Another one bites the dust...

Less than one week after Ava lost her first tooth, another one has fallen out. We're on a roll!

That smile is starting to look pretty gumby!

Easter Parade + a Ride the Ducks Give Away

This give away has now ended.

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Easter Sunday certainly was a fun filled day for our family. A visit from the Easter Bunny, an egg hunt, smashing confetti filled eggs and, the highlight, taking part in the Union Street Easter Parade in San Francisco.

We were very lucky to get the chance to ride in the parade with Ride the Ducks. The girls have been looking forward to it for weeks and were so excited that the big day had finally arrived. If you spend any time in San Francisco at all you'll be familiar with the Ride the Ducks boat. A boat on wheels, it makes its way through the city streets and out onto the Bay giving tourists the best of both worlds: a bus tour AND a boat tour. Plus it's a lot more fun!

We were joined on the "Duck" by a large group of families each with their own equally excited children for the parade. We were all given our own "Wacky Quacker", a duck bill shaped kazoo, and as you can imagine we pretty quickly became the noisiest group in the parade! Somehow though, despite the non-stop quacking and disco duck soundtrack Lola managed to fall asleep during the ride. This was the first time she been in the city without a stroller and all of that walking up and down hills had tired her out. Plus we did have a pretty busy Easter Sunday morning at home before the parade. And she has a habit of falling asleep in moving vehicles!

Like the other kids (both big and small) on board, Ava was pretty excited to wave to the crowd watching the parade and blow her Wacky Quacker to the music as we made our way down Union Street.

Happy Easter 2014

It's been a super busy Easter weekend here with non-stop Easter activities lined up.

In fact, we had so much going on for Easter that I'm going to break it down into three different posts - otherwise this would be one incredibly long post!

Let's start with today, Easter Sunday, and the Easter fun the girls had at home and out and about today...

Easter girls

The Missing Tooth

It has finally happened!

No, the baby hasn't come out yet, but something else has...

Ava has finally lost her first tooth. And it only took 7 years, 2 months and 13 days!

All school year Ava has been the only kid in her class yet to lose a tooth. In fact, I think at the end of the last school year she was the only kid in her kindergarten class yet to lose a tooth as well.

After a few months of wobbling her two front bottom teeth one of them has finally decided to let go and fall out. And Ava couldn't be more excited about it.

It finally fell out!

Easter Ideas Round Up

Easter is almost here again and as always the girls are super excited about it. I mean, what's not to love about a holiday that involves a bunny delivering chocolate eggs! Such a strange concept when you think about it, isn't it?

Easter is usually a time that I go a little overboard with all of the preparations: colouring eggs, baking hot cross buns, making decorations, helping the Easter Bunny to leave a trail of footprints... This year, however, Easter falls one week before our little one's due date. With all of the baby prep I've been busy with, Easter has taken a bit of a back seat. Plus getting much done with this giant belly isn't the easiest. I look like I've swallowed a basket ball sized Easter egg!

I'm still hoping to work on a few simple Easter crafts with the girls but in case we run out of time (my doctor seems to think our little one will come early!) I thought I'd share a round up of previous years' Easter ideas.

Sparkly Easter Bunny Footprints
One of the most popular posts of all time on Little Hiccups has been my DIY for Sparkly Easter Bunny Footprints. Every year the Easter Bunny leaves a trail of footprints behind him when he visits our apartment. I'm hoping I'm not in hospital over Easter this year as the Easter Bunny won't be able to leave his telltale prints and Ava just may catch on!

Look what the Easter Bunny left

Cal Day 2014

Yesterday we spent the day at university for the annual Cal Open Day. For one day every April the UC Berkeley campus is open to the public with pretty much the entire university experience on display.

The girls and I with Cal mascot, Oski Bear 

Flashback Fridays: Flinders Ranges, South Australia

This one's going back a fair way. All the way back to 2003...

Back then Kim and I were living in Adelaide in South Australia. Adelaide is our home city but over the past 14 years we've moved backwards and forwards quite a bit: Adelaide, Zurich, Sydney, Adelaide, Sydney, Adelaide (again!) and now the San Francisco Bay Area. Plus multiple moves within each city. Whew, that's a lot of moving!

After living in Sydney (the first time) with all the hustle and bustle of a big city we were keen to get out and see as much of the countryside as possible while back in Adelaide. Being Australian, and therefore used to incredibly long drives to get anywhere, we found ourselves taking quite a few long distance day trips on weekends. After an impromptu drive five hours north to the southern Flinders Ranges (and back again) one Saturday we decided that a proper visit was in order. So a few weeks later we headed to Wilpena Pound in the spectacular Flinders Ranges for a weekend away.

Preschool Easter Party

Today Lola's preschool class had an Easter Party.

Her class sang songs that they've been learning, we shared a potluck lunch and, everyone's favourite part, the kids took part in an Easter egg hunt.

I love Easter parties

Fun in Crissy Field

A few weeks back we spent a day in the city playing tourist. We caught a cable car, visited San Francisco Cable Car Museum and then headed to Crissy Field to see the SFMOMA On the Go exhibit featuring sculptures by Mark di Suvero. 

While we were out and about the girls had lots of fun running about through Fort Mason, Marina Green and Crissy Field, taking in the sights of the Golden Gate Bridge and the city skyline, and were excited to see sealions swimming in the bay. I've already shared posts about our visits to the Cable Car Museum and SFMOMA On the Go but today I thought I'd share some of the extra photos that were taken of the girls having fun - and mostly goofing about!

Fun in Crissy Field

Portraits of a Baby Sister

That big fat belly of mine is the perfect blank canvas for a little artwork and that's exactly what it became yesterday! It's so pasty white a little colour couldn't hurt. Prepare to blinded!

The girls took it in turns drawing pictures of what they think their little sister will look like on my belly. 

Baby belly portraits and my little artists

Macy's Flower Show

Yesterday the girls and I visited Macy's in San Francisco to see the annual Macy's Flower Show.

Each Spring the ground floor of Macy's on Union Square is decorated with a mass of blooms above the make up, jewellery and accessories counters. Each year the show features a different theme. This year's theme was The Secret Garden; hidden gardens in an urban environment.  

Here's a look at the floral displays throughout the store...

An American Girl Day Out

Today we finally got around to taking the girls out for lunch at the American Girl doll store. "Lunch in doll store?" I hear you say. Well, this isn't any ordinary doll store. This is the American Girl store and the American girl store has EVERYTHING! There's a bistro, a party space, a doll hair salon, a huge selection of accessories for dolls, and of course, the American Girl dolls themselves. 

Lola in the American Girl store

April Fool's Day 2014

Happy April Fool's Day!

We've had a gloomy, rainy day here today but we brightened it up with lots of fun little pranks against each other. Even Lola got in on the prank action!

The day started off with a prank against Kim. Overnight I switched the background on his phone to a picture of Sam, three time champ in the World's Ugliest Dog competition. I think he'd definitely still hold the title if he hadn't died back in 2005. Back when Sam was the champ this particularly horrible picture of him would randomly appear as the background on either mine or Kim's phone or computer. He hadn't made an appearance for a while so it was time to bring him back! Kim didn't notice the new background on his phone until he was on Bart heading to work.

World Champion Ugly Dog!

Kim's new phone background!