i have some catching up to do!

well happy belated mother's day to all of the wonderful mothers out there (to children or to animals as sometimes children can be animals!) lainie's dance recital was the best yet...her teacher miss marilyn amazes me year after year, we had about 175 girls in the brentwood dance school this year from the ages of 4-seniors in high school, and she put together an incredible recital this year with 29 dances including the finale. i'm hoping to upload lainie's dances so you can see them! for now pictures will just have to do!

the first dance that lainie was in was called "no strings" it was a ballet set to a techno-beat of a little girls singing "i got no strings....to hold me down" (imagine the song from pinnochio-only techno) the older dancers brought them out on stage with their "strings" and as the song went on their strings came off and they danced on!

lainie's 2nd dance was called "shoo fly pie" it was tap and it was sure cute-the song was one of those that you get in your head and you can't get out-so you sing it for days! the costumes were cute and they all had mixing spoons and wooden spoons. the last picture lainie was looking to miss marilyn for direction-her green bow had just fallen off of her shoe-little wardrobe malfunction during the dance-she handled it well and went on. i have to show you this one last picture, miss marilyn always has a little boy come and join one or two dances for recital-last year one of tristan's friend was the boy (imagine danny zukko from grease) in the leader of the pack dance of lainie's...so this year a different boy was the role of elvis in "blue suede shoes" and also mc hammer in "can't touch this" tristan really took a liking to the role the boy played and i have to say that tristan has some moves, SOOOOOOO, guess who may be taking dance next year-he doesn't have to take it all year to be in the recital, but tristan has decided he may want to take it anyway!...it makes me laugh so hard-he does not want to do ballet-and i really thought chris would have a problem with it-then i reminded him of how his mom made his brother wes take dance and i have to say at wedding receptions wes has got some moves on the dance floor that the other brothers lack! enjoy!

a stroll down dance recital lane!

as lainie finishes her 4th year of dance and the big recital is coming up this weekend i thought it might be fun to take a look back at costumes of the past! i don't have a digital image of the costume from her first year of dance-in 2005- she was in mickey's mambo..and was it cute! just imagine a red, flared-skirt with big white polka dots and a huge yellow bow in her hair! hopefully i'll get a picture soon! in 2006, since she was an experienced dancer, she was picked to dance in 2 dances!-cinderella ballet and strawberry shake. last year-2007-she danced in the happy feet tap dance and LOVED her costume and dance to leader of the pack...she even had a small speaking role in the beginning. i promise to post pictures soon of her costumes for this year, if i can get them on her before this weekend! i think her costumes for this year are the best yet! enjoy!

lainie in her 'cinderella ballet' costume-2006
lainie in her 'strawberry shake' costume (and quite a pose)-2006

lainie with natalie and trudy-in her 'leader of the pack' costume-2007

lainie in her 'happy feet' costume...on stage!-2007

happy 80th grandma!

(l to r) timmy, sally, bob, susan, daniel, grandma, mark, patty, chris payne, kathy, & mona

a few weekends back the entire becker family converged on the quaint town of steelville, mo. to help grandma celebrate her 80th birthday. it was quite a celebration. as we all slowly trickled into town, first stopping at grandma's apartment (she now lives in town and sally and sarah live at the cabin) we went to the local hangout-the spare rib inn-for a good ol' country breakfast with the locals!

we were surrounded by hunters as it was the youth turkey hunt weekend...notice chris and bradley were not in the picture...they had already been in for breakfast and back in the woods huntin'! after breakfast we headed to the hall to decorate and we had a little concern that there was not enough food, seeing as how word got out about the party and even a park ranger ...long story... from st. james,mo. invited himself and family to come. it ended up we had plenty of food! lainie helping herself to the famous pickles!

the party was great! almost everyone from the family made it..all 8 of my grandma's children were there to celebrate her big day....can you believe she is 80? we were so glad to see molly and brian and spend time with them because we don't get to see them that often anymore. we were also very excited to see timmy (my uncle) two of his boys-matt and ryan. mykids were so excited to spend time with them-you would've thought that they were rockstars! tristan was ready with his camera-he couldn't wait to meet ryan...whenever people try to figure out who tristan looks like they always say he resembles ryan...this has intrigued tristan and he just couldn't stop talking about him all week prior to the big meeting!...he kept asking me how he would know who ryan was and i told him "if he kinda looks like you-its probably him". there is a little more resemblance to ryan's pictures when he was younger. tristan and ryancould they be any luckier marrying into the becker family?

(l to R) sally, kathy, me, molly, chris payne, patty and taylor

great-grandchildren!
4 generations!

patty and i matt and bradley

we ended off a great day with a big becker slumber party back at the cabin! no they are not in a cage- they are on the bridge upstairs in the cabin. they ran back and forth all night and threw things down on us from it! it was so fun to be with all of the family!