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!

Halloween comes to Saltus, 2013.

Dreaming of..



Halloween!!



Both kids had their class parties last Friday.  It also happened to be the last day of school before the traditional "mid term break," in Bermuda.  A break for a whole week, just in time to enjoy Halloween night - what more could one ask for!



I know.  Glitter pumpkins, obviously!  With a wee witchy hat.  Oh Pinterest.



At Jordan's party, we organized tables into craft and gaming stations.  The gooey gak is always a favorite.  As I cut out the straws, I pictured the kids burying their faces into the gooey gak (it's slime.  The recipes vary, but this one is combo of Borax and Elmer's glue.) 

If you stick the straw into it, and blow, you come up with enormous bubbles. 

You have to be a kid to understand.



See?



I loved this craft - mummy sticks!  The teacher printed out each child's face to attach to stick skeletons.  Wrapped in gauze, the effect looks very mummy-ish! 

Not mummy in the Brit sense.



Although I did the baking, I begged to be put at any other table.  I can bake, but I really, wanted to avoid the gaggle of kids decorating.  (ugh.. sticky frosting, sticky little hands, bits and bobs of candy flying everywhere!)

Armed with a color printout and loads of candy accessories to decorate - a dear granny assistant manned the table.  I hid my smile.  She was dressed so nice too.



The kids always love this station.  I know.. I've handled it in Mina's class one year.  It was definitely the happiest table in the room.  The ants (always present in massive formations in Bermuda) were also having a field day.

Sugar highs.



Crazy sugar highs!



Jordan's masterpiece. 

I like the bloody, red eyes.  Looks like some Polyvysol is in order.  This is the stuff they sell over the counter here in Bermuda to treat pink eye.  It amazes me you can just walk in and get this without a prescription.  I recall having to go to a doctor in the US, for a full exam before he would prescribe anything.

The pain killer, Alleve however does requires a prescription.  Not that I use it, but my doctor made a point of mentioning it to me the other day. 

He was trained in the US, and married a Bermudian.  So, he has been working in BDA for a long time.  He mentioned patients who are partial to Alleve, will buy big vats of it at Costco and bring it back to Bermuda in their luggage.

I laughed, because I think all of us in BDA have certain things we are cramming into our suitcases to bring back here from trips abroad. 

Jeff is partial to golf balls and Fiber One bars.  Yay Costco!



Back to the Halloween party - I was happily stationed at the beading table!  Jordan presents his masterpiece, Oriental Trading necklace. 

Never let it be said that beading is for the girls only. 

While I manned the table, many little men came over and spent just as much time designing their necklaces.  They are too cute in all their seriousness.

Jordan was in his element that day.  Barred from wearing actual costumes, the kids were encouraged to wear "Fall colours."  Yes, colours with a "u."

I've never seen so much orange all in one place... well, except for Dutch soccer games.  Also an amazing sight.

I'm one of the assistant class mom's for both kids. This year's Class moms are so super-organized and creative. We held a planning meeting at the start of October to discuss the class parties!  And everyone came up with such great ideas. I'm loving this group. Those print out labels alone made my day.

Nature Walk

Two (plus) weeks later, school break is finally drawing to a close. One of these days, I'm sure the whole school break system will start to make sense to me. For now, however, I'm left wondering why the kids are out of school more often than they are in it.

Since today was their last day of freedom, we decided to have a morning adventure and enjoy the sunshine. Off we went, to commune with nature at the Bermuda Botanical Gardens.



The plan - bring along bug jars and a picnic, collect various odd bits and pieces of cast off nature, assemble nature diagram in our art books. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but it came from this source. Yay!

And the park is free too! Double yay!



While we waited for our friends to arrive, we explored the park. It's 26 acres, so there's lots of walking. We wandered about, letting our feet take us where they would.



Isn't this tree amazing? Look at the root structure. It made me think of the Ents from Lord of the Rings. Wasn't that a great series? Did I also mention I am the biggest nerd in the world? Just in case you had me confused with someone else.



Walking about, we observed Bermudian flora..





And fauna...



including these ducks who decided to follow us around for a good 100 yards or so (after we fed them bread, of course.)



The Garden also houses planted gardens with herbs, vegetables and flowers.



Including the once famous Bermuda onions that Mina was very eager to show me. I say "famous" because once upon a time, exportation of the onions was an important source of revenue for the island.

I digress.

Once we got home, the hodge podge of assorted nature bits were left to assemble...

right... the fun part.



Pretty simple concept. Outline nature shapes, fill in.



Simple = good.

Christmas cookies. And other stuff.

What I really want.

now.



mint chocolate grasshopper brownies

What I made instead.



because it's easier.

And has peanut butter.

and chocolate.

School is out for the season, and we're trying to keep the kids amused. We dragged them to a local production of that holiday treat - "The Nutcracker." Only this one was "Nutcracker Spectacular." Which, I learned later meant - not really the Nutcracker at all.

But that's ok. The kids sat still. Which, translated means - "They enjoyed it very much!"



Recreating the performance:



Quotidian bits - Dressing in Bermuda: Unlike Mina, some of us can't get away with wearing a pink Christmas dress with faux fur trim all season long. I'm still trying to figure out how to best dress for the weather here in December. Some days it's warm enough that I have left the house in shorts. But that's getting rarer. More often than not, I'm sporting some version of this:

Sartorialist capture

This is pretty much my go-to outfit these days. Jeans. sweater. Scarf. clogs. Of course, I probably weigh about thirty pounds more than this young filly, and can never remember to wear my rockin signature ring... but take a look at the site. Seems like people thought this was a cute look! I knew I had something here.

Mental note - must find signature oversize ring and glue cellphone to head to achieve perfect fashion capture.

But why am I dressed this warm? Isn't it sunny and tropical here?

No.

Not always. Bermuda is certainly warmer than New Jersey, this time of the year. But unlike the Caribbean countries further south, it gets kinda cold.

It's been raining a lot and the temperatures have dropped. The combined damp and chill really sinks into your bones. I've been wearing scarves, fleece, sweaters and hats.

Jeff, on the other hand, continues to wear shorts and polo shirts in open defiance of nature.

While he does his arts and crafts in the warm kitchen, flanked by oatmeal chocolate-chip cookies.



ta-da!



Storm trooper snowflakes!

Why I'm dressing warm:





40 mph winds.



View of Bailey's Bay

Anyway, no need to cry me any rivers. I'll take the rain and winds any day over snow, thank you very much.



Yeah, this was my view last winter. That was fun. Someone up there was listening to me all those days I spent shovelling snow off the driveway, sidewalk and car. I swore I would be happy if I never had to see snow again. Life sure works out strange sometimes doesn't it?

The rain and winds settled down enough today that I could take Oscar for a walk. Here's one of our favorite paths, along Bermuda's Railway Trail.



This is a gorgeous view. The spray was pretty high today from the winds which made me worry about my camera and getting the salt off the lens. That, and Oscar was getting blown backwards.



The Railway Trail once was an actual train and tracks that ran the span of most of the Island. It fell into disuse though. But it's maintained now as a walking route. Except when it ends - as here.



These are concrete pylons of sorts that span Bailey's Bay.

I like running portions of the Trail for the view and also because it gets me off the roads where the drivers are. In our neck of the island, running this portion of the trail has brought me through "Coney Island Park." I think that's kind of ironic given our Brooklyn roots. One of these days I am going to bring the camera with me so I can take pictures of more of the chickens that seem to have taken over the park. As well as the sign which boldly reads, "Please don't feed the feral chickens."

Did you ever think you'd read the words "feral" and "chicken" in the same sentence? Sometimes I think my life has gotten very weird.