A date with Santa

On Sunday I had my first ever "we met on Instagram" date with my new friend Chelsea, from Austin. She and I met through my Instagram shop, she has one also and an Etsy shop too where she sells hand painted leggings (more on that in another post!). There's not a whole ton of girls in our area on the Instagram shop "circuit" so we chatted a lot and we both have girls the same age so decided to make plans to meet up, somewhere between SA and Austin. Chelsea had the idea to meet in Gruene since that's a great spot in the middle for us and we could get the girls' Santa pictures taken there with Cowboy Kringle. (Seriously. So cute, right?)

After two failed attempts (weather related), we finally made it happen yesterday! It still was bad timing with Violet in awful teething, whiney mode but I was determined to make the meet up happen and I'm so glad I finally got to meet Chelsea and Addi! I didn't get any pictures of Chelsea and I but I did get a couple of the girls while we were in line for Santa. The line wasn't that long but it was pretty unorganized so it took longer than it probably should have. Good thing for the abnormally cold day and getting there early so there wasn't much of a crowd!

So, back to when I said Violet was in whiney mode? Yeah, that lasted the whole time. Hence the baby pacifier for most of the day. UGH. And by the time she got up to see Santa, she was already wearing down and I knew it wouldn't be good. I even changed the original picture package I'd signed up for because I figured we wouldn't get a good shot. But I guess if you consider crying pictures to be good ones, then hers was great! Poor Santa still asked her if she wanted anything for Christmas and I told him a doll would be great to which he replied, "I will see what I can do!". I took that to mean, girlfriend's getting coal for Christmas. She's still pretty cute though :)

After pictures, I totally pushed my luck and we took the girls to eat at the Grist Mill. Enter toddler nap time meltdown. I got to eat a few bites and then it all went way downhill. Poor Chelsea packed up my food for me while she and her angel of a child ate and I walked outside to calm down my child. We had to leave soon after but thank goodness for Chelsea being so awesome and helpful throughout it all. It was so great meeting her and I hope we get to do it again soon! Next time though, my kid's staying at home and we'll be in Gruene for another reason - WINE.