Kid Friendly Fun in the Bay Area

Here in the Bay Area we are so lucky to live in an area with so many fantastic places for families to visit. Some are obvious and super touristy, while others are a little off the beaten track. If you're looking for a fun outing for a weekend, ideas for visitors or just a staycation over the holidays there's a ton of fun to be had right here in our own backyard. Need a little inspiration? Here are some of our favorite Bay Area places to visit. Want more details? Just click on the name of each place and you'll be taken to a post with lots of photos and information from one of our visits.

Museum of Ice Cream

If you're following Little Hiccups on Instagram you would've seen that Mathilde and I attended a press preview of the Museum of Ice Cream here in San Francisco a few weeks ago. You can see our visit over on Mommy Nearest but today I thought I'd share some more photos of all the ice cream fun with you. And by more photos, I mean a LOT!

If you haven't heard of Museum of Ice Cream it's a pop up exhibition dedicated to all things ice cream. It's not a museum in the traditional sense, but rather a colorful experience perfect for taking a ton of selfies! Most of the exhibits are hands on and each room features different music with dancing highly recommended. Oh, and there's plenty of ice cream to try too. It couldn't be a museum dedicated to ice cream without tasty frozen treats, right?

Here's a look at some (or rather, a lot) of my favorite moments from our visit to Museum of Ice Cream. Be prepared for a lot of pink! Oh, and made sure you scroll all the way through to see Mathilde being interviewed on TV!

An Evening Walk in Crockett

Now that we own a car we're trying to get out and about on short day trips around the Bay Area as much as possible. We've visited some pretty amazing places in our (almost) six years in the Bay Area, but there are so many out of the way places that we didn't even know existed that we're keen to explore. The North Bay is an area that we haven't really explored at all until now. We're familiar with the big bridges, the huge sugar refinery, the stunning water front and the rolling hills, but only from the context of zooming past them on the freeway on our way somewhere further afield. Over the weekend we decided to get out and explore a little of the North Bay area. 

We ended up in the little town of Crockett, located along the Carquinez Strait where the Bay narrows and home to the giant C&H Sugar refinery. We arrived late in the day as we'd been busy in the morning, and after grabbing a late lunch at a pizzeria we headed to a nearby park by the waterfront to explore.    

I had seen on the map that a trail leading through the path would take us down to the waterfront and the wreckage of an old ferry called Garden City. I'm a sucker for ruins and anything historic so we decided to go check it out. Now, there was a trail that lead through a valley towards the wreckage, but we decided to take a different trail (not marked on the map) that headed straight down to the water and then walk along the waterfront instead. That turned out to be a good call as the walk along the waterfront was a hit with the kids.

A Simple Toddler Snack Tray

Today I'm sharing with you a super easy way to get toddlers sitting down to eat a range of healthy foods. Mathilde, like most toddlers, can be pretty picky at times about what she eats, and she's not so good when it comes to sitting down for a meal. She's much more of a grazer, snacking throughout the day rather than someone who likes to sit down and eat a big meal. I think that's pretty true of most toddlers - or at least most that I've met!

I really don't mind Mathilde snacking throughout the day, especially if she's snacking on something healthy, but I do mind her walking around the apartment with her food. Getting her to sit in one spot can be a little tricky, but I've found a fun way to serve up her snacks that gets her eating in one spot. A muffin tray!

It's such a simple solution, and it's kind of crazy that it works, but if I serve Mathilde's food to her with each item divided into a different part of the muffin tray she's much more likely to sit down and eat it all. If she helps me put it in the muffin tray (and chooses where each item goes) she's even more likely to eat it all. I guess there's just something about toddlers liking things in order - even if they are pretty chaotic most of the time!

I like to fill Mathilde's muffin tray with healthy, bite sized pieces of food. It's a great way to make sure that she is eating something from all of the food groups. Favorites with Mathilde are grapes (always sliced in half length ways), edamame, black beans, corn, whole grain cereal, carrots, berries, turkey, salami and cheese. You can add pretty much anything your toddler likes. I like to use silicon cupcake liners in the tray to keep things a little tidier, but you can always skip these and put the food directly in the muffin tray.

A visit from the Tooth Fairy

Lola lost her first tooth yesterday at school!

Well, I say it was her first tooth, but really she had one pulled out by the dentist when she was 5 due to a cavity (eek!), but this was her first tooth that fell out on its own, and therefore much more exciting.

Berkeley Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival 2017

About a month back the girls took part in one of our favorite local festivals, the Berkeley Chocolate & Chalk Art Festival! This festival was previously held annually, but has been away for the past few years (it clashed with the Bay Area Book Festival which was run by the same people). The girls and I were super excited that it has made a come back and we hope that it's here to stay.

Cooking with Kids: Frozen Yogurt & Berry Bark

Now that Ava and Lola are back at school it's just Mathilde and I at home together most days (apart from her two half days a week at preschool). She's at a really curious age at the moment and is always eager to learn how to do new things, like writing, painting pictures of animals and, most recently helping me cook. 

Lately, it feels like every time I step into the kitchen Mathilde is there, hot on my heels ready to help out. I love that she's eager to learn and is really taking an interest in how food is made, but there are so many aspects of cooking that can be just a little dangerous when you're only three. To encourage Mathilde's interest in cooking I've been thinking about simple recipes that don't contain any, well... actual cooking! Simple recipes that she can prepare fairly autonomously without the need to use an oven or stove. 

One such simple recipe that Mathilde and I made recently was Frozen Yogurt & Berry Bark. A healthier, frosty take on the classic chocolate bark, this tasty treat is super easy to make and you really can use any toppings that you can imagine. Trust me, Mathilde was coming up with all sorts of crazy combinations - all based on chocolate, of course! I decided to stick with something a little healthier though and went with berries.