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.