I’m very, very late with this post! I’ve been taking my daily photos, but I’m really behind in picking them out and posting them. I’ll be trying to catch up over the next week. So let’s get started!

August 6, 2009: My first ever dandelion offering as a mom! I used to pick dandelions for my mom all the time when I was a kid. I also loved to pick her tiny bouquets of violets from the side yard next to the garage.  She had a special little vase for those — a tiny pitcher with violets painted on the side. I thought there was nothing prettier in the world than that vase when it was filled with little purple flowers. I hadn’t thought about any of that in years, but when Wyatt brought me this dandelion after playing outside, I melted into a pool of goo right there on the floor. It was the best gift he’s ever given me and I didn’t even know I wanted it!

August 7, 2009: Wyatt’s last day of preschool was a big celebration with a potluck for all the families held at a local park. We brought chocolate cupcakes and gave the teachers little flowerpots painted with chalkboard paint. Wyatt wrote each of their names on the pots with chalk and I tucked a packet of seeds and a Target gift card inside too. We had a nice morning saying goodbye to friends. We’re sad to be leaving the school for a bit, but are already planning for Augie to start when he turns two.

August 8, 2009: Climbing at the playground at dusk.

August 9, 2009: Zach makes Augie “fly” around the yard.

August 10, 2009: And we’re off on our trip to San Diego! We spent the entirety of this day packing the car and driving down. We stopped for lunch at Pea Soup Andersen’s and loved it’s kitschy charm. The food was all really good too. I had to pass on the pea soup though — it’s never been a favorite of mine.

August 11, 2009: Our first day in San Diego! I spent the morning getting groceries and swimming with Wyatt in the condo pool while Zach worked a little and  Augie napped. After lunch we drove up the street  and hit the beach. We hadn’t planned on going in the water — which was a completely ridiculous notion on our part — but within about 3 minutes, Wyatt had run into the water up to his waist, so Zach had to run right after him. Augie joined in on the fun in the surf too, but I somehow managed to keep my clothes dry (mostly). Lovely, lovely beach fun.

August 12, 2009: Sea World! This photo was taken at our dinner with Shamu. It was a bit of an extravagance, but I’m so glad we did it. The food was OK, but of course the big draw was being so close to the whale. It was fantastic! He jumped and posed and did tricks for us and near the end of the meal, he camped out in an area of his pool right next to our table to play with kelp. I came down with a serious case of Shamu fever.

I’m finally back!

Whew! After a nice vacation, a stressful pre-kindergarten week and another week to sort of settle into our kindergarten routine, I have a post that’s chock full of bento boxes for you all.

Let’s start off with this little cutie, shall we? I made this one last week when we were still “on vacation” and I had all the time in the world. There’s some leftover couscous with chickpeas and Mediterranean spices in the little cup, baked tofu decorated with food markers and a good sized hand full of blueberries. Wyatt loved the tofu businessmen, but he refused to eat the couscous — despite the fact that he gobbled it down at dinner the night before and even had seconds. That kid! So unpredictable.

I also made myself a bento that day. I’m trying to get back on Weight Watchers to rid myself of some of the junk that can be found in my trunk and I find that packing a bento box — even when I’m not leaving the house — keeps me on track at lunch time. This box had blueberries, leftover southwestern sloppy joes and the same couscous that Wyatt had with some sauteed zucchini and tomatoes mixed in. I ate the sloppy joes mixture with a few tortilla chips. Very good lunch.

OK, so Tuesday was the first day of kindergarten! Can I just tell you that I can not believe I have a kindergartner? Yikes, time flies. I have to pack a snack for Wyatt every day, so of course I am doing them bento-style. This snack box had blueberries and raspberries and some whole wheat honey pretzel sticks in it. I also sent a juice box.

As far as I can tell, Wyatt ate about four berries from this. He said he wasn’t hungry.

Wednesday’s snack was graham crackers, a half banana, one strawberry (used to fill that hole above the crackers) and a box of raisins.

Again, this one came home nearly full. I think he ate the strawberry and maybe 3 crackers.

I forgot to take a picture Thursday. All the uneaten food from the previous two days made me scale back the amount I was sending. This time he got the unopened box of raisins from the day before and some blueberries in a much smaller box. And again, he only ate a few berries.

Today’s snack was an apple-carrot crusher and a small catsup sandwich (blech! — I will never get used to this idea). He ate about half the sandwich at school, but then he gobbled up the rest of his snack as soon as he got in the car.

I think the problem here is that they eat their snacks immediately before recess, and the sooner they finish with their food, the sooner they can go out to play. Also, I suspect that I’m sending too much and that he really isn’t all that hungry at snack time. I’m going to have to keep experimenting until we figure this out, I think.

I know I’ve been MIA, but we’ve had a busy couple of weeks. Our trip to San Diego was fantastic, fun and relaxing. I’m planning to post about it soon, but I took over 1000 photos on our trip so it’s slow going sorting through them all. I’ll be posting again soon though!

A couple of weeks ago, I tie-dyed t-shirts with my son as an afternoon time-killer. We had a lot of fun doing it because it was easy (no seriously — it really was) and the shirts came out great! These were not the mediocre, faded Rit dye type of shirts I made in high school and college. These came out with bright,  saturated colors and there weren’t any huge swaths of un-dyed fabric. I thought I’d share what I learned about tie-dying with you all.

Step 1: Gather your supplies

First off, you’ll need to gather your supplies. You can buy individual dyes, rubber bands, and gloves or you can buy a kit and have all that work done for you. I’m lazy, so I opted for the kit. I got this one at JoAnn’s with a 40% off coupon, so it was about $6. You can also buy them online at Amazon in lots of color combinations.  I’m going to show you how to use this kit in this tutorial, so if you opt for a different set of materials, follow the instructions for those dyes.

This kit said that it dyed “up to 8 shirts” but I only had enough dye for six shirts –  one adult sized and 5 kid sized. I had to really stretch to get that 6th shirt dyed too, so I probably shouldn’t really count it in the total.

In addition to the supplies in the kit (pictured above), you will also need garbage bags to cover your work surface and ziplock bags to store your shirts in while the dye sets up. You will also need something to dye, of course.

Step 2: Fold your shirt

I’m going to start off showing you how to do a spiral pattern because that’s the most dramatic and fun pattern to make.

First, lay your shirt out flat. Your shirt should be washed to remove any sizing if it’s brand new. It should also be a little damp when you fold it and add the dyes.

Next, pinch the shirt somewhere in the middle and start twisting the fabric around. Keep twisting until the whole shirt has been twisted into a disk. As you go, make little adjustments here and there so you have lots of folds and pleats in the fabric. This exposes more fabric to the dyes and will make for a more interesting pattern.

You should end up with a flat, twisty disc, like the one above. It should look kind of  like a hurricane.

Next, carefully wrap rubber bands around the shirt. Put the rubber bands on so they intersect over the center of the disc (or the “eye of the hurricane”). You should use at least three bands, which will divide the disc up into 6 segments. I used six bands on this one because this was an adult sized shirt and it felt a little floppy with only three.

If you’re doing other shirts, you should fold and tie those up now too.

Step 3: Dye your shirt

Prepare you work surface by putting garbage bags down. You can do this inside, but it’s messy enough that if you’re doing this with kids, you should just plan on doing it outside. Don’t work right on the ground though because your shirt will get dirty and mess up all your hard work.

Once your workspace is ready, put on your gloves and prep your dyes. The dyes in my kit were already in squirt bottles and all I had to do was add water and shake them. I found that it worked best to fill them about half way, shake until the dye powder was dissolved and then add the rest of the water and shake a bit more.

Next, start squirting the dyes on the shirt. This is the fun part! To make the the spiral pattern, you need to squirt the wedges between the rubber bands.You can see what I mean by looking at the pictures. Squirt both sides of the disc and open the folds of the shirt here and there to make sure the dye is getting to the fabric in the middle of the shirt too. If there’s no dye in the middle, squirt a little in.

It’s OK if the dye crosses the lines a little and mixes — that will make your shirt more interesting. Keep in mind that if you mix some colors together — say orange and green — they will result in a muddy brown color. You’ll have better luck mixing analogous colors (ones that are next to each other in the rainbow). Since I used primary colors for the dyes I didn’t have to worry about that.

Step 4: Let the dye sit

Once your shirts are all dyed, put them in plastic bags to let the dyes set. You want them to remain damp, so sealing them in ziplock bags works well.  The kit I had said to leave them 6-8 hours, but I left them overnight and found that that made the colors much brighter.

Step 5: Rinse your shirt and untie it

After the dyes have set up over night (or for 6-8 hours), rinse the shirt until the water runs clear.

Then, it’s time for the big reveal! Pull the rubber bands off your shirt and shake it out to see your design.

Ooooooooh! Pretty!

Now, wash it in the washing machine. I highly recommend that you avoid putting your classic white button down shirt in with it.  You might even go so far as to only wash your tie-dye shirt with other tie-dye shirts on this first round. After that, use your best judgment and enjoy looking like a hippie!

Wanna try some other tie-dye patterns? Here are directions for a few more:

Bull’s Eye

Chevron

Stripes

Little Circles

Crumpled

Here’s how you fold a t-shirt to make a chevron tie-dye pattern.

For basic dying instructions check out my Tie Dye Tutorial.

Begin, by folding your t-shirt in half vertically.

Fold over the top half of the shirt at a 45 degree angle.

Fold the shirt back along the angle you created.

Continue folding the shirt into pleats until it is in a long narrow strip.

Tie the shirt off into sections with rubber bands.

Squirt dye on each banded off section of the shirt with the squirt bottles. Open the folds here and there to make sure the dye is going all the way to the middle and that there aren’t any big white spaces.

Continue on with the dying process as outlined in my basic Tie Dye Tutorial.

Wanna try some other tie-dye patterns? Here are directions for a few more:

Spiral

Bull’s Eye

Stripes

Little Circles

Crumpled

Here’s how you fold a t-shirt to make a striped tie-dye pattern.

For basic dying instructions check out my Tie Dye Tutorial.

Lay your t-shirt out flat. Starting at the bottom of the shirt, fold the shirt into pleats.

Continue pleating the shirt until it is all folded.

Section the shirt off with rubber bands.

Squirt dye on each banded off section of the shirt with the squirt bottles. Open the folds here and there to make sure the dye is going all the way to the middle and that there aren’t any big white spaces.

Continue on with the dying process as outlined in my basic Tie Dye Tutorial.

Wanna try some other tie-dye patterns? Here are directions for a few more:

Spiral

Bull’s Eye

Chevron

Little Circles

Crumpled