Pedro says...you never "sausage" a place!

About two and half weeks ago the girls and I drove to Washington DC (poor Daddy had to stay home and work, again). Anyone that has driven to Washington DC from Georgia probably makes their way to interstate I-95 and heads north. Last year when I made this trip I avoided I-95 and went an alternate route which added about an hour to an already long drive. This is year I decided to listen to "TOM" (our GPS) and go the traditional I-95 route. Which means I had the pleasure of introducing Maddy and Kate to South of the Border!

For those of you that aren't familiar....South of the Border is a ridiculous tourist trap located on I-95 between the border of North Carolina and South Carolina. I believe it originated as a truck stop/restaurant in the 1960's and over the years the owner ran with the "Mexico" theme and added shops and attractions, such as mini-golf and a huge Sombrero you ride an elevator to the top of and look out onto I-95. Sounds like a fabulous place doesn't?!?!

The best part of South of the Border are the billboards starting 100 miles out on both the North and South bound lanes of the interstate. They are super tacky yet captivating at the same time. Most start with the tag line "Pedro says..." If I hadn't been driving I would have taken a picture of my favorite one but you'll just have to try and visualize based on my description... Try to picutre a big sausage with the following written on it: "Pedro says...you never "sausage" a place! Visit South of the Border."

See... tacky and captivating at the same time. Or maybe I was just really bored and needed something to distract me from the sounds of Maddy singing various songs from the The Little Mermaid and Veggie Tales.

At this point you may be asking yourself "why did Jessica stop here, take lots of pictures, and then blog about it?"

Well...between growing up in Washington DC with grandparents that lived in Georgia and then living in Georgia after my parents divorce and my Dad stayed in DC, my family has been driving by or stopping at South of the Border most of my life. I can remember stopping there on our way to see my Mimi and Papa as a little girl and I certainly have memories of using South of the Border as the "half way" meeting point once my parents divorced. I have a lot of good and a few not so good memories of that silly sombrero.

And now that my little family is settled in Georgia with parents/grandparents that live in DC, South of the Border will be a part of Maddy and Kate's childhood too. This was just the first of many pit stops they will make. But next time, Pedro says...we should leave Macon at 5am in order to fit in a round of mini golf.

Nana's Dress

We were in Washington DC last week visiting Nana and Granddaddy. While there I took some pictures of Kate wearing a very special dress. The dress in the pictures was  Nana's dress when she was a toddler. I'll be polite and not say what year she wore this dress, let's just say the dress is several decades old. :-)

Kate was a good sport about wearing the bow for awhile but eventually she ripped it off as you'll see below. It was also difficult to get a picture of Kate looking directly at me. She was not feeling that great. I realized that morning she was cutting all four of her "canine" teeth at the same time and had a terrible runny nose from it all. Not to mention she has a temper to match that "strawberry" hair. Despite all that I did get a couple of cute shots.

Kate's version of a smile is laughing out loud.
Somehow Maddy has not taught her how to pose yet.



First Day of School

 Today was Maddy's first day of Pre-Kindergarten (4K).

She is super excited for this school year for two reasons:

1. She has boys in her class

and

2. She gets to go everyday versus 3 days a week like last year.

I am not so sure I am excited about reason number 2 (or #1 for that matter). Going to school 5 days a week means we are one step closer to Kindergarten. It's hard for me to believe that Maddy is going to be 5 and that this time next year she'll be at "big school".

 Seems like just yesterday she was toting her "Gigi" giraffe everywhere. Now Gigi stays home but Maddy still loves her giraffes. So when we were shopping Maddy just had to have this outfit for the first day of school. She said it was perfect!

Kate's First Haircut

Kate got her first haircut today! Because if you have enough hair to wear a hair bow then you have enough hair to cut. :-) Poor Kate has had a curly mullet "hair do" for about 6 months now. It's long and curly in the back and short and straight on the top... She is finally getting more hair on top and on the sides but it looked so uneven. It was driving me nuts.

Kate watched Mommy, Mimi, and Maddy get haircuts then it was finally her turn. She sat in Mimi's lap and was distracted by a bottle of hairspray. Ms. Ember trimmed her hair to make it look even. Most people can't even tell that she got a haircut, but I can. I've got a lock of her hair to prove it. :-)

The first "cut"

Kate was such a good girl

"What have you done to my hair? It took me 19 months
to grow it out and now you want to cut it?"



"Maybe you should put some hairspray on this new do, after all I am
a true Southern gal....I need my hairspray"



It's BOW Day!!!

I've been waiting for this day for 19 months. The day Kate would finally decide to wear a hair bow for more than 30 seconds.... Today was that day.

We were cleaning upstairs when Kate brought me a pink bow and pointed to her head. That was her way of telling me "put this on me Mommy." So I did, thinking she would immediately take it off and throw it to the ground (like she had done 1000 times before). But she didn't! Kate wore the hair bow for almost an hour. Yea Kate!

For whatever reason I wasn't the Mom that put big bows on my babies the minute they were born. I didn't feel the need to do that, my girl's were "girl-y" enough without the big bows. But here in the South the bigger the hair bows, the better. That's why today is kinda a big deal for me. It's Bow Day!

To celebrate Bow Day I'll take Kate tomorrow to buy her some smaller hair bows because this bow is way too big for my little baby... :-)

And yes, I celebrated Bow Day with Maddy too. Here's a picture from Maddy's Bow Day in the Summer of 2008... :-)

Slip n' Slide

Nothing says summer better than a slip n' slide...

About a week ago we had dinner at a friend's house and afterwards the kiddos played on the slip n' slide. It was Kate and Maddy's first time on one. In the beginning there were a few falls from walking instead of sliding but it wasn't long before they were running and sliding. Even Kate enjoyed herself. She was content just to sit in the little pool at the end of the slide. Her lounging never lasted long because soon enough one of the "big" kids would tell her to move so they could slide again. They could have played all night long if we'd let them but eventually we called it quits. The girls were asleep in the car before we even got down the driveway. It was the best way ever to wear them out. I think we might need to invest in a slip n' slide of our own....