Beyond 5

Today I want to tell you guys about a band that is on the up and up and has completely captured my attention.

Which is a little crazy, being as it's a boy band, and let's face it, boy bands have never been able to live up to my New Kids on the Block expectations.

Air fist, I know you moms out there hear me.

The Circus made it through Justin Bieber with a small scratch.  I think Casidee liked him for about a month; long enough for me to make a cake with his face (and hair) in fondant.  The highlight of my caking, to be sure (here).

And One Direction has settled into the bedrooms of my girls for the last few months, thumping out a rhythm into the walls, their faces even covering the walls of, again, Casidee, whom I think is just in love with the idea of being a fan girl in general.  But she takes it hard core and if she's going to fan girl on something then she is in it heart and soul (and bedroom walls).

But me?

Not so much.

I mean, One Direction is okay and I don't turn the radio station when their songs come on, like I do for Bruno Mars, and I even sing along, but they're not on my iPod or anything.

I just haven't found a boy band that does it for me since NKOTB.

But then I was introduced to Beyond 5 and I found myself with a free cd in hand and some concert tickets to give away to a Logan concert back in December (here).  So I took a few of the girls and we drove for two hours to see a band we'd never heard of before (here).

The rest is history, as they say.

I find that I'm following their social media (links below).

And I have their entire cd on my iPod (check them out on itunes here).

I can sing every word with The Circus when we break out into impromptu singing in the kitchen, because the songs are constantly running through our heads.

I'm not going to claim to be a fan girl because I can't tell you their birthdays, or favorite colors, or even their exact ages, and I certainly don't have their faces plastered to my bedroom wall (do you think The Man would go for that?  Yeah, I didn't think so either...) but what I've realized is...

I've become a groupie.

With my daughters.

Am I too old for this?

Maybe.

Perhaps it's because we've had the fortune of rubbing elbows with them a little bit so they're real to me.  I've talked with them personally and know how down-to-earth, polite, respectful, and witty they are as individuals.  Maybe it's because I know what it is to chase a dream and see them as they're working so hard at theirs.

And it's good.

I tell you, this music, their harmony, is good.

We got tickets (for Casidee's birthday) to a special VIP event with  Beyond 5 on Friday night.

It wasn't assigned seating so as soon as the girls were all out of school we grabbed a $5 pizza to go,

and some McD's pies

because Friday was pi day, yo, so we had to have our pizza pie and our apple pie, and we ate it while sitting on the sidewalk, playing Fluxx, and waiting for the doors to open.

The doors opened, we found seats third row, though honestly, with only 250 seats in the place, there wasn't going to be a bad spot, and waited just a little bit more.

Cali didn't attend the concert back in December and she'd been hearing all about Beyond 5 ever since then.  She tends to fan girl about as hard core as Casidee does, and often takes her sister's lead when it comes to music so she had 3 solid months to fall absolutely in love with Beyond 5.

When the guys finally showed up on stage, Cali's happiness and excitement in that moment proved to be too much for her to bear and she pretty much bawled through the entire first song.

This VIP event was cool.

The guys talked and told stories, showed behind the scenes videos and joked with each other a lot.




They sang new songs that we hadn't heard them do before.





(a better video of their Unconditionally here.  Go listen.  So worth it).

And they did a Q&A session and sang their songs that we all knew well.


And they sang to their moms which was super cute.

We were given swag bags at this VIP event which was full of pictures and Casidee's One Direction wall has now become a full bedroom of Beyond 5.

I support this.

I probably feed it.

After the show we got to meet the guys and get autographs.

 

And just for the record, I totally got grounded for the quality of this picture:

Mom fail.

And somehow they had time for this old groupie mom too.

Double chins and all.

They even let us have our own little moment with them, when all was said and done, and tables were cleared out and people were gone.

Beyond 5 and The Circus.

A special thank you to the band's dads who helped us with the picture.

And an extra special thank you to Zac's dad, Corey for helping Cali with her lost, autographed poster.  Cali had set it down, in true Cali fashion, and when she went to get it, it was gone.  Corey grabbed a new poster, ran out to the the bus where the guys were already settling in after the antics of the night, and had them sign it again.

Cali got a special "I love you" message from Ammon on it.

These guys are good people.  They're surrounded by good people.

And they have good music so go follow them.

Youtube HERE
Instagram HERE
Facebook HERE
Official website HERE

They'll be back in Utah this summer.

You should catch a show.

The Circus will probably be there too.

Casidee's 14.

Yesterday was Casidee's 14th birthday.

In a perfect world I would have left her a lunch of her choice in her locker, and probably have decorated her locker as well.  After school she would open her presents and we would have eaten chicken manicotti (here) and brownie sundaes as her chosen birthday dinner.  And maybe we would have gone and seen the Desolation of Smaug which is now at the dollar theater.

But alas.

This world is not perfect.

As it happens, yesterday was also Casidee's choir festival, which took place during school.  Which meant no  lunch in her locker.  (You can see their assessment performances here.  Cas is on the front row on the right (your right) with a red necklace on).

But they were bused to the mall for lunch so she was quite happy with the money I gave her to buy lunch that way.

As it also happens, yesterday was her orchestra performance combined with a performance with the high school orchestra.  

This took up the evening.  She was to be at the high school at 5:15 to practice for the first and only time with the other middle school and high school orchestras that they would be performing with that night.

Between getting home from work and taking her to the high school, I didn't have time to make chicken manicotti, but I didn't have to worry about feeding Cas because the high school was providing pizza.

We did have time for her to open her presents before she left where, like mother like daughter, the little bookworm finally got her kindle... and a play-dough jar of change from Cali.

I ran her to the high school where it took us a good five minutes to find the room she needed to be in, as neither of us have really been to this high school before, and then Tayler and I tracked down the auditorium and spread jackets out to save seats front and center.  Then we ran to the new Zurcher's by our house and bought birthday balloons to give to Cas after her performance.

A quick stop at the grocery store for cheese and tortilla chips and I had barely enough time (with a text to The Man: Will you defrost some hamburger?) to throw a pot of taco soup together, while telling Cali and Tayler to hurry and make a sandwich if they wanted to go to the concert, we wouldn't have time to eat the soup (they did), and we left to the high school again.  (Run on sentence much?)

We sat in our pre-saved, front row seats, which was good because there was room to stash the bundle of balloons down below stage level, and enjoyed the night's entertainment.

This girl of mine.  This girl that I only understand half of what she says because I don't speak "fan girl".  And she's proclaimed herself a fan girl of at least a dozen things.

Beyond 5
One Direction
Sherlock Holmes
Dr. Who
Harry Potter

Okay, maybe just five things, but that's a lot of inside quoting and referencing that I'm only catching half of.

Don't even get me started about when she starts cross referencing.

In only two years she'll be driving and dating.  And in only four years she'll be heading off to college.

Slow down.  Enjoy it.  Don't be in such a hurry to grow up.

It comes soon enough.

The Best Cake. Ever.

When a certain someone decides they're going to turn into a teenager, even though their mom hasn't really given permission to do so, that certain someone may decide they want to invite friends over and play some games and eat some cake.

Someone may decide they want a polk-a-dot cake on the inside, but someone's mom didn't have a cake ball pan to make the "dots" (we hand roll cake balls in these parts) so someone's mom may have just made smaller cupcakes and baked them inside the cake instead.

A lesson  was learned on how to make it better next time; bigger layers so you can see the colors inside better.

And then someone started to frost their cake.  With the moral support of their friend who made all the batter by herself.  That's some pretty good moral support right there.

Which was looking pretty good.

But the thing around our house is that we are procrastinators.  And the cake went in the oven an hour and a half before the party started which meant that the frosting of the cake happened as soon as it came out of the oven.

Which meant...

13 on the 13th of '13

She's turning 13.  On the 13th of '13.

13 must be her lucky number.

casidee's mixed up dinner

Casidee's birthday is all about luck it seems.  We either get to host it on Friday the 13th (the 13th being her actual birthday.  See it here) or we get to celebrate it on St. Patrick's day, like we did this year, because it's the closest weekend to her birthday.  Since Cas's favorite color is green she had no problem incorporating the color.

For Casidee's birthday party she wanted to do a mixed up dinner like Jayme had (here).

Cas is major into dinosaurs and silly bands... how lucky to find dinosaur silly bands!

A menu is made with the different parts of the dinner listed individually.  Even the utensils are on the menu.  The girls get to order three things for four courses.  By the end of the meal they finally have all they need for a full dinner, but the fun part is putting in an order and getting ice cream, alfredo sauce, and ranch dressing.  Or actually managing to order both the fettucini noodles and the alfredo sauce but not getting a utensil to eat it with.  (Even the alfredo sauce was green).

After dinner the girls decorated party hats, turning them into dinosaur hats.

And they talked.  I was impressed with how calm they were, even though they were giggling and having fun. 

I like these types of parties.

Casidee's rainbow dino hat.  She did a good job, didn't she?

And her creative friend's hats.

For other party ideas you can check out my party label on my right side bar in the "what I blog about" scroll box. :)