled with a wonderful doll house (which kam loves playing with too!) and kam finally got her pbk chair so she can hang with her sisters when they're in their chairs! :) grammy spoiled everyone with stockings full of goodies! :)

will it continue to get better every year? hard to believe, but i think it just might . . . okay, maybe only until we are completely outnumbered by teenagers . . . but we have a few years until that happens!

christmas eve

the girls were soooo excited today! :) they loved wearing their christmas dresses and going to the children's service . . . mck even danced in the aisle! :) we came home and had lots of finger foods and special christmas eve drinks! poor mck starting crying and complaining about her ear . . . of course EVRYTHING was closed! poor baby. (she made it until the next day when a dr. called in a prescrip for her! she ended up with 2 ear infections!)

the girls got in their christmas p.j.'s and opened one gift . . . kam thought everything we opened was for her! :) they put out cookies for santa along with a mug of milk. they all went out to sprinkle reindeer food on the lawn . . . and holy crow, they were in bed AND asleep by 8:30. they were NOT messing around with scaring santa off! (could we have a visit from santa every night?)

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! :)

one more tradition

the weather finally got cold . . . a little too cold! we visited the lights in marble falls at a chilly 35 degrees. all of us were bundled up head to toe! the kids ran through the trail to keep warm and poor kam couldn't snuggle close enough! it really made it feel like the holidays were here! (FINALLY!)

after getting chilly and checking out the lights we headed to the blue bonnet cafe for hot chocolate with whip cream and pie! what a perfect ending to the evening! :)