Summer is Coming

Before you know it, summer will be here. Dill Pickles does best with structure, structure, structure. Can I say it again? Structure. Lazy days of laying around doing nothing turns into meltdown after meltdown round these parts. So far we have 3 things planned for the summer; our usual weekly OT session, a new weekly group OT session and free bowling from Kids Bowl Free. Ok, that will take up about 9 hours of our week. What do do with the other 159 hours left in the week? I'm not so sure yet. We're looking into a 2.5 hour day camp program. It's so close to summer though I'm don't know if they have any spaces left. Of course we have the summer reading program at our local library that kicks off June 14th. This year's theme is Reading is Art-Rageous. I found this weekly meme and I thought it would be fun to try and participate. We'll see how it goes.

Yes you can!

Yes, you can re-dye a playsilk! A trip to the grocery store this afternoon produced 5 more lemon lime and grape Kool Aid packs. I can't find any blue Kool Aid to save my life, so I bought some Berry Jammer by Wylers. Just before dinner I mixed up 4 cups of hot water, 1 cup of white vinegar and 5 packs of green Kool Aid. I poured it into my big soup pot and brought it to a slow boil. I plopped the playsilk back in viola! The color went into the playsilk as fast as the last time. I quickly did the purple and had the same great results.

I have been going back and forth between typing this post and coloring the last 15"x60" playsilk with the Wyler's Berry Jammer. That playsilk sucked up the color just like the other ones. I am so excited to finish these and make some more. The weather was cold and rainy here today and the boys had so much fun playing with them.

You'd think I would have picked up more batteries for my camera was I was out, but no, I forgot.

Regular Moms vs Special Needs Moms

I follow the blog Hopeful Parents and I loved this post from today. I laughed so loud I was afraid I was going to wake the boys. I cried a little too. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Playsilk Follow Up

Oh well. I was just talking with my mom about my playsilks. Her Bachelor's is in Textiles. I called her to ask if she thought I could redye the playsilks I made tonight. Maybe it would give them a more even color. She wasn't so sure it would work. Seems the vinegar might have already set the color in the fabric and not allow it to take in any more color. She said I could try it again and see what happened. I might. For future endeavors she suggested a bigger pot, more water and more Kool Aid packets. She said the generic Kool Aid most likely used a different/cheaper color agent which made it harder for the fabric to soak it up.

Something else I forgot to mention. When I used the generic Kool Aid, my hands were stained something horrible. When I used the Kool Aid brand tonight, not a drop of color on me. I was afraid of looking like a rainbow at pre-school pick up tomorrow!

Playsilks and Pretending

Dill Pickles has trouble with pretending. I am always looking for ways to help promote creativity and open ended play with him. I've been wanting playsilks for almost a year now, but I just could not justify spending $10-$15 on a square of colored silk. I stumbled upon a blog a while ago (I can't remember which one) where the mom made playsilks. I thought that was a great idea and I tucked it away in my brain for someday.

A few weeks ago playsilks popped back into my head and I knew there had to be a tutorial out there somewhere. I Googled and came up with this one from Confessions of a Stash Junkie. I ordered three 35"x35" and three 15"x60" Habotai 8mm silk scarves from Dharma Trading Company. They arrived quickly and I stashed them on the every growing pile on my dresser. Yesterday when I was at Food for Less I picked up a bunch of generic Kool Aid packets on sale. This morning while Daddy Pickles entertained the boys, I tried my hand at dying two scarves- one 35"x35" and one 15"x60".

I followed mama k's tutorial to a t. I even used 5 packets for good measure. After an hour, my water still wasn't clear or a milky color and it was getting close to lunch. I had to stop and rinse them out and let them dry. Here's some pics.

I love the bright colors! I did wash them in the washing machine and the colors faded a little but not too much. The boys had so much fun with them. Actually, they were fighting over who was going to get which one. I knew I had to do more after they went to bed, so I quickly ran to Jewel after dinner. I picked up some grape, lemon-lime and lemonade Kool Aid brand because they did not have any generic brands. The large orange scarf did have a few white spots in it from being wrinkled in the jar, so I thought I would try putting the mixture right into the pot and then put the scarf in the pot. I also thought maybe using 5 packets was too much, so I only used 3 this time.

I was in for a surprise, let me tell you! First, my camera battery died and I didn't have any replacements. Then, wow. Maybe it was because I used the Kool Aid brand and not the generics, but the scarves sucked the colors up the instant I put them into the pots. The parts of the scarves that went into the pot first are a deep color and the part that went in last is a lighter shade. It looks tie-dyed. Maybe if I used all 5 packets there would have been more dye left for the rest of the scarf. Who knows. The next time I try it (and I assure you I will be making many more of these for us and as gifts for others) I will use 5 packets and a smidge more water.

Where has the time gone??

Happy 2nd Birthday Sweet Pickles!! We love you!!

Procrastination

Instead of cleaning my kitchen or making applesauce oatmeal muffins for Sweet Pickles to bring as a birthday treat to Moms, Pops and Tots tomorrow, I am updating my Shelfari. Procrastination reigns supreme tonight!

Books and Muffins: A lovely Combination!

We have our new library books! I am working on getting them into Shelfari, but I have to find them all first. Dill Pickles is CONVINCED that he is packing a suitcase with his swim trunks and his swim shirt, getting on a purple plane and flying to a vacation house so he can go to an indoor water park. Him parading around the house in full swim regalia is the norm these days talking about how he and Daddy Pickles are going to go in the tube. Today he decided that he was bringing all of his library books with. I think most of them are still in his suitcase. I guess I'd better tell him that if his luggage is over 50 pounds, Southwest Airlines will charge him.

I'm not a morning person. I never really was and now that I go to be later and frequently get up at night with little boys who can't sleep or to roll over a snoring husband, I am really not a morning person. In an effort to make the morning routine a little easier I have been making batches of waffles and pancakes and freezing them. I've also decided to try making some muffins. I made 12 of these muffins last night and as of now there aren't any left. While I was waiting for dinner to cook I whipped up another batch, this time I added the flax seed and some cranberries. I'm allergic to flax seed so I omitted them the first time so I could see what the muffins tasted like. The cranberries were also waaaaaaaaaay in the back of the cabinet and last night at 10pm I was too lazy to get a chair and get them out. I unfortunately can't find the blog I got the recipe from, but it wasn't hers anyways. She gives credit to Tosca Reno.

Applesauce Oatmeal Muffins
1 cup Dry old-fashioned oatmeal flakes
1 cup Unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup Skim milk, soy milk, rice or almond milk (your choice)
2 Egg whites, beaten
2 tbsp Ground flax seed
2 tbsp + 1 tsp canola oil
1 tbsp Baking powder
1/2 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Ground nutmeg
3/4 cup Whole wheat flour
1/4 cup Dried cranberries
1/4 cup Dried cherries
1/4 Raisins

Preheat oven to 375 F. Prepare muffin tin by lining with paper or silicon liners, or cooking spray. Combine oatmeal, applesauce, milk, eggs, flax and oil in a medium bowl. In another medium bowl, combine dry ingredients, including dried fruit. Make a well in the center of the dried ingredients and pour wet ingredients into it. Stir until all ingredients are just combined. Using small ladle, fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 15 - 20 minutes. Cool on wire rack.

And last but surely not least, we found out today that Dill Pickle's pre-school class has been saved for the 2010-2011 school year!!!!! But I am told next year at this time it will be up on the chopping block again. They just mysteriously "found" a large sum of money, but that money won't be there next year. Oh well. One year at a time I guess.

Goodbye Gardening!

Our library books are finally due tomorrow. We have reached the renewal limit; it's time for a new theme. Dill Pickles usually picks the next theme, but he couldn't come up with one for the next round. Our current theme has been gardening based upon Dill's latest obsession with growing plants. He has been learning about plants and gardening in school. His class planted a Peace Garden today and Sweet Pickles and I were on hand to help. Auntie Sheesh helped as well. I haven't gotten a chance to look at the pics she took on my camera. Maybe if there aren't too many other classmates in the pictures I will post some. I think I will take this lack of a theme opportunity to check out some math themed books. Dill has been bringing math themed books home from the classroom library. I found a bunch in the Lakeshore Learning catalog last night. Now I'm off to see if they are at my local library. If not, I guess we'll try request them. :)

Still waiting.....

.... sort of. Insurance finally came through and said oh yeah, we're supposed to cover that. So now we wait for our therapy clinic to bill us for all of the co-pays we owe for the past four months.

Still waiting on the decision to be made if Dill Pickle's classroom will be slashed with the budget. At parent teacher conferences tonight Dill's teacher said she still knew nothing, but she has a city-wide pre-school meeting on Friday. She said as soon as she finds out anything, she will let us know. Daddy Pickles and I signed quite a few petitions and will be writing out own letters to our wonderful politicians. Maybe we should have Dill make an appointment with these folks and deliver them in person.