Formula One Weekend

A couple of weekends ago, Austin was lucky enough to host the first American Formula One Grand Prix on the new track built just outside of town. Since my brother and dad have been huge Formula One fan's my whole life, they made the trip down for the occasion and stayed with us. My brother also brought my almost five year old nephew, Saoirse, down for us to entertain for the three days. 

While Kevin and I do fancy ourselves to be Formula One fans, especially after being lucky enough to attend the Belgian Grand Prix a few years ago, we opted out of this year's race. 

It feels like the majority of our time was spent teaching the two little cousin's how to share and play nicely together, we did manage to get out for a sweet little friend's third birthday party. Kevin also channelled his inner little boy, and pulled out a big box of randomness to play with out in our backyard area. They spent a long time camped out in Augie's 'fort' trying to scare away the bears with bicycle pumps until it all became just a little too realistic for a certain two year old's new imagination. 

Once our babysitting duties were over on Sunday evening, Kevin and I were able to get out and take in some of the commotion of Fan Fest downtown. Despite being exhausted from three days of racing excitement, my dad was a trooper and joined us to get a closer look at some of the cars and exhibits. A fun time was had by all and served as a nice refresher after such a long weekend. 

birthday party festivities

his face says it all...

no more bears!

race fans

loved spending time with 'GoDaddy'

Halloween, Part Two

Halloween evening was every bit of fun as we hoped it would be. We started the evening at our sweet friend Ella's second annual halloween playdate/party. As with last year, it was a great time of playing for the toddlers and socializing for the parents. When the sun started to set, we hit the streets for a little bit of trick or treating in mass. We soon realized that our napless butterfly was fading fast, so we sugared him up and headed home to fit in some trick or treating in our own neighborhood. Thankfully after just a couple of houses, he found a second wind, and joined the crazy masked hoards traveling from house to house. We wrapped up our fun around 8 when some of the porch lights began shutting off, and the bigger party goers came out to play. We were definitely one tired bunch by the time we pulled the stroller up to the door. But by the size of the corn-syruped loot in Augie's basket, it was not too shabby of a night at all. 

great haul for a sugar-deprived two year old!

Halloween, Part One

We actually started this year's fun festivities over the weekend. The University of Texas hosted a couple of costumed events on Sunday that were perfectly suited for our little butterfly. The first on our agenda was the Longhorn Halloween, which is a carnival put on for the youngsters of faculty and staff members. A large number of the various campus clubs and organizations set up booths full of games, activities, and large stashes of candy for munchkins galore.

The second party was Fright at the Museum put on across campus by the Texas Natural Science Center. They decorated the Texas Memorial Museum like a creepy scientific laboratory full of bugs,  mummified native animals, and a dinosaur graveyard. In addition to the normal exhibits, they had educational crafts, a fun toddler story time, insects that you could get up close and personal with, and even some that you could eat! Our little butterfly loved every minute of it all. 

And to top it all off, we were able to spend a few minutes with some of Augie's favorite cousins who swung by the museum for some photo opps after a soccer game. It was definitely a perfect, albeit very tiring, way to get a jump start on our halloween fun! 

Festive Fun

I'll admit it, we had a lot of fun with Halloween this year. We read our books, watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, made fun themed crafts, baked seasonal treats, sought out the decorated houses in the neighborhood, and just did a lot of general talking about all of the fun festivities ahead. And I can happily report that all of the prep work paid off as someone was thoroughly excited about each and every one of our efforts. While toddlerhood definitely comes with it's major challenges, it's really becoming a lot of fun too! 

our professional carver created a coordinating jack o lantern!