P is for Pancakes, Pajamas and Preschool

Each week at Lola's preschool the kids learn about a new letter. This week they are learning about the letter P and to celebrate they had a pajamas and pancakes day today!

Lola has been so excited about her pajama day and all week she has been talking about which pajamas she would wear. Last night before bed she picked out two sets of pajamas. One to wear to bed and one to change into in the morning.

This morning she was so excited to change out of one set of pajamas and into another. She was so excited that she got to put shoes and a hoodie on with her pajamas. And she was super excited that she got to leave the house in her pajamas. We dropped Ava off to school on our way to preschool and Lola made sure to tell all the kids in Ava's class that she was wearing her pajamas to preschool today. I think they had all presumed she was sick.

The bus came by as we were walking to preschool so we jumped on. Lola thought it was pretty great to be on the bus wearing her pajamas. She made sure to tell the driver that she was wearing her pajamas to preschool today!

Riding the bus... in pajamas

Welcome Cookie

I can't believe he's been in our home for almost a month and I still haven't introduced him here on Little Hiccups. Just who am I talking about? Well...

He's little.

He's scaly.

He's yellow.

He's spotty.

And he's the newest member of our household.

Meet Cookie, Ava's brand new pet gecko!

Hello Cookie!

Graced with Light

On Saturday we took the girls to see "Graced with Light", an amazing art installation at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral by artist in residence Anne Patterson.

The installation features around 1,100 strands of ribbon, each 86 feet in length, cascading from the ceiling of the cathedral. That's about 20 miles of ribbon all up! The ribbons, in shades of blue, green and red, create the most wonderful atmosphere in what is already a stunning building.

Flashback Fridays: A New Series

Travel has always been a great passion of mine and I love sharing our adventures here on Little Hiccups.

But because I only started this blog in 2011 so many of our adventures haven't been chronicled here. I figured it was time I start sharing some of these adventures from the past. We've been to some pretty amazing places over the years: India, Thailand, Singapore, New Zealand, England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany... Plus, of course, there are lots of exciting places back home in Australia that I'd love to share. Not to mention our previous trips to the US before we moved here.

So beginning next Friday I'll be sharing a past adventure here each week starting with our amazing trip to India back in 2009.

In the meantime, here are a few of my favourite shots from various adventures to whet your appetite...

Sydney Harbour Bridge

30 weeks down, 10 to go...

It certainly feels like I've been pregnant forever (and I have, haven't I?) but we're finally approaching the home stretch. Thirty weeks down, just ten more to go!

Whiskers!

On Sunday we took the girls to the Children's Creativity Museum in San Francisco to see "Whiskers!", a musical adaptation by Lyricabella Productions of the beloved children's book "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams.

"The Velveteen Rabbit" is a sweet story about a toy's dreams to become real in the eyes of a child. Originally published in 1922, the story has been republished many times over the years and has been adapted into several animated films, musicals and ballets.

Like the book, in this production the story begins the day after Christmas in a children's nursery where a velveteen rabbit, a new Christmas gift, has been put aside in favor of shiny, modern toys. Rabbit, made of velveteen fabric and stuffed with sawdust, feels rejected by the boy who has cast him aside, but quickly makes friends with the other neglected toys, in particular Horse, the oldest toy in the nursery. Horse has been a much loved toy over the years and imparts his wisdom and experiences to Rabbit of what it is to be real. To be loved by a child so much that your fur starts to wear thin, holes appear, and parts fall off, but the love that is felt by the child and the comfort and joy that is brought to them makes it all worthwhile. This is what it is to be real in the eyes of a toy.

Seeds of Love for Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

The girls have a day off school today for Lincoln's Birthday (followed by President's Day on Monday - 4 day weekend!) so the Valentine's Day celebrations at school were held yesterday.

Here's a look at what Ava gave out to her classmates...

For me, Valentine's Day is a great excuse to work on something creative with the girls. Candy and sweet things are always off limits at school so we always need to come up with something else. This year I settled on an idea quite early and luckily the girls were both pretty excited about it. Inspired by the Tears for Fears song "Sowing the seeds of love" (if that doesn't show my age, I don't know what else would!) I came up with an idea to give small packs of flower seeds as Valentines gifts.

Seeds of love

Star of the week

Last week at school Ava was the "Star of the week" in her class.

She was awarded star of the week status because she is "focused and tries her best" - and maybe because it was also her birthday!

The star of the week gets to take Buddy Bear home with them along with a special journal and is asked to write about what they did with Buddy during the week. They can also draw pictures and include photos.

Buddy was lucky enough to be here for Ava's birthday party so that's what Ava wrote about in the journal.

Buddy Bear and the journal

A Reptile Birthday Party

Yesterday was the big day that we've been looking forward to for weeks: Ava's 7th birthday party!

After petsitting her class gecko over the Christmas break (which you can see here), Ava has been a little obsessed with reptiles. When she found out that our local reptile store, East Bay Vivarium, has a traveling reptile show that can come to birthday parties she knew exactly what she wanted to do for her party.

So a reptile themed party it was!

As well as the reptile show we had a reptile themed birthday cake, reptile themed party bags, gummy snakes and frogs, pass the parcel with a reptile prize in the middle and "pin the tail on the lizard".

Cute reptile cake

Party Animal Tattoos

For Ava's upcoming reptile themed birthday party I wanted to create something a little different to include in the party bags for the guests. I had bought a pack of printable tattoo paper a little while back but had never gotten around to making tattoos for the girls. A birthday party seemed like just the right excuse to make up some fun tattoos and the little party animals from Ava's invitation (which you can see here) perfectly fit the bill for the designs.

The tattoo paper that I used is made by Silhouette and designed to use with their software and fancy electronic cutting machines. As I don't own a Silhouette cutting machine I stuck to good old photoshop and an Xacto knife. A little more time consuming but easy peasy!

Printing the tattoos