Life Is But A Drink

At first, my plan had been to get all of the kids who attended my daughter’s gymnastics party (see here) a hula hoop.  Because hula hoops are cool.

But those suckers are pricey.  Who knew?

So I started thinking about a Plan B.   I had a heck of a time finding good gymnastics party favor ideas online.  So I started browsing around at Oriental Trading to get my party favor juices flowing. 

At the end of the day, I ended up getting each kid a “gold” medal.  These were a big hit.  My daughter is still sporting her medal nearly a week later.  And the rumor on the street is that she’s not the only one. 

Each kid also got a pom-pom.  For cheering.  Or something. 

And a jump rope.  For jumping.  Or tying your sister up to the chair, as we’ve discovered in recent days. 

And then I got these adorable gymnastics-inspired candy bar wrappers from PurpleBerryInk on Etsy and wrapped them around some Hershey’s bars.  I mean, how cute are those? 

I put everything into clear plastic bags and sealed them with a little cupcake sticker (which, unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of because, well, there was a party going on and I was busy trying to remember to take pictures of the birthday girl). 

I still think a hula hoop would have been cool, but oh well.

Last weekend was my daughter’s third birthday party.  As I’ve previously mentioned (see here), we ended up doing a gymnastics party at The Little Gym.  It was largely a no-stress, easy-peasy birthday party and that was A-OK by me.  My husband and I are both feeling a little (OK, a lot) overwhelmed by life right now and the idea of putting tons of time and effort into planning, organizing, and hosting a birthday party was just too much to handle.  The Little Gym takes care of most of the work (set-up, activities, serving, clean-up) when you do a birthday party there, and that was just what the doctor ordered.

Which isn’t to say that I didn’t do anything.  For example, I ended up getting her an adorable little tutu-inclusive sparkly PINK(!!!!) outfit from All About Dance for the party.  Needless to say, she was a big fan and kept calling herself a princess.

They started the party off in the gym, tumbling up a storm.  My daughter had a great time running around with her little friends and being the center of attention.  We didn’t get a ton of good shots from the gym because, well, they were running around.  Most of them ended up looking something like this:

After tumbling, we headed into another room for pizza and lemonade.  And yummy cupcakes from Cakelove.  Again, my daughter was a big fan.  Particularly when it came to the raspberry frosting.

Mmmmmmm.

All in all, it was a great party.  Everyone seemed to have a good time, and the party girl was pleased as punch with the whole thing.

I have to admit that I had a tough time putting goodie bags together for the party that worked with a gymastics theme.  And I didn’t find a lot of great ideas out there.  I ended up pretty happy with how they turned out, so I’ll share with you what I finally ended up doing tomorrow.

And now I’ve got to find the time for those darn Thank You cards….

As I mentioned earlier this week (see here and here), my daughter recently celebrated her third birthday.  We decided to hold off on throwing her a birthday party for awhile since she started preschcool a few weeks ago and we wanted her to get acclimated and make new friends before the party. 

We’ve decided to follow in her brother’s third birthday party footsteps and do a rather stress-free destination party for her this year.  (My son’s third birthday party was at Gymboree – see here.)   So, we’re doing her party at The Little Gym where she started gymastics about a month ago.  You can’t beat a gymnastics party, eh? 

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a lick of time to start planning for the party.  I ran out to get invitations last weekend.  I was worried about finding something that I liked at the last minute, but fell in love with these adorable cupcake invitations from Hallmark.  I’m not sure that it’s clear from the photo, but each invitation fits into a little paper sleeve that looks like a cupcake wrapper.  And then that whole get-up fits into lovely pink polk-a-dot envelopes.  

I finally got around to filling the invtiations out and addressing them last night.  I will get them in the  mail today….I will get them in the mail today…I will get them in the mail today…