🌟Some DIY onesies🌟

I found some gerber plain white onesies at Burlington. I had been wanting to try stovetop dying some onesies for some time.  I'd practiced on my sports bras and it turned out ok.  I had the same issues this time around though.  Despite soaking the fabric in water before placing it in the dye, my onesies still came out a little splotchy.  Not sure what I'm doing wrong. A quick Internet search didn't shed any light on the issue either so I guess I will have to keep practicing.

Using an automatic stir gadget I bought a few years ago.  It doesn't work well stirring food or clothes.

Drying in the dishwasher.  I had wrung them out VERY WELL before doing this.

I ended up with 1 orange and 4 navy onesies.  I didn't have any plan after that point.  I thought I might like to sew a little tie and vest, maybe even a corsage, but I didn't think it would look right on navy.  I also thought about embroidering some words or animals (I may still do that) but a quick closet search didn't produce my fuseable interfacing (still lost in the move probably).  So I settled on acrylic painting.  I don't own any fabric pens which would have made this a heck of a lot easier, and didn't feel like buying any so I was stuck using my artists paint.  

For the design, I decided on "80", Adrian's nickname.  I wanted it to look like old school numbers, or like the kind you find spray painted on the side of crates.  I perused dafont.com and an old school design caught my eye.  The numerals had a descending gradient, so I free handed the design using white chalk on my shirt, and applied duct tape over the major lines and across the gradient to ensure crisp lines.  

A little bit of white acrylic later I had what looked like "An" on his shirt.  I knew I needed an outline, my mom suggested lime green, brilliant! I free handed the outline (more embroider vs paint debate, I chose paint to save time) it's a little messy but its a first try and I wasn't going for perfect.  I wanted it to look a little "home made".  It has its own aesthetic, like bad folk art on the side of Latin American buildings or middle school artwork.  

I'm pretty pleased with the end result.  I'm still brainstorming for the remaining 4 onesies!

Backyard Critters

I have 4 feeders in my back yard.  I only use 2 kinds of seed at the moment because I think suet wouldn't do well during this season since there is so much rain.  Normally we get cardinals, house finches, house sparrows, the occasional tufted titmouse and surprisingly... a red bellied woodpecker.  I added a flat tray feeder this year, originally with dried meal worms hoping to attract the many bluebirds that live around my neighbors house.  But none ever came and the meal worms were getting nasty so I replaced it with seed.  Since then it's been feeding a bunch of Mourning Doves.  They just stand on the tray and eat, which I don't mind except they scare away other birds and poop in the tray.

The other day I saw a larger, paler dove on my feeder.  A quick google search revealed that it is most likely a Eurasian Collared Dove, though it could be a feral Barbary Dove (domestic dove).  I'm not an ornithologist, they look the same to me and whatbird.com and wikipedia were not helpful.  There was only one, and he hasn't been back.  

Here you can see it next to a normal Mourning Dove.  It was obviously larger, and more grey than the Mourning Dove.

 Here is a Tufted Titmouse and a cheeky little squirrel.  He climbs up the pole to get to that feeder.  There is another feeder, identical, that is closer to the ground but he likes to work for his meals I guess.

A rather ratty looking Cardinal.

Finally, while photographing the new dove, movement in the corner of my yard caught my eye.  It was two of The Ferals!  (Our neighbor feeds these guys, there are quite a few)  The grey one is Tic Toc.  She was a kitten last year.  I haven't seen her mother Tinkerbell at all since Adrian was born in November.  I don't know who Tic Tocs father is, but I saw her mother, Tinkerbell, do the nasty in our backyard while she was still a kitten with a large male I call "Big Fuzzy".  Big Fuzzy has also done the deed with Tic Toc here, and I am 99.9% sure that this new kitten is his baby.  Big Fuzzy is a large long haired cat that is white with brown and fawn splotches, not unlike the white kitten you see below.  The kitten appears to be short haired though.

I call the kitten Radagast.  After the naturalist wizard in The Hobbit movie.  Why Radagast?  Because of the "poo" on his head.  Radagast is almost a "Van Pattern" cat (think Turkish Van).  This means that he is completely white except for a colored tail and a little color between the ears.  He only has the color behind the one ear though.  His bicolor is grey instead of black, and his tail is mackerel tabby patterned. He appears to have green eyes.
I don't actually know if Radagast is male or female.  I probably never will.  Whatever shklee is shklee will probably move along when it gets older.  Our yard belongs to Tic Toc, and occasionally Big Fuzzy (much to the nightly distress of our cats who are trapped on the back porch and must suffer the injustice).

4th of July shoots - part 1

I haven't posted in a few days:
1. because I have been cleaning up my house
2. I have been making a tutorial for a coconut bra / grass skirt lei which means I have not only been making those things, but also taking pictures of each step.  Tedious!

I posted an open invitation on Facebook a few days ago for a free 4th of July/Luau photo shoot.  I wanted practiced putting together a "set", as well as the normal lighting/color/composition practice.  I had 3 people take me up on it.  I did one shoot Saturday, my friend Tiffany and her adorable son Kingston.

those eyes!

Here are some with "as shot" juxtaposed with the finals

I thought their skin tone was good, but the foliage background was a little washed out.  I overlayed the original image with a duplicate, set the duplicate to multiply, adjusted the opacity and mask/erased Tiffany and her son.  It gave the green the depth it needed.

Here are a few "as shot" photos I loved.

 This one is my absolute favorite

Learning Process

So, I had a good time, but this was supposed to be practice, and practice it was!  I wasn't really happy with my 4th of July setup, I only got 2 pictures out of it and I wasn't in love with either of them.  I needed to move the chair/table around a little bit more.  I moved it for light but I think I should have been more creative with the composition.  I had pictures of Kingston holding an American flag as well as the ice cream cone, but he wanted to stick the bottom of the flag pole in his mouth (holding the flag upside down) and he clearly knows where ice cream is supposed to go!  

My other major issue was that a lot of photos were garbage because of some sort of motion blur or were slightly out of focus.  A lot more than I'd like to admit...like.. most of them.  here is an example of one I almost cried when I realized it was out of focus

I like Tiffanys face better in this version.

I am very happy with the photos with the mimosa tree behind them.  I only wish that it was still in bloom, it has such pretty pink puffs!  Mimosa trees have a pretty color, an interesting leaf pattern, and they make a more uniform background. 

Wake up call - part 1

I joined Stroller Strong moms back in March.  They were just finishing a fitness challenge around the time I started.  Participants did weigh ins and assessments, they even gave prizes to the top 3 improved.  Pretty neat idea, and I was bummed I had missed it.  A few weeks ago I made a suggestion to Kelli that we do something similar, except monthly (and keep the results private).  My assessment was Tuesday.  I did 2 min of step-ups, 1 min of push ups, planking for as long as I could hold it, 100m dash, and an 800m run.

Now, let me tell you, back in highschool and college:

My 100m time was 13.7

I never ran an 800 timed, but my 400 was 60sec, I imagine my 800 would have been 2:30 or 3min (that's not fast, I was never good for more than 400m)

People didn't plank when I was in school, at least not normally.  In college we did "benches" which were planks without the arm support. someone sat on your legs and you suspended yourself off the edge of a bench, even that was only twice a week, on weight days.  We did crunches.

We also did stadiums, not step ups. And as for push-ups - I have no idea my numbers.  In highschool, I was the amazing wonder kid who lead the pack, but in college I was more in the middle.  It's hard to compete with those strong specialized sprinters!

Anyway, the point of all that tangent was that I used to be very athletic and it was something I was proud of.  Tuesday was a wakeup call.

54 seconds of planks... 121 step ups, 18 push-ups, my 100m time was 18 seconds, and my 800m was 5m39s.  Are you kidding me?  What was worse is that I woke up the next day and was so incredibly sore!  

My ankle is finally better, so now is the time, I'm going to SSM at Forsythe park in addition to Gregory. I'm stressing about the gas, but I inflated my FJ tires last night.  I had a very low tire, but even the "full ones" were 23-27 psi.  The max pressure is 44psi so I inflated to 37.  I will ask Andrew if he thinks 40 would be better since we only do road driving.  Hopefully my mileage will improve.  I will still cycle on the off days, and lift my weights at home.  Since I have nowhere to go but up, I want to go WAY up.  Wish me luck!

Not today, Lady.

You know that phenomena where you go to Walmart thinking you're just going for a travel air compressor and an exercise ball... and walk out with 4th of July themed kids headband, pink flamingos and red/white/blue brownie bites?

Not only pink flamingos, but a pineapple sippy cup, toddler sized Adirondack chair and table, 4 little american flags and a heart full of dreams about a 4th of July/Summertime photo session with 80.

This is more like what I got.

I wish I had a little kitchy white ceramic poodle! And I forgot his sunglasses inside!

To be fair, he was really tired, and the chair is too big for him.  And I'm standing about 5 feet away (more if I could)

Now, 80 didn't cooperate, so whatever, but I am really happy with the colors in these.  They turned out true, on camera! I didn't edit or adjust these at all ( I would have given a little more saturation to the red though)! I needed to move the left flamingo out of the sun, I knew that when I took the first picture, but I took it *while holding 80* so I couldn't.  When I set this up tomorrow (or whenever), I'm going to do it earlier in the day (I took these around 1pm) so there is more shade on the front lawn and also I am going to hack that ugly bush back (it's dead) since I kind of like the angle of the top image better than the bottom two. I would also like to hit up the dollar store to get:

a. a colorful straw to poke out of the pineapple

b. a drink umbrella since the pineapple comes apart in the center.

c. a little flowerpot with a fake flower in it? for behind the chair to the right?

I also have a plate and red white and blue brownie bites to set on the table, and American flags and ribbons to place, but I wanted this set to be more Summer and less 4th of July (back yard I think).  It ended up being less 'Fun in the Sun' and more 'time for my midday nap'.

I am cooking up a plan: to see if there are any other moms out there who would like a couple photos of their babies looking Summerful, in exchange for them handling my guy for a few minutes so I can take a few pictures of him without him bloodying his nose on the front porch.  I may not go through with it, I'm pretty nervous photographing other people since I'm so critical.  What is good enough for me is never good enough to put my name on for others.  

June 25 therapy

Stretches were good! She modified one of the stretches slightly, while sitting she wants him to stretch to the left and right foot.

She was happy with his legs while on his tummy.  Before they have been straight and tight.  Today they were bent and well under him, improvement!  He only reached for the butterfly toy, not the piano or the alphabet ball (the ones she wants him reaching for, the butterfly is just a pacifier).  His protection reflex was better too.

He did cry through 95% of the session though... Better than the 98% of last time!

Swag, and not the stupid kind.

After PT, 80 and I hit up the Savannah Once Upon a Child.  They were having a 50% off sale for marked items (there were tons) so we got quite a haul!  I was looking for bodysuits and shorts to spice up his wardrobe which is heavily dominated by rompers.  I like rompers, no, I love them, but its all he has and it bores me.

I also found the only boys 4th of July outfit for a million miles.  I also found a little brown "Daddy suit" which means -- Photo session soon!  I am thinking it needs to be at the beach!

Little firecracker! Yes! 2 more rompers.. sigh

When I walked up, there was a red Schwinn double jogging stroller by the door, with some lady prodding at it.  When I was paying, there was another lady prodding at it.  It made me antsy, anyone who has dealt with OUC knows strollers don't stay long.  I asked the price, $100 (its a $320 stroller at babies r us) so I snagged it.  I haven't used it, but rolling it from the store to my car and my car to the house, its incredibly light on its wheels and highly maneuverable.  I like it already, too bad it has to sit in a closet till at least next year!  :/

Dane the bear got strapped in, 80 is a little small to strap without neck pads.

Hey, I didn't know it had this!  I don't really run in the rain but this will be great during Savannah's sand gnat outbreaks.  I'm more and more excited about this stroller, it has cup holders on both sides, and the rain shield, but no tray (even as an add on) but I don't really like the idea of my kids constantly snacking to keep them quiet so its not a major issue.

Here are some of the clothes he got:

Sully onesie?  Onesie with a tie?! Put it in the bag!

blue, grey, brown. All a 6 month old boy needs.