Christmas 2011

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas. We had a wonderful Christmas filled with lots of fun and family. I could sit down and write a long post with all the details but now I have to switch gears for Kate's birthday coming up on Wednesday so here are some of the highlights....

1. Christmas Eve morning - the girls and I baked cookies for Santa. Don't worry, no one else but Santa and the girls ate these cookies after I caught them licking the batter spoons and bowls...

2. Christmas Eve night - with everyones different work schedules it's a rare occurrence that the Bury - Johnson crew is all together, so of course we had to take a picture.

 3. Mimi and Poppi got Maddy a "big girl" bike. She was so excited and is already zooming around our house on it.

 4. Christmas morning - an impromptu family photo after all the chaos. Can you tell that Santa and his helper were up until 2am building a dollhouse?

5. Zack and David relaxing after all the chaos.  

6. My latest baking experiment, Vegan Red Velvet cupcakes! I am willing to bet no one could even taste the difference between these and non-vegan red velvet. Keep in mind that just because it's vegan doesn't mean it's sugar free.... Ha!

There you have it, a quick rundown on our family Christmas. Check out the web album below for more pictures.

Christmas Web Album

Character Breakfast 2011

Kate, Maddy, and Braxton with Santa Claus

Last Saturday the girls and I went to the Junior League character breakfast. Character breakfast is a super fun event were all the Disney princesses, superheroes, Santa, etc all come in costume and eat breakfast with the children. 

Last year I didn't know that children could go in costume so Maddy went dressed in "street" clothes. Boy was she upset with me that day and she didn't forget about it either.  This year she laid out her Tinkerbell costume the night before and informed me that she was going dressed up this year. In her words "mommy it's okay that you didn't know to dress me up last year, but this year I am dressing myself."

So both girls went in "costume"... And wouldn't you know that this year most kids wore their cute Christmas clothes. Go figure. Ha. Despite the wardrobe drama the breakfast was a smash hit with both girls. Kate wasn't too sure about the "characters" but she didn't throw a fit and cry. She stuck close to me and just waved. And of course Maddy was in heaven, she had to meet every princess. And for the grand finale the kids met Santa. The picture above might be my favorite Santa picture of all time. :-)

Tinkerbell Twins

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving 2011

Everyone has a "Thanksgiving" story about how something goes terribly wrong leading up to dinner time. Whether it's a dog that ate the turkey before dinner or a Dad setting fire to the deck while frying the turkey, our own Thanksgiving is no exception. We now have our own "remember that Thanksgiving when...." story.

It all started the Monday before Thanksgiving. I went to the basement refrigerator at Dad's house and noticed a very odd rotten egg smell. The refrigerator contained only bottled water and a turkey so there was nothing that appeared to be rotten. So I closed the refrigerator door and went back upstairs. I casually mentioned to Allison "hey, I noticed a funny smell in the refrigerator downstairs. Do you think it could be the turkey going bad?" 

About that time Dad and David chime in and say "yeah, we smelled the same thing earlier, is it the turkey?" Allison tried to assure us that "no the turkey is fine, it's a pre brined turkey and you must be smelling the brining solution." None of us were convinced it was the "brining solution" so Allison called the store and spoke to someone that confirmed our fear "turkeys should not smell." So the next day Allison exchanged the turkey and brought home a different turkey.

Well the story doesn't end here. Flash forward to Thanksgiving morning. Everyone is enjoying the parade on TV, there's a nice fire going in the fireplace, and the house is filled with the smell of Thanksgiving. It's a perfect morning until about two hours into Turkey roasting time when Dad frantically, yells asks, "who turned off the oven?" Everyone in the house denies touching the oven. Dad starts the oven again and announces that dinner will be a few minutes late. But the story doesn't end here either....

Another hour goes by, Dad checks the turkey and decides it's time to turn the oven down. After some more "frantic discussion" it is realized that the oven has turned off again and won't come back on. Yikes! Allison calls "the Thanksgiving emergency" hot line while David "Googles" oven repair techniques. Thanksgiving dinner was not looking good at this point. The turkey was almost done but all of the casseroles still needed to be baked.

In the back of my mind I was thinking we might have to order Chinese food for dinner and Allison will never ever cook Thanksgiving dinner again. But thanks to the kindness of a neighbor with a working oven our turkey finished roasting and our casseroles baked. Thanksgiving dinner was saved and served only two hours late!

The next morning Dad tried to start the oven just to see if it would work and you won't believe me....but the oven came on with no problem and successfully warmed up leftovers for lunch!  Go figure....

We returned home to Macon late Friday night from a wonderful week long Thanksgiving break. I've got hundreds of pictures from our adventures during the week, including Maddy's first time ice skating but they'll be posted later in the week. Right now I've got a backlog of pictures to process for Bury Cute Photography but I couldn't resist sharing our turkey story and a few of my favorite pictures from our trip.

On the "Mall" with Maddy. It was a rainy, foggy day.

David and Maddy on the "Mall" with the Capitol and carousel in the background.

Kate was asleep in her stroller for the first two pictures but she woke up in time to ride the carousel.



Today's snack is brought to you by the letter "V"

It was our turn to provide snack for Maddy's class this week. Because I am the "crazy" mom who likes to come up with a snack that starts with "letter of the week", I decided that we would make chocolate covered "V's." Chocolate cover "V's" sounded better to Maddy than bringing "vegetables."

So we took 2 mini pretzel sticks glued together with chocolate frosting and then dipped them in melted chocolate. Maddy said "they were delicious and everyone enjoyed their snack....except for one kid that didn't like chocolate and he threw it in the trash can, isn't that crazy?"

Our pretzel V's

Kate, our taste tester. Notice how she is starting to pose
for my camera. Wonder where she learned how
to do that?

A not so good picture of our final product.

Trick or Treat

Kate telling Maddy "no, mine!"
Translation: that's my candy and you better leave me alone. 

Halloween is finally over! Between a costume photo session, preschool party, Trick my Trunk at church, and then trick or treating on Monday night we've been "doing" Halloween for almost a week now. I am exhausted and really tired of candy but it was worth it because the girls had so much fun. Especially trick or treating last night.

Kate trotted around the neighborhood holding her candy filled pumpkin and she would not let go of that pumpkin. At barely 22 months old she knew it was candy and that she better protect it from Daddy and Big Sister...

And in case you didn't know, both girls dressed up as cowgirls. Below is my new favorite picture.

                            

Some of you might be thinking "look at how sweet they are and look at Kate holding Maddy's hand" but trust me, two seconds earlier the picture looked like this....

Kate really did not like Maddy being on the horse with her. In fact it took two excellent photography assistants to help put a smile on Kate's face....

Check out the web album below for pictures from all of our Halloween events....

Halloween_2011

October brings the harvest....

Today was Maddy's school field trip to Twin Oaks Fun Farm. There were not a lot of pumpkins left but we still enjoyed a hay ride, the playground, and feeding the animals. Kate was particularly interested in the donkey. The donkey made a noise and then Kate proceeded to imitate it by going "hee haw hee haw." It was pretty funny considering that she was supposed to be quiet and listening to directions on how to feed the donkey.

Maybe that's why instead of feeding the donkey Kate decided to eat the donkey food.... She seemed content to eat it until I realized that's what she was eating. After a quick finger swipe to remove the feed from her mouth, Kate got mad and never really recovered. I think she was more upset that she had to share the feed with the animals than she was mad that I told her "no"...but I could be wrong.

Then there's Maddy. She had been waiting on this field trip for weeks. At school they learned a special song to sing on the hay ride and Maddy sang it every night to "practice." I'll have to get Maddy to sing it slowly so I can write down the lyrics but it ends with "October brings the harvest." And just that one line is has been stuck in my head all day now. :-) I wish my hands were free during the hay ride so I could have captured Maddy's little face. She was so excited. All in all it was a fun morning.

Go "Bluedogs"

Jessica and Holly

 My best friend from high school and freshman roommate at UGA, Holly, has been inviting us to games and tailgating since we moved back to Georgia but for one reason or another we didn't go. Well the stars finally aligned and we went to the October 1st game against Mississippi State.

The boys (aka the Husbands) left Macon at 5am to set up the tailgate. You have to be either crazy or dedicated to UGA football to get up that early on a Saturday. I am not either one of those things so Holly and I drove up later with her son Braxton and Maddy.

Everyone had a blast that day. In fact David had so much fun I may never see him again on football Saturdays. I think he's hooked on football and tailgating. :-) Maddy and Braxton played all day long and were so good. I thought for sure they would sleep on the way home but they didn't sleep a wink. In fact they spent most of the car ride giggling over an Oriental Trading catalog. Who knew a catalog could be so funny?

The funniest part of the day was Maddy calling the "Bulldogs" the "Bluedogs"... During the game she kept yelling "go Bluedogs." So she's going to have to fix that before we can take her to another game. Ha!

Maddy and Braxton with a "Bluedog"

Click on picture below for more football pictures.

Warrior Dash

Two weeks ago David and I went to visit our best buddies in Tennessee and to participate in the "Warrior Dash." I'll let you google "Warrior Dash" but it's basically a 3 mile trail run with 10 obstacles spread throughout the run. Most of the obstacles involve climbing ropes or crawling under barbed wire but the last two obstacles include jumping over fire and crawling in a huge mud pit. Sounds insane, right? And you might ask, "why would anyone pay to get dirty and tired?"

Well let me just say that it was so much fun. It was completely out of my comfort zone and something that no one would expect me to do or even attempt. I am not a runner, I am not an athlete by nature (or genetics), and I am not even that strong (although I am working on that). But none of that mattered on race day. What did matter is that I (we) took a risk and tried something new. And we were able to finish the race without injury and with our marriage still intact...

Pre-race, I had visions of me melting down halfway through and David getting upset at me. I did panic in the beginning but David remained calm and cheered me on. In fact I think completing the race together helped us. We saw sides of each other that we don't normally see and we worked together as a team. There was something about crawling through mud, crossing a finish line together, and someone handing us crazy medals that made me realize I can handle any situation as long as I have David by my side.... :-)

Now I don't plan on doing extreme sports all the time but David and I did agree that we should do something like this once a year. If for no other reason than it keeps us motivated to hit the gym. We've set our benchmark and our goal is to improve each year.

And as a side note, the picture at the top of the post is after the race. We didn't wear those hats and my legs are covered in mud as well as every article of clothing I wore that day. The hats were in our race packet along with a great t-shirt and the best bib number ever..... The last four numbers: "7680" is David's birth year (1976) and my birth year (1980) combined. See, it was a sign that were meant to run the race together. :-)

My race bib

Flashback Friday - Caramel Apple Edition

Pumpkin bread, football, colder weather, candy corn, and caramel apples are just a few of my favorite "Fall" things. Even though the temperature today in Macon was in the upper 80's the calendar still said it was the first day of Fall. I always feel funny about putting out fall decorations, wearing jeans, and eating fall foods before it officially "feels" like fall. But I am beginning to realize that here in Georgia if I waited on the "cooler" weather to put out my pumpkins and order pumpkin spice coffee K-cups I'd only have them for a few days and then it'd be time for our Christmas tree. So today I started forcing "Fall" in our house. 

First order of forcing Fall is caramel apple dip. It was Maddy's choice for our Friday night treat and the subject of "Flashback Friday". The picture below is of Maddy in September 2008. She is eating caramel dip with apples for the first time.

Flash forward 3 years......

And here is Kate, eating caramel apples for the first time tonight.

My kind of girl, no need for apples, just give her a spoon.

At this point, Kate is tired of listening to Zack bark.

Here try some, it's yummy!

Picasso Strikes Again....

My little Picasso, also known as Kate, struck again. This time it wasn't her face that she painted but our living room wall.....

What you are looking at is Kate's first official crayon drawing on our living room wall. As Maddy pointed out it kinda looks like a cowboy hat on a stick... And I know what you are thinking.....don't you watch your kids, maybe if you watched them more closely they wouldn't paint their face or write on the walls. And you are correct, if I hovered over them and checked their pockets before I walked 10 feet away I could avoid cleaning up crayon. But I can assure you, I was only 10 feet away putting in a load of laundry when my little Picasso struck... She was so proud of her drawing that it broke my heart to tell her she had made a mistake in using the wall as her canvas.

The thing I have realized is that no matter how much I organize and put away crayons and other craft supplies there is always one crayon that gets left behind or hidden somewhere. Leave it to Kate to find it, it's like she has a fifth sense for finding crayons buried in the toy box. I've also realized that "Magic Eraser" is the most amazing cleaning product I've ever seen, it can just about get any stain off of any surface, including my little Picasso's artwork....

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... :-)