Now here we are with some of our goodies and pajamas. The girls love their new Guitar Hero. Riley got some work out stuff he was excited about plus some really cool shoes, watch and clothes. Jeremy and I bought each other the same gift: Nano, armband and iTunes card. Funny enough Colleen and I bought each other the same gift too: the glass tupperware we've been wanting.
This Christmas our family all decided to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day together at Jesse's. Every year on Christmas Eve we exchange one gift and it's always pajamas; a tradition started by my dad and step mom. So this year was no different. We did add a little twist and give our kids a new game...Would You Rather? To win you have to be the first team to complete four challenge questions. So here are Bailey and Jesse successfully completing one of their tasks. They had to lap milk like a cat for 30 seconds. Enjoy!
Jeremy finished his MBA so we celebrated with a cruise ~ yay. Even in Texas December is cold and we boarded our ship wearing jackets and jeans. It stayed pretty cold through the night, but by early morning we were in swimsuits laying out by the pool! Our first stop took us to Progresso; a quaint Mexican town that still hasn't been completely transformed for tourists. It was a lot of fun to walk around the downtown market, shop and of course haggle. Riley was quite impressed with his father's haggling skills and his nacho libre souvenir :) By the time we got to Cozumel the weather had taken a turn for the worse so unfortunately we weren't able to hang out at the beach. On board we passed the time playing basketball, eating, shuffle board, eating, swimming, eating, tea parties, Club O2, sushi bar, formal night, eating, cards and did I mention eating. This is where Jeremy will have to take over because on Thursday night I caught the stomach flu and finished my vacation knocked out on "nausea" medicine ~ gotta' love cruise ship doctors. The upside is we were among the first to disembark seeing as I was quarantined and all.
Saturday Bailey and I had the opportunity to visit a local pumpkin patch. We searched and searched to find the perfect pumpkin. I'm sure those watching thought we were crazy because we'd pick one up and load it in the wagon just to find a better one, unload it and continue searching. For awhile we went through this process and even had to do a little rearranging of their "display" pumpkins. Before leaving we spent about an hour running through the corn maze. At first we "raced" another family through the maze (they weren't aware we were competing), but that didn't last long so we decided to try and find our way back to the start. We walked around for awhile with no luck so we decided to head for a Sonic drink; because even though it's October it's still 90 degrees!
Fabian goes home in two weeks and what's a trip to Texas without a visit to the Stockyards. We ate dinner at Risky's because it seemed like the thing to do and not because we like BBQ. It was a neat restaurant, but I'm sure that will be our one and only visit. After dinner we walked around, visited a few shops, and rode the mechanical bull. I wanted to buy Fabian a cowboy hat to take home with him, but the owner of the store was super rude. He told us they don't allow dress-up which kind of confused me. How else are you supposed to know which hat you want? Oh well.
Friday was the first of many high school photo shoots for Nadirah. The Lady Royal's met at Feragne to take their first team photo. The girls were given the option to have individual photo's as well and of course what girl is gonna' turn that down. So I decided to take Nadirah and have her make up applied. She was really excited and as you can see she looked beautiful. My only requirement for the make-up artist was that she not look twenty!
Jeremy is off school this week so we decided to go to Granbury overnight for a little peace and quiet which is kinda' hard to come by with four kids. Well, normally I would not be okay with a Bed and Breakfast, but Jeremy found a super nice Inn that was run similar to a B&B but was built for guests and not lived in. So I was game and off we went. The Inn was amazing and the room was perfect. The backyard was the best part because it backed up to the lake, had a pool, hammock, and a swing where we enjoyed our morning coffee. It was really nice because we didn't have a schedule or anything to do except relax!! We spent time walking around, swimming, laying in the hammock and enjoyed meeting new people. So what is Jeremy doing? Okay the only part of our room that was not perfect was this rod iron decoration and it was driving me crazy. Yes, I'm (well we're) somewhat OCD and we just had to fix it. I laughed so hard when Jeremy took it down to "work" on it, but luckily I managed to gain enough composure to take some pictures. 
On Friday night Jeremy got stuck in Dallas with homework. Oh how I can't wait for him to be done with school. Anyway the days tend to run long when he's gone all day and night, so the kids and I (minus Riley because of an injury to the hand) went roller skating. On Friday night at 9:00 they open the center of the rink for dancing too. Nadirah was so very excited! She loves anything to do with dancing and you can see her teaching Bailey and Fabian the Charlie Brown. The only way I could get her to leave was to bribe her with Sheridan's ice cream.
Bailey has lost 3 teeth in July and she has at least two more loose!! This is a huge accomplishment because all but two of her teeth up to this point have had to be pulled. She has a really small mouth and doesn't have enough room yet. When she was little she lost her first two like normal but after that the dentist kept having to pull one at a time hoping to make some room before she needed it. But this past January she got an expander, which is apparently working, and for the first time since she was two or three her teeth are falling out all on their own....yay! Oh and by the way Bailey does not believe in the tooth fairy but that hasn't stopped her from wanting some money anyway :)
The American Girl Store opened it's Dallas location at the end of 2007 and ever since I've planned to take Bailey. Well, yesterday all three of the other kids were busy with church stuff so it was the perfect opportunity to take her. We started off our girls day at Sam Moon, had lunch with Jeremy and then spent the rest of the afternoon at the Galleria. The store is huge!! You can browse through all the dolls, clothes, accessories, etc... There's a doll salon where you can have your doll pampered with a new hairstyle. Upstairs you can enjoy lunch and a snack at the Bistro. We easily spent a couple of hours enjoying the store. It was so much fun! When we set up Molly's hair appointment we were informed that Molly needed to go off to the hospital in order to spruce her up a bit (she's about five or six years old). So we changed her into a hospital gown, gave the doctor's their orders (change her head), sent her off and now we wait. Bailey was less than thrilled with leaving her. The last photo is Bailey with all of her loot. It's was hard to say no because I was having as much fun as she was.
