The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau

To coincide with my post about our trip to Monterey Bay Aquarium I thought I'd share a book that I recently found at our local library.

I was drawn to The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino by the simple, retro inspired style of the cover illustration. Knowing that Ava loves everything undersea I figured that she'd be interested in learning about one of the oceans' most important ambassadors.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

My list of places to take the kids in the Bay Area has some pretty cool destinations on it: farms, museums, playgrounds, galleries... There is one place on the list however that we anticipated visiting more than anywhere else; Monterey Bay Aquarium.

From a young age Ava has been enthralled by anything to do with life under the sea. When she was two years old we visited Underwater World in Queensland and instantly she was hooked on anything and everything fishy.

During Ava's recent Spring Break we took a trip down south to beautiful seaside Monterey. The big drawcard there being the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Monterey Bay Aquarium from one of the viewing decks

Pickle Party Beans

Ava's teacher has a birthday coming up soon.

Ava's teacher loves pickles.

Ava's teacher love Jelly Belly jelly beans.

Hmm... if only Jelly Belly made a pickle flavour!

Seeing as they don't we thought we'd make our own "Pickle Party Beans".

Ava drew a fantastic picture of dancing pickles, as you do, and I tracked down the most "pickly" looking jelly beans I could find. We put them together and voila! One pack of "Teacher Meri's Pickle Party Beans".

Pickle perfect!

Party like a pickle? Just how does a pickle party?

Easter Tattoos

"Easter tattoos?" I hear you say.

That's right. Easter tattoos.

And not just any old Easter tattoos. Easter tattoos from the fabulous Tattly, makers of the finest temporary tattoos there are.

Tattly are always releasing new and wonderful contemporary designs. I've raved about them here before. Recently they happened to have released a bunch of bunny tattoos, perfect for Easter. And to make these bunny tattoos even more perfect for Easter, the fine folk at Tattly made their bunny tattoos available in sets of twelve - in a carton of eggs! Perfect.

I couldn't resist purchasing a set of these tattoos for my girls for Easter when I saw them. I'm so glad I did. They went down a treat. The whole family was decked out in bunny tattoos today for Easter.

Ava wears Funny Bunny and Red Kicks on her arms

Lola points out Good Bunny - a little blurry, I know...

Red Kicks out for an egg hunt

Funny Bunny helps carry the egg basket

Is that Funny Bunny I see poking out of Daddy's collar?

Why, yes it is!

All decked out in bunny tatts with Freckles Bunny on her face :)  

Nerdy Bunny helps Lola find eggs

Good Bunny helps Lola carry eggs

Red Kicks hides along my side

Hot Cross Buns

This year there were no store bought hot cross buns in our house. 

Every hot cross bun that we ate at home was made by Ava and I.

Ava pipes on the crosses

Now this wasn't necessarily because our home made hot cross buns are fantastic (which they were, if I do say so myself) but rather due to the fact that we couldn't buy hot cross buns anywhere.

Be very, very quiet... We're hunting Easter Eggs!

It's Easter Sunday! Time to hunt for eggs!

Back home in Australia we always hunt for chocolate eggs. The Easter Bunny hides them in our backyard and we search for them as early as possible before the sun turns them into a runny, chocolatey mess! Here in America where foil covered chocolate eggs just aren't as common kids search for real eggs, albeit brightly coloured ones!

Ava and I coloured eggs ready for our hunt on Saturday afternoon. It was loads of fun and a new creative activity for us to do together. You can read about it here.

Now, as we share our outdoor spaces with lots of other people the Easter Bunny was unable to hide our eggs when he visited over night. He was a little worried that other children in the building might find them first. So instead it was up to me to hide the eggs in our shared courtyard garden after breakfast. Our garden turned out to be perfect for an Easter egg hunt. Enough plants and rocks to hide eggs behind, but not too big or over grown for the eggs to go missing in.

Colourful eggs hide in the garden

Rainbow Eggs

This year Ava and I coloured eggs for an Easter egg hunt on Easter Sunday. Back home we always have an Easter egg hunt with chocolate Easter eggs. As chocolate Easter eggs are scarce around these parts we decided to go the American way and hunt for real eggs - dyed in unreal colours!

Colourful eggs with butterflies from Hello Hanna