Father's Day 2016

Yesterday was Father's Day here in America, and the first of two Father's Days that we celebrate each year. Lucky Kim gets to celebrate American Father's Day in June and Australian Father's Day in September.

For Kim's present, the girls and I made a Chatbooks photo book featuring designs by our favorite illustrator, Dallas Clayton. We're all big fans of Dallas Clayton's simple yet meaningful style, so as soon as I saw that Chatbooks was teaming up with him I jumped online to order a book. Of course, our photo book needed a matching card, so the girls dressed in their matching Dallas Clayton t-shirts and romper from Rags to Raches, grabbed a few balloon props, and we had a little photo shoot.

Happy (Australian) Father's Day 2015

Today is Father's Day in Australia.

Well, it was actually Father's Day in Australia yesterday, but it's Australian Father's Day in America today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. Damn time zones!

Anyway, today we are celebrating Father's Day. Lucky Kim gets to celebrate Father's Day twice a year as Australia and America hold Father's Day on different dates (June for America and September for Australia). Not so lucky me only gets one Mother's Day as they're held on the same day in both countries. Technically we missed American Father's Day this year as we were on a plane to Australia at the time and due to crossing the international date line we skipped ahead a whole day. We boarded the plane on a Saturday and less than 24 hours later we arrived in Australia on a Monday. The Sunday, which happened to be American Father's Day, just disappeared into thin air. Confusing, right? Even though we missed American Father's Day, the girls still treated Kim with presents and home made cards when we arrived in Australia.

For Australian Father's Day the girls also treated Kim with gifts and home made cards. They always choose a pair of socks each to give Daddy for Father's Day, because that's what Father's Day is all about, right? Socks and underpants! I love the colorful designs from Swedish company Happy Socks so the girls chose a crazy pattern each to make Kim's feet a little happier.

And here's a look at the cards that Ava and Lola made for Kim. Lola was over drawing by the time she made Kim's card so it was a little rushed! Ava's card has some interesting spelling!

Father's Day Portraits

Last Sunday was Father's Day in Australia. 

I've already shared the card that I made for the kids to give to Kim (you can see it here) but I also wanted to show you the fantastic drawings that the kids drew for their Daddy.

Ava is quite the accomplished little artist and has been drawing beautiful pictures from a very young age. Can you believe that she started drawing pictures recognisable as people before her second birthday? Crazy, right? It completely took me by surprise when I found her drawing an army of chalk people on our driveway a month before she turned two.  

Lola hasn't been quite as keen on drawing as Ava. Her drawings tend to be mostly squiggles and she gets frustrated very quickly if her picture doesn't look like what it's supposed to be. She'll draw if asked to but she won't sit down and start drawing of her own accord. Until now. In the last few weeks everything about Lola's drawings has changed. She's drawing people with bodies (not just heads with arms and legs sticking out!), she has started adding scenery and details, and - the best bit - she has started drawing without being asked to. Hooray! 

So here are the girls' Father's Day drawings. Ava drew the whole family with a beautiful sunset over the water because Daddy likes watching the sun set. Lola draw herself and Daddy at the beach. She even included the blue hat that Kim has been wearing lately (you'll see it popping up everywhere in my upcoming Seattle and Portland posts!).

Ava's Family Portrait

Lola's portrait of her and Daddy at the beach

Hooray for little artists!

Father's Day Card 2014 (Australian Edition)

It's Father's Day... again!

As I've mentioned before, lucky Kim gets to celebrate Father's Day twice a year. First up in June for American Father's Day, and secondly in September for Australian Father's Day. Unfortunately Australia and America share the same date for Mother's Day so I only get one special day. Boo.

This year I've been so busy with visitors, vacations and back to school that Australian Father's Day sneaked up on me. With no barrage of ads for power tools, barbecues, electronic gizmos and socks on tv it completely slipped my mind until a few days ago. Sorry Grandpas in Australia, your cards will be a little late. Nothing unusual there though!

If you've seen the previous Father's Day cards that I've made with the girls you'll know that I'm fond of coming up with something cheesy. There was the giant redwood themed "Tree-mendous Father's Day" card from last year, and the baseball themed "Number 1 Fan" cards from the year before. This year is no different with another cheesy caption. I can't help myself. I think I have a problem!

Lately Kim has been a little obsessed with wearing hats. And the girls are obsessed with wearing Daddy's hats when they can get their hands on one. With this new obsession and a cheesy catch line in mind the girls and I set about creating a card involving Daddy's hat collection.

Happy (Australian) Father's Day 2013

Yesterday was Father's Day number two for the year, otherwise known as Australian Father's Day. Lucky Kim gets to celebrate Father's Day twice each year (American Father's Day was back in June), while I get just one Mother's Day.

We had organised to spend the day at Lego KidsFest in San Jose so I figured that a Lego themed card would be just the thing for this Father's Day. I played around with a few different ideas (trying to write out different messages in Lego) but kept coming back to the simplicity of a Lego heart. Much easier to make than a Lego message and it ties in nicely with this year's Mother's Day cards, which you can see here.

Here's a look at our Lego inspired cards plus a few shots from our photo shoot. I really wanted to take photos up on our roof but as always the wind came out as soon as the camera did so Ava has some interesting looking hair! 

Don't "Lego" my heart!

Father's Day in Golden Gate Park

Yesterday was Father's Day here in America. We started the day off with the girls giving Kim gifts and cards that they made for him. As you can see, Lola's drawing skills are starting to improve and she's finally drawing people. Ava loves pointing out how much better she is at drawing than Lola because she could draw people before she turned two. Not at all competitive that one!

Showing off the handmade cards

Happy Father's Day USA

It's Father's Day again here in the USA.

It feels like only yesterday that we were celebrating Father's Day but I guess seeing as Kim gets two of them a year (June for USA and September for Australia) it really wasn't that long ago.

Here's a look at the card I made for Kim using photos from our recent trip to the redwoods.

Have a tree-mendous Father's Day

Wishing all the Dads out there a "tree-mendous" Father's Day!

Little Projects: 2012 Recap

A few days ago we had a look back at all of the Little Adventures that kept us busy over 2012. Now let's have a look at the Little Projects and Little Crafts that filled in the rest of our free time...

Valentine's Day
For Valentine's Day we baked little heart shaped sugar cookies for Ava's friends at pre-school. We packaged them up in little bags with a picture of Ava the baker on the label. The label read "Sweet Hearts for my Sweetheart". Ava thought that this was absolutely hilarious. I think that it was just the right amount of cheesiness for Valentine's Day!
You can see more here.

Sweethearts for my Sweetheart

Father's Day 2012: Australian Edition

Time for Father's Day number two for the year!

Lucky Kim gets to celebrate Father's Day twice a year. American Father's Day was back in June and now we have just had Australian Father's Day this weekend. Can you believe it's September already?

Seeing as Kim has already been spoiled once this year with Father's Day treats we decided to keep it a little more low key this time around. No presents this time but we did come up with a cute card.

You may recall that we attended our first baseball game a few weeks back. You may also recall that the girls were super excited to wear "baseball fingers". I thought that these two things would work nicely together for our Father's Day card. I'm always partial to a little cheesiness!

I took one of the photos from the game of the girls wearing their Oakland A's "baseball fingers", edited out the logo and text, added in my own details, added a cheesy greeting and voila, perfect Father's Day cards. I personalised them with the names Daddy, Papa (for my Dad) and Doug (for Kim's Dad - yes, the girls call him by his real name!).

Papa's #1 fans

Father's Day USA

Oops... once again I've written out a blog post and then forgotten to go back, add in the last few details and click the publish button!

It's not really Father's Day here anymore, but it was when I started typing this post...

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It's Father's Day here in America.

Lucky Kim gets to celebrate Father's Day twice a year; in June for American Father's Day and again in September for Australian Father's Day. No fair! I only get one Mother's Day.

The upside (for me) to having two Father's Days a year is that I get an extra chance to work on gift and card ideas.

This year for Father's Day (USA edition) Ava and I decided to give Kim the gift of family bike rides. Ava drew some lovely pictures of Kim and the girls riding their bikes and I turned them into a gift pack.

Ava liked the idea of giving Kim a booklet of vouchers. I liked the idea of making him a card that entitled him to unlimited family bike rides. Something he could keep in his wallet and pull out every time he wanted to take the girls for a ride. We decided to combine the ideas and make both. Well, sort of.

We came up with the idea of the Mason Family Bike Club. Ava and I made ID cards for each member of our family and these were included in a Member Gift Pack with a dozen vouchers, each one good for one family bike ride.

The "Mason Family Bike Club"  member gift pack with Ava' original drawings

Two Little Chefs

Kim received his Father's Day gift from the girls in the mail today so I can finally share it now on Little Hiccups!

This year for Father's Day Ava and Lola dressed up as little chefs, Ava in an apron and Lola in a chef hat, and made a special Father's Day breakfast for Daddy - or at least they pretended to for the camera!

I had originally intended to use the photos for a card in a collage style similar to some our Mother's Day card from this year. However, there were so many good photos that I wanted to use that it just ended up looking messy. I couldn't bring myself to cull the photos so instead I decided to turn them into a little book with a short story about two little chefs.   

Here is the finished product...

The completed Father's Day books

Happy Father's Day

Today was Father's Day here in Australia.

As Kim is in San Francisco and couldn't be with Ava and Lola for Father's Day I thought I'd create something special for the girls to give to him. I can't wait to show it here on Little Hiccups but it will just have to wait a little longer as I'm yet to post it to Kim and I don't want to spoil the surprise for him. 

Here's a little taste of what's to come...

Two little chefs...

Father's Day Memories

 Another trip down Father's Day Memory Lane...

This time we have some shots of a photo book that I made for Kim and Ava's grandpas for Father's Day 2009.

I love photo books. They are so much more convenient than traditional photo albums and I really like that they allow me to be creative with the layout and text etc. Adding a little story to the pictures helps to make it feel like a real book. When done well photo books can present as quite polished and professional - as long as you avoid the "scrap booking" style of template! If you want it to look like scrap booking well, then do scrap booking!

Anyway, here are some shots from our Father's Day 2009 photo book.

The cover of the Father's Day photo book

Father's Day Card 2008

For Father's Day 2008 Ava and I had a photo shoot with Kim's Vespa. 

Ava dressed in her best biker-chick outfit, put on Daddy's (very heavy) helmet and gloves and grabbed a couple of spanners to "fix" the Vespa. 

There were so many good photos from our little shoot that I made a composite card from my favourites. The final card is below.

Father's Day is coming up

Father's Day is almost here again. Just under a week to go.

This year Kim is on the opposite side of the world to us so no breakfast in bed for Daddy - unless he orders room service in his hotel :)

I thought I'd share some pictures from previous Father's Days.

For Kim's first Father's Day I printed a special t-shirt for Ava to wear.

Daddy's Little Girl and I took Daddy for a picnic in the Botanic Gardens.

Ava and Daddy picnicking in the Botanic Gardens