one dream forever

the bean's second season with one dream cheer officially came to an end with a fabulous banquet at a local county club.  like last year, the girls were encouraged to wear the team colors and she wanted to wear something in royal blue again.  we'd done some shopping online, even buying a couple of dresses that looked promising but hadn't fit right, and so i ended up buying fabric again and making her something to wear.  thank goodness she's still perfectly happy to wear clothes i make for her.

like last year's dress, i went with some stretch lace lined with some super soft brushed poly.  i used a different pattern and added a little flair courtesy of a sparkly hair clip i attached to a makeshift sash and voila:

they'd asked the parents to dress in black, and using some fabric from my ever-growing stash and a pattern that had just been released i managed to bust this out the afternoon of the banquet:

we were among the first to arrive, and when we walked into the club the photographer was busy taking pictures of attendees in front of the team's backdrop.  i mean...you know i don't pass up a good photo op.

the room was set up really nicely, and seemed a lot bigger than last year's venue.

dinner was served buffet-style - various pastas, salad, chicken.

i knew she was super excited to receive one of the "best dancer" awards this year.

and the girls presented their coaches with appreciation gifts after all of the awards had been handed out.

each girl received a one dream cheer swag bag that contained fun swag like t-shirts and headbands.

and the hub bonded with the bean's oldest and dearest friend.

it was a lovely way to celebrate a successful cheer season, and while we'd normally be on a break until season 3 begins, the bean had opted to join a special mid-season team.  this group of athletes are going to perform in vegas at a competition in may, and they're hoping to nail their routine and come home with more championship hardware and gear.

gotta love vegas.

the bean's last elementary school christmas party. yikes.

the bean spent her last day of school before christmas break with all of her friends at the 5th grade class party.  because there are only 34 kids in the whole class, it's easy to combine the two homerooms to celebrate things all together.

one of my mom besties is also my fellow room parent (which has been the case ever since TK!), and between the two of us we managed to cobble together a decent party for the kids. we ordered breakfast from the school's caterer, and they made some great looking platters full of pancakes and breakfast burritos that were stuffed full of eggs, cheese, hash browns and bacon.  the kids were pretty excited to sit together with their friends in the two classrooms and enjoy some food while they laughed and chatted.

i've worn this same tee to her class christmas parties for the last four years in a row.  it's become my own little private joke.

unfortunately, the bean's guy bestie was out sick and had to miss all of the festivities.  i had to cackle a little when i saw that the gift wrap he'd used for his contribution to the book exchange was the same exact one as the bean's.  and then his mom took his place in the circle so that he would still have a book to unwrap and read over christmas break.

the bean ended up with the latest installment of the "diary of a wimpy kid" series...which she already has, read and took a reading counts test on.  but there were a handful of kids who hadn't read it yet and hit her up to trade.  she ended up choosing one of the kids who'd ended up with the shittiest book in the entire exchange - the book was clearly pulled out of someone's adult book collection, without any thought put into the fact that it was for a 5th grade class party where a 10-11 year old kid would be the recipient.  it was an old paperback, creased and dogeared, and when you flipped through the pages you caught a whiff of that weird old smell that you notice in thrift stores and library basements.  i knew she had taken pity on the kid who'd received it, and i told her later on that i appreciated her thoughtfulness and kindness in choosing him to trade with when i knew she would have been much happier had she ended up with a book like this:

after we played a couple of games, we put out some sweet snacks and started a movie ("the christmas chronicles" on netflix, which we didn't get to finish but will have to watch at home because it looked really cute).  she must have been restless, because she didn't want to sit for it.

i got her to take a quick selfie with me before it was time to pack up and go home.

and now we're free for two whole weeks!  no homework, no figuring out lunches, no getting up at any specific time, no strict bedtime.  glorious.

a bunch of 10-year-old lushes

the first birthday party of the season was a really fun one, in a place i had no idea even did parties.  one of the bean's BFFs turned 11 and celebrated it in one of the most tween-y ways possible...by gathering all of her closest friends for some organic, fragrant fun at lush.

i snagged this group shot of the girls who were the first to arrive:

and they roamed around the shop that they had all to themselves, free to sample anything that had a tester while giggling and smearing all sorts of stuff on their skin.

once everyone had arrived, the staff got the party started by gathering the girls at the front of the store, where they'd set up a couple of giant buckets of water to drop bath bombs in and test out their new line of bubble brushes and bubble wands.  this, as you can imagine, was a huge hit.

then they moved to another table to play a variation of charades, where they were handed chunks of "fun" - a multipurpose product that can be used as soap, shampoo, bubble bath, and best of all...molding shapes out of it like play-doh.

after that it was "face painting" time...which meant that they got to paint each other with all kinds of face masks before cleaning it all off with wet towels.

one of the moms was roaming around with an instant camera, collecting the prints on a table so that the girls could sign them before placing them in a photo book.

oh, and there was a table of tasty breakfast treats - muffins, cronuts, fruit and cheese, juice and tea and water.

the last hands-on activity the girls got to do was probably the best one - making bath bombs to take home as a party favor.  i'm not sure why i was getting the stink eye from the bean here, but there you go.

once that was done, each girl was handed a gift card to do some shopping.  i figured they'd get to pick a couple of things out for, like, $20...so i was pretty surprised when the bean pulled hers out and showed me that they each had $50 to spend in the store.  wowee!

they all had a blast browsing and debating and putting things in their baskets, while the other moms and i smirked at the sneaky math lesson that the shopping trip managed to squeeze in.

all that was left after that was to sing to the birthday girl, munch on cupcakes and take one more group photo with the whole party.

after we said our goodbyes, a few of us lingered and decided to walk around the mall a little.

we stopped in a couple of shops that the girls wanted to look around in, and ended up here:

i can't be at the hello kitty cafe without picking up one of their pocket pies, especially when the featured flavor is lemon.

it was a fun morning, and a great way to kick off birthday party season 2018.  now we're brainstorming like mad to come up with something for the bean, who has informed us that she plans to have a birthday party every year forever.

yaaaaaaaaay.