Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Floor Music and Harps

The planning of a birthday party is fun. The first discussion on a theme leads to the first list of friends to invite and ideas for food. Searches in Pinterest result in pins to a board titled with the year or the theme of the party. Amazon baskets fill up and Etsy conversations begin.

The planning of a birthday party is fun.

It's fun.

Remember, it's fun.

It's supposed to be fun.

Why doesn't Michael's have unicorn sticker-only packages? And, why is The Greatest Showman the greatest movie going right now and there are no The Greatest Showman party supplies? I mean, red and white striped anything should not be hard to find. Really, where is the gold glitter -- all unicorns need gold glitter. We are going to make unicorn and ringmaster headbands. We will blend these two themes into one magical greatest show.

It's supposed to be fun.

Remember, it's fun.

It's fun.

The planning of a birthday party is fun.

We've designed the invitation and sent it off to a professional designer I found on Etsy. Turn-around time within the week and then I'll print and mail. The party isn't until the end of the month so I have nothing but time.

The food stuff will come together easily -- because while I'm starting with unicorn party mix, Greatest Showman party mix, marshmallow 'barbells', cotton candy, fairy bread rolls, unicorn dip, unicorn parfaits, unicorn cupcakes and circus animal cookie cupcakes -- we will end up with well, not all that. Maybe we will. Right now, I'm thinking this is tres facile and all I have to do is bake and frost cupcakes, lay out the makings of unicorn parfaits, dip marshmallows in chocolate and place them on the end of red and white striped straws (which where in the world can you find them?!?), mix up the party mix (have to buy circus peanuts, baby pretzels, pastel colored mini-marshmallows, pastel colored mini-M&Ms and bugles), and roll up the bread rolls that will have rainbow sprinkled cream cheese or frosting (who will really eat those?!?!).

It's supposed to be fun.

Remember, it's fun.

It's fun.

The planning of a birthday party is fun.

I really do enjoy planning and pulling off a good birthday party. I've even partnered with my dear friend, Tammy, to have her daughter be the slime maker and provider the day of the party.

Will we make the unicorn stained-glass hanging pieces of art? Will we play a hula hoop toss with pastel colored hula hoops and a spray painted traffic cone? Will we make the headbands?

Not sure, but it will be a fun party with a house full of squealing 8, 9 and 10-year-old girls (the invite list is sitting at 26 -- two classrooms, gymnastics teammates and other friends) making slime and hopefully, eating unicorn bacon (rainbow striped candy -- from the Pinterest board).

So, when you have a weekend that isn't full of activities, you can drive around to begin the shopping for the party. And, you can get your pedicure with the gift card you won (paid way too much for) at the school festival silent auction. And, you can run into Trader Joe's to buy the fun groceries.

You can also fit in a visit to the library where it's Symphony Day. The San Antonio Symphony sends musicians out to the libraries to introduce the patrons to different instruments. This occurs about once a quarter at our library. This weekend was the first time we were able to make it over. The principal harpist played about seven pieces for the audience. She shared with us how she came to play the instrument -- started as a pianist -- and how much a harp weighs and costs (70 to 80 pounds and about $20,000).

I had left my phone at home, accidentally. Don't think I was doing some non-electronic, no technology weekend. I truly forgot it at home and had some heart palpitations for minute, but then, relaxed to sit and listen to the harp.

It was nice. I wasn't distracted by looking up unicorn headband-making supplies or creating a shopping list. I wasn't creating the party timeline and food prep schedule. I listened. I even heard an Irish song that might work as Camille's floor music.

Yes, we are having to select a piece for Camille's floor routine for next season. When you enter into Optionals (and please, no one have me explain what that really means because I only can say, more money) you don't compete on the floor with the same routine and same music as everyone else. I still have the level 3 Compulsory (see there's a difference) floor music burned into my memory.

It's exciting to choose a piece, right? Except we, the Adams, have no idea what to select. I was told by some of the very informed gymnastics parents to go to youtube and search for floor music. The requirements are simple -- instrumental, no song so recognizable that someone could sing along with it and have a build-up component (think they run and do all the flips down one diagonal of the floor).

When we did our search at home, we found loads of hip hop instrumentals -- Snoop Dog, Run DMC and even Eminem. We loved it all. Our coach, not so much.

She ended up recommending four pieces to Camille. She picked one. It's violins, I think. No harp. We don't know the words. I don't think there are words.

Oh, well, we can use words at The Greatest Showman Unicorn birthday party. We will have karaoke and by karaoke, I mean, we will be playing the soundtrack from the movie and the girls will be signing along to it. We won't go invest in some fancy machine or even quite figure out how to hook up a mic to the outdoor television.

We will have fun. It's a birthday party for two soon to be 9-year-old girls who still love to play with Barbies and American Girl dolls. They think anything we come up with for the party is fun. They will wear t-shirts custom made for them -- one with lyrics to This is Me, the other with a unicorn. They will have fun with their friends playing and with their favorite high school friend making slime. It may be the last home birthday party we have. It may be the last time we have a theme.

For that, there are no words.

But, it will be fun.


No comments:

Post a Comment