Being social

Last week was a wonderfully social week.

On Monday, we saw Auntie Em and cousins Jack, Ollie and Joey and then had our Hallowe'en fun.

On Tuesday, we went to East Lynn park and saw the awesome pumpkin display for the East Lynn Park Pumpkin Parade. East Lynn is one of the parks that has started this cool new tradition. On the day after Hallowe'en, anyone can bring their jack-o-lantern to the park. The pumpkins are lit with tealights and displayed along the park pathways. Some people in our 'hood have WAY more pumpkin carving talent than I do. There were traditional jack-o-lanterns, a Jack-o-Layton (which was actually a pretty good likeness of Jack Layton), some zombies, cats, ghosts, a Stewie from Family Guy, and assorted other goblins and ghouls. And the next day on my walk, I even saw a carved watermelon: an interesting departure from the traditional pumpkin or gourd.

Mummy's friend, Laura, came over to visit on Wednesday. In usual Laura fashion, she brought presents for Alexa (this time a pretty stuffed bunny from France). Laura always spoils Alexa.

Thursday, Mummy's friend Carolan and Alexa's buddy Kieran came over to play for the afternoon. Alexa and Kieran have always taken to each other, but this time they actually played together instead of just playing close to each other. Kieran crawled around the main floor and Alexa chased him. Kieran has also started kissing Alexa's head. She doesn't always enjoy this, because he sometimes yanks her hair at the same time, but it's quite cute to watch.

On Friday, we had Aunt Rachel and cousin Kaia visit during the day. They arrived just after noon and stayed right through until bed time. We had a great time, playing in the park and at home. Kaia helped Mummy and Rachel make an apple crisp for dessert: she was the official apple taster and tasted a piece of each apple to make sure it was good enough to go in the dessert. In the evening, Alexa's friend Charlie and his parents, Steph and Mark, joined us for dinner which made for a lovely big party. Kaia was quite sure to demonstrate which baby was her cousin, giving obvious preference to Alexa over Charlie.

Kaia and Alexa had such good fun together.