Eleven Months Old

Eleven months. Crazy, right? I can't believe that this little one with be celebrating her first birthday in just under a month. I am in total denial!

Last month I ended Mathilde's ten month post with "Hopefully next month I'll be sharing my roly-poly walking girl with a few more teeth!". Well, I'm pleased to say that I can tick two of those things of the list. Can you guess which two?

52 Weeks: Week 12

Week 12: Maker Faire Street Team

One of our family's all time favorite festivals is coming up in just under two months: Make Faire!

The kids and I are so excited for Maker Faire. We've been the last two years and it's just such a fun event. Two days full of robotics, crazy contraptions, technology, scientific experiments and all round fun. There's always so much to see and do for all ages. Maker Faire is fun for adults and kids alike. You can see our previous visits to Maker Faire here and here.

This year we're helping to spread the word about Maker Faire by being part of their street team. This means that we've been out and about, armed with a stack of flyers and post cards which we've been putting up in local cafes, stores, bars... If you see a Maker Faire flyer somewhere in Berkeley there's a good chance we put it there!

Here's a look at the girls out and about all over Berkeley putting up their flyers and postcards over the last few days...

We're going on a Macaron Hunt

Today was some sort of official Macaron Day. There seems to be an official day for everything now. I need to keep a special calendar full of all the important official days. Somehow I keep missing International Nutella Day, and that's just wrong!

Anyway, today was Macaron Day NYC and from what I've read online, patisseries throughout New York handed out free macarons to customers all day. Now, we don't live in New York (boo!) and it seems that this special day was only celebrated there, but macarons are pretty damn tasty so we just had to join in the festivities. Unofficially.

So, this afternoon after school we met up with a few friends and went on a macaron treasure hunt, visiting four local stores that sell macarons: Masse's Pastries, Virginia Bakery, Paris Baguette and Cafe Clem. To make it feel more like a treasure hunt I made up a simple map for the kids to follow. It's a good thing that three of these stores are on the one street, and the fourth is just down a side street. My map only needed two lines!

52 Weeks: Week 11

Week 11: Our new walker

This week saw a huge milestone for our family. Our little Mathilde is now walking!

Last Thursday, at ten months and sixteen days old, Mathilde decided she was ready to set off on her own and she has been walking ever since. Crawling is still her chosen mode of movement much of the time as it's faster, but every day she walks a little more, and crawls a little less. Oh, she looks so proud of herself as she toddles along. It's the most adorable thing! Just look how happy she is below. So happy, that little tongue can't stay in her mouth!

Both Ava and Lola started walking properly just after their first birthdays so it feels a little weird seeing Mathilde toddle around while she's still so small. Plus, didn't I just give birth to her yesterday?! I swear I did. She is certainly growing up way too fast.

St Patrick's Day Parade 2015

It certainly has been parade season around here!

The weekend before last we watched dragons and lions march through the streets of San Francisco in celebration of the Chinese New Year, and this weekend just gone we joined a sea of green for the St Patrick's Day parade.

Joshua Tree National Park

I'm so behind with writing this last installment of our Southern California road trip over the Christmas break that I think this almost counts as a Flashback Friday post! Let's just pretend that I haven't been that lazy though ;)

Our road trip was one full of quite varied destinations. We visited the Danish inspired village of Solvang, spent Christmas by the beach in Santa Barbara, hung out in Los Angeles for a few days and then headed towards Palm Springs with a detour to Salvation Mountain, seriously the coolest desert location EVER! The final place we visited on our road trip was Joshua Tree National Park. 

52 Weeks: Week 10

Week 10: At the Salon

This week Ava and Lola went to the hairdresser for a trim. Little Miss Mathilde doesn't have quite enough hair to warrant a hair cut yet (although her fringe does get in her eyes) so she just watched - and pretended to get a haircut from Ava!

Ava and Lola both really enjoy going the hairdresser. I take them to my hairdresser rather than a kid's salon and they love pretending to be grown ups. I guess they feel like they're being pampered too. They always sit so still and never complain about the water splashing while their hair is being washed or the brush hurting when it snags on a knot. I wish they could be like that at home! Maybe I brush too hard and splash too much water on their faces!

Here's a look at our visit to the salon...

Chinese New Year Parade 2015

This past weekend was a busy one for us with much of our time spent across the bay in San Francisco. In fact, we spent the entire day in the city catching up with friends visiting from Australia on Sunday. But let's have a look at Saturday...

52 Weeks: Week 9

Week 9: In the City

This week's photos are a bit of a mish-mash with no real theme. They were all taken on a trip into the city last weekend, so there is a connection between them all, just not really a theme as such.

Last Saturday we headed into the city to look at a bike store in the Tenderloin. In recent months we've gone from having more bikes than family members to just having kids' bikes thanks to multiple bike thefts and Kim's run in with a car. Luckily Kim was not hurt in his recent accident, but his bike sustained more damage than it was worth so bike shopping was the order of the day. While Kim test rode various folding bikes around the block, the girls and I checked out cargo bikes for when we eventually replace our much loved (but stolen) Yuba Mundo. Mathilde is still far too small to be a bike passenger so it will be a while before you see all three kids on the back of a cargo bike of our own, but we thought we'd check out how they fit in the store anyway. Yep, they fit alright. It looks like Ava could even do the pedaling for me from the back of that XtraCycle!

Ice Cream Cone Party Hats

Today I'm sharing another easy, peasy ice cream party DIY from Lola's birthday party back in October. Ice Cream Cone Party Hats! 

This one really has to be one of the easiest party DIYs ever. Just stick an ice cream cone on your head and you're done. Well, not quite, but it's almost that simple.

These hats were a huge hit with all of the kids at Lola's birthday party. They loved the novelty of wearing food, but not in that messy "I dropped my lunch all down my front" way that kids usually wear food!