Rock Star Birthday and the Pumpkin Patch
The rock star birthday party finally happened. We built a stage out of a pallet and a rug, hung black streamers with pink and green through them, strung up a Happy Birthday banner, and pointed a floor lamp at the whole thing like a spotlight. The karaoke setup was a laptop on a stool and a microphone on a stand, and it got no rest all afternoon — solo acts, group numbers, one kid in a full ninja costume who performed every song in character.
The cardboard guitars were the hit. Each kid decorated one with paint and stick-on jewels, mostly pink, one black, and then the whole band crowded onto the stage at once to play them. At one point there were nine performers and no audience left.
After the party wound down we went out to a pumpkin patch, where the birthday kid climbed into a spot between the hay bales and the big pumpkins and settled in like it was furniture — purple monster hat, purple leopard print, purple shoes, surrounded by orange. Some of those pumpkins were bigger than the kid wearing the hat. We did not bring one of those home.
