When I get behind on blogging, I end up bombarding y'all with a ton of pictures at once. So thanks to those few of you who stick with me ;)

November. It's been a busy month. It's not a coincidence that once our weather actually cools down, we feel energized and actually WANT to be out and about. So we've been doing a lot and making tons of memories with our girl. Our girl that has actually hit her terrible twos, oh, about 3 1/2 months before actually turning 2. She is all about the crying, whining and tantrums lately. Full on tantrums. She means business when she's in tantrum mode. Lord, help me. I'd be lying if I didn't say it's been completely exhausting and I miss the girl I had just a few weeks ago who rarely threw a fit...I'm also slightly terrified of what's going to come the older and more strong willed she becomes. But we'll cross that bridge when we get to it, right? 

This month, we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday, visited some with Ronnie's family too and then went to Wurstfest with Ronnie's sis and her boyfriend. So fun!! We hadn't been to Wurstfest since the year before I got pregnant and it was a much needed fun night out!

Then we took this girl to the Zoo for the first time! I'm looking forward to when she's older and able to participate in more things like the museum, water parks, etc. but for now, this was perfect and she had a blast, especially at the Butterfly House! (Disclaimer: By going to places like the Zoo or Sea World, for that matter, I'm not saying we agree with what they're doing. AT ALL. And we feel guilty every time we're there. But sometimes there's not a whole lot of places to take a small toddler and these places just work for us. So no judging, ok? :) 

ANYWHO.

Violet's also become obsessed lately with dress up - particularly with my clothes. She'll find something of mine and bring it to me wanting it on. It's adorable. She's noticing what her clothing looks like too. She'll bend over and stare at her leggings if there's a pattern on them. ha. She talks our heads off and I'm really happy with the progress she's making in that department. Her most recent words include "munk" (monkey), "hoo hoo" (for owls), and our favorite... c-o-c-k. Yup. That stands for clock in her world and we think for truck too. And wouldn't you know, it's one of her most repeated words. Fun :) She's just the best (when she's not throwing a tantrum, of course ;)

We just put up the Christmas tree last night - haven't decorated it yet - and she LOVED it. She even kissed it. ha! I'm so excited for the holidays with her!

A kid's night in Austin.

Not sure if you've heard this but San Antonio is hot. Much like the rest of Texas. So what do we do during the summer? Anything involving water. The pool, lakes, rivers, whatever. Or we're forced (I say forced like it's a bad thing. ha) to go to places like SeaWorld, Six Flags Fiesta Texas, Splashtown or drive to New Braunfels for Schlitterbahn. Those are all awesome but sometimes you just want a relaxed place, so Ronnie -being the awesome dad he is- had the idea to find Violet a splash pad. But for some reason, there are like zero splash pads in San Antonio. (Yeah, I said like. Ronnie hates that.) Maybe because we're so water conscious? Who knows.

 

Since we're always down for a road trip, I googled splash pads in Austin and the first result was "25 Austin area splash pads". Perfect. Thank goodness for our much cooler neighbor. So we packed up our girl late in the day Saturday (to avoid the hottest temps of the day) and headed to Austin. 

 

The first stop was Ricky Guerrero park - a little park tucked into the back of a neighborhood. There were 3 other kids playing when we got there and it wasn't packed at all. So nice. This splash area was small but had plenty of room for a good amount of kids and it was completely perfect for someone V's size. It also had a ton of shade so that was a major plus. The first 5 pictures below are from there. Our only complaint was that the water turned off earlier than expected (apparently it shut off a half hour earlier than it should have). But nice thing about Austin having so many splash pads is that there's always another nearby so we headed over to the Liz Carpenter fountain at Bulter Park (the rest of the pictures :). That one was insanely crowded but the view - you can't beat a splash area with a view. The entire Austin skyline was right there! Violet was a little worn out by then but still managed to have fun. I mean, WATER. She loves it.

 

Quick side story about the annoying man and his baby son in the above picture.

 

See, Violet LOVES other babies and immediately goes up to them so we already knew she'd be happy right next to this little boy. But he had sunglasses on (I'm guessing prescription after what happened) and another thing Violet loves is sunglasses. So she goes up to this kid, reaches (not grabs, but reaches) for the kid's glasses and while I'm trying to keep her from actually getting a hold of this kid, the dad rushes over to put his hand in front of Violet and in what I swear felt like slow motion, he yells "No no no no no!". You'd think my daughter was getting ready to push his son off a rooftop ledge. I quickly apologize and explain that she just loves sunglasses and meanwhile the son starts screeeeaming so the dad scowls at me and takes his son to the opposite end of the fountain. Dra-ma! Violet was still drawn to him though and as you can see, Ronnie had to keep stepping in to take her away. Like her dad, she's stubborn so I'm sure she would've eventually taken those glasses right off the boy's face...and ain't nobody got time to get into a fight with another parent.

 

But anyway. Happy, non-crazy people thoughts.

 

Can you see the happy on this child's face? Gawd, I love her. She had the best. time. ever.

 

And THIS. Downtown Austin sure is pretty.

 

We've wanted to move there for years but apparently everyone else and their mother from outside of Texas wants to also, so now it's just way too crowded. I'm just grateful a city with so much to do is nearby and we can visit whenever we want. Even if crazy parents do run rampant here, Austin's always a favorite.