A tie dye birthday - highlights!

Before Pinterest, all we had was our own imagination to craft memorable birthdays for our kids.  Life may have been simpler then, but I'm not complaining.  I'll take all the help I can get!

Fast forward to 2015, and between Pinterest, Instagram and YouTube, there is no shortage of inspired ideas out there to compare your own handiwork against.

For Mina's 9th birthday, she asked for a tie dye party. No other explanation. After sitting down and talking about it, we came up with some ideas and I set off to execute the grand vision. 

The plan:

Cake

Food station

T shirt tie dye

Swimming. 

I shamelessly borrowed from all the above mentioned online sources and came up with this. 

Cake:  Birdonacake has a great tutorial for the whole thing. 



Practice round. 



I tried the blue frosting in the middle for this round, but it was easier to just stick to white.



I added some Trix bits along the edge to tidy it up (and get rid of the cereal.)

Once sliced, you get the full effect.



Decor:

I like chalkboard art.  Plus, I needed a sign by the front door so people would just come inside.  We disconnected the doorbell to preserve the baby's naps.  hahaha

 

Theme inspired food ideas:

Trix krispy bars from Cravings of a Lunatic

7

Décor:

Tie dye and rainbow colors, courtesy of Amazon.com and Oriental trading company.  We did tie dye backpacks as favors too.

The girls decided to have an impromptu freeze dance competition at the end, and we used the peace sign fans as prizes.

T shirts:

Fantastic tutorial on YouTube on how to do this with acrylic paint and fabric medium, by Shemi Dixon. 



I bought some fabric markers, so the girls could flair out their shirts.

Drying on the tarp, once the rubber bands are removed. Yes, that is a pair of boxer shorts there as well.  Jeff thought he needed one.



Swimming:

 

We put together a fun playlist with songs from the 60's through today, and the girls had a blast dancing and diving into the pool.  It was a great way to cool off after doing the shirts in the sun.

Success!

Scenes from Music Together.

"She's a happy child," her teacher said.

Exercise. Sort of.

This week, I've been doing most of my running at lunchtime. I've packed the shorts, t-shirt, sneakers, garmin and deodorant and joined the crowds who like to run/walk the Brooklyn Bridge between 1:00 and 2:00 each day. Beginning to end and back, it's about 3 miles. I get a few bonus points for running from my building to the base of the bridge, and an extra gold star for the slight hill I climb on the way there.

A few things have crossed my mind.

1. There are a lot of tourists who like to walk the bridge very slowly, with cameras. Their preferred mode of ambulation is to walk side by side, spanning the narrow length of lane that is devoted to pedestrians. One half of the lane is for pedestrians coming and going. The other is for bicyclists - coming and going. Have you ever been hit by a cyclist speeding down a bridge? Me either. And I'd like to keep it that way. Get the hell out of the way! And stop frigging texting your way across the bridge!! You can't see me coming, and you're too distracted to hear me shouting, "EXCUSE ME!!"

2. After my run, I come back into the building sweating like a hog and bright red. My hair is in disarray, and my makeup is smeared all over my face. A thin layer of sweat is slowly crystallizing across my whole face and torso. All I want to do is sneak into my office, lock the door, towel off and change before the cleaning lady bursts in on me. I then want to quickly wolf down my lunch in the remaining minutes I have before lunchtime is over and before said cleaning lady comes back to empty the trash because lord help me if I leave anything in there after she's emptied the thing. As much as I appreciate all the words of encouragement from colleagues who see me running in, it's probably best if I don't stop and chat with you because (a) I stink. (b) I don't want to call attention to myself (c) I'm sympathetic to your reasons why you choose not to run, and my running should not make you feel guilty, don't take it personally, and (d) I stink.

3. Re: stink after a run - I've noticed that a hefty dose of towelling off and deodorant will keep the funk under check until quitting time. I can't vouch for what I smell like on the subway and bus ride home, but who cares? I'm on a NYC subway in the summertime. I smell better than most people.



This week, the monkeys have been exercising a lot too. They started soccer clinics in the evening. So, from 6:30 - 8:00 (!!!) they've been running around, doing soccer drills, and getting yelled at by a bunch of British guys who come into town every year for this express purpose.



Day one was kind of.. well, a disaster. It started off in a fairly benign way. Kids not paying attention...



watching the clouds roll by...

It started getting worse as the hours rolled on ... someone decided they wanted to play their own version of soccer, not whatever nonsense the coaches were trying to teach them.



But today was much better:





There might be a world cup somewhere in their futures.

Visiting Home .. part one.

We returned from a recent trip to upstate New York - where we visited my parents and celebrated my nephew Arman's first birthday. More on that later.

It was a busy four days. And who knew it was possible to consume so much food?



Here's someone who knows what I mean. This kid can pack it away. Over the course of our visit, I watched in awe as he happily ate every item of food that found its way near his mouth. And I don't just mean the birthday cake.



"Teach them, Arman," I kept whispering to him. Please teach my kids how to eat normal food without bribes. Please!



Mina and Arman bond over toys at T's parents' house. Jordan temporarily disappeared.




But we quickly found and heard him.



Jordan and Mina take a moment to perform "Ebony and Ivory."



Jordan and Mina on the stairwell at my parents' house. This was the first year they both slept in real beds. My brother's old beds, I should add. So... Osman and Riz... if you should happen to come across anything out of place in your childhood rooms the next time you visit - you know who to blame. Guitars, bhangra drums.... little bottles of cologne.... and boy, is it time to redecorate those rooms!!!!



Eating seems to form a major component of every upstate visit. It happens immediately, and no amount of willpower ever makes a difference. I don't even know why I bother trying to resist. I actually did sort of try... for about two days. By Saturday, I just threw in the towel. Croissants for breakfast.. sure... followed by a round of chai and mitai... sure... how about some specialty European chocolate, just because it's sitting there on the table next to me... ok.

Mina eating her morning croissant without a care in the world.



Jeff eating the same... along with a big fried egg.



I don't know whose brilliant idea is was to place a scale right next to the dining table, but it was a painful visual reminder for me over the course of our visit. Mina happily jumped right on after breakfast. I stayed away. Far away. Why is that thing there??!!




On Friday, we headed over to one of my old childhood stomping grounds - the Big Flats Community Park. Jordan climbed his way up the monkey bars (is that what they still call these things?) This was a good weekend for a visit. The weather was perfect.



There he goes. This stuff was relatively new. I don't remember it from back in the day. We never had this fancy stuff.



Reaching the top. He was very excited to get there.



Jeff and Mina riding into the sunset. Those fields in the background are some of the ones both me and my brother played softball/baseball on. They used to seem so much bigger.



Mina on the old slide. This thing I remember. It's the kind that heats up when the sun shines down on it.

Nice!

Up next.... celebrating!

Where does the week go?

By Monday, Jordan was definitely well enough to go to school. Naturally, that meant disaster was bound to happen - and it did. Monday was a snow day. Two healthy kids, stuck at home all day while the wind whipped outside ferociously, and I cursed under my breath.

I hate winter.

We spent much of the day playing. I dug out a memory matching game our cousin Amy bought for the kids years back. They got it this time, and we settled in for round after round of this. Jordan impressed me. He rarely has the patience for most board games, but this one held his attention. I think he just liked winning. Mina inherited my temperament regarding losing. Not pretty.



Following most illnesses, Jordan reverts to eating everything in sight. I think he compensates for the weight he lost during the previous weeks. For most of this week, he ate around the clock. After eating his own breakfast, he demanded I share mine with him (lite, whole wheat English muffin, with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter - that's 2 weight watcher points people.) Yeah, I measure out the peanut butter too. I look forward to eating that thing every morning.



But, I gave it to him, and watched him nibble away at it while my stomach rumbled in protest. He doesn't even look like he's enjoying it, does he? That's the rub of it. Yet, he somehow managed to consume the whole thing. Grr.



This standing in front of the refrigerator thing in search of more food ... yeah, he gets that from me. But for him, it only comes out post-illness. For me... it's a 24 hour thing.



I grumbled my way through the snow and cold, but Miss Mina was thrilled to wear her pom-pom boots again .. with faux pearl necklace and heart pendant. Can't go anywhere without that.



On Wednesday, we celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday - meaning Jordan came home from school and ate lunch at home in his Dr. Seuss hat that I repaired. I don't know why the cow is making an appearance at the table. He must have snuck upstairs and brought it down without me noticing. How did I miss that?

Jordan has gone through his Dr. Seuss phases. At various times, his favorite Dr. Seuss books have ranged from "Oh, the Places You will Go," "In a People House," "One Fish, Two Fish," and "Marvin K. Mooney." Grandma H. started him off right with all of Jeff's Dr. Seuss books from his childhood. Most of the ones I've read with him are pretty good. It's interesting to trace the way Jordan's attention span has grown as he's gotten older. We've read to him since he was an infant - and at first, there was no way he was making it through a whole rendition of "One Fish, Two Fish," or "The Places you will Go." But as he got older, he would pick those books out himself each night to read. I'd read them; he might ask questions, and he got so good at memorizing the whole story, he'd catch me right away if I tried to skip a verse here or there. (bad mom! bad mom!)



Ahhh... it's the Children of the Corn!!!



Yep. Here they are again.



What you talkin' bout, Willis? (Jordan took this picture. Not bad for a 4 year old.)



I finally dragged myself outside today with Mina to enjoy what I hope will be the last snow of the season. We hung out in the front yard, which was relatively sunny, and made snow castles.











That was fun. Getting Mina to come back inside was another story though. Here she is, doing the immigrant squat in the middle of the front lawn in protest.



After morning errands, we settled down to lunch and our daily episode of Animal Kingdom - ala New Jersey. I scraped up all the loose breadcrumbs and tossed them out for the birds. The squirrels found them first.



They get hungry too. Look how cheeky this one is. He's totally staring at us while we eat at the table.