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The MOMS club coordinated a private mall event including kids’ activities, special photo session with Santa and other games. Austen enjoyed meeting all the animals including Chick Fillet’s cow mascot advertising to eat more chicken.

Able to withstand Squirt’s random unprovoked attacks, Guss spends a lot of time with Austen and Mama. He even lets Austen hold him. Today he shared a bowl of mac ‘n cheese with Austen, even though she told him, “No! That’s Austen’s mac ‘n cheese.” (She speaks rather well for a barely two year old.) Unfortunately, the pair dropped their bowl on the floor and shattered the special Sesame Place bowl. They didn’t seem to mind as much as Mama.

Mama has been talking to Austen about her (first) cousins, especially while watching a video with Elmo’s country cousin Elmer. There’s been some progress. During a quiz yesterday, Mama asked, “What are your cousins’ names?”

“Emma!” replied Austen.

“And…?”

“Erin!” yelled Austen.

“And…?”

“Morgan!” cried Austen, after a pause.

Austen loves to play with Guss. She chases him, picks him up, hugs him, forces him to sit with her, rubs and hugs him. Guss is very accomodating.

Austen also tries to do the same with Squirt but soon realizes that Squirt is much more independent and weary of her although when in the right mood, Squirt is also cuddly.

Austen went to see the Bee Movie (her 2nd movie) at the theater with Mama and Dada. The theatre was especially setup for kids and had small tables in front of each row of seats. We ordered some food to munch on while watching the bees buzzing around on the big screen; Austen mostly enjoyed the popcorn and although we didn’t last the entire movie, we made it further along than the previous movie outing (Ratatouille).

Emma & Erin celebrated their birthdays together. There were double the presents and yummy birthday cake. Afterwards, the cousins dressed up as princesses and jumped around on their bed with Emma & Erin’s uncle Jonathon.

Mama threw a baby shower for Riley’s Mom, Kelly. We had lots of friends over and plenty of yummy food, including home-made cupcakes and ice cream.

Dada helped with hosting duties and Mama played some games with the other mommies. One game asked everyone to write down their name suggestions, which were later read aloud and the other game had everyone trying to match baby photos with the correct Mommy. Dada said it was a tough game since there were a lot of “white people.” Silly Dada.

Austen continues to enjoy her trips to MyGym. She’s still very independent and will usually only go to the areas she wants to go to or areas that she sees older kids playing in. She’s very good at emulating older kids’ activities and is usually able to match their physical abilities (unless they’re several years older).

Here she is doing some “big jumps” on the trampoline, which is one of her favorites.

Austen went trick-or-treating in Metuchen with Mama and Dada, dressed up as Snow White with a fancy fur coat on top (it was chilly!). We saw lots of other kids dressed up, some younger and some much older. Some houses were very docorated and Austen pointed out when they had a “biiiig pumpkin” or if they had a mummy or skeleton, she mentioned how that was a “scaaary house.” Towards the end of the night, Austen was getting tired so Dada carried her around to the last few houses before returning home with her stash.

Dada thought some of the ‘kids’ were old enough to be considered a posse when walking around in a group. Surely they could scrounge up a few dollars to just buy their own candy but Dada guessed it was more of a social activity. Then, Dada recalled being in his own posse and doing some not-so-nice things but that’s another blog entry…