the holidays...sing,b-days, charity, and cheetahs!

Happy late birthday mom! She turned the ripe old age of 51 on friday and we celebrated with a small dinner at Chris and Tim Payne's house. I made a lasagna and bread, Chris Payne made a great salad and Bob and Mona made a great peach and blackberry cobbler for dessert. We ended the night with Chris cutting my mom's hair (as it is expected to fall out this week). Her before shot...and the final look-I was quite surprised and thrilled with what a great job Chris did!

Now to back up a day, on Thursday, Lainie and Tristan had their holiday sing at school...this is always a very big deal-the show starts at 7 and people start taking their seats at 6:15-to get the best seats-we arrived at 6:30 and were halfway back in the gym..so pics aren't that great.. and hopefully I can learn how to post video soon so I can post a clip of each of their songs-they are so cute! I did take a couple pics at home before the show. The night was great and all of the kids sounded fabulous.

Saturday morning, Lainie and I attended the Big Bear Brunch at the Ritz Carlton. My good friend Christy was on the board for the event that is sponsored by WINGS a charity that supports children with cancer and their families-it was a beautiful event and lots of fun. Christy invited us and we were so glad we were able to attend. Mandy Murphy from Fox 2 news was the MC and she and her step mother and her 2 daughters sat at our table with us. There were all kinds of characters Snow White, Belle, Cinderella, Fredbird, Captain Jack Sparrow, Mr. Incredible, Batman and Superman were all there for the kids to meet. Then we had a fabulous breakfast that was very fancy. There were lots of craft tables for the kids to make tote bags, candy wands, cinnamon bears and then there were ballon artists that made amazing balloon creations. The whole event was great-thanks Christy for inviting us! We had such a wonderful time!

Can you find Lainie in this picture? Isn't this a riot? After she got dressed today and put on her coat (zebra) I realized how much she would blend in with our shower curtain-this is kinda like a Where's Waldo pic!

Our friend Ted invited us to go to the Cheetah Girls concert today (sunday) with he and his daughter Emme. Ted is actually a co-worker of Chris' and he actually asked Chris if he would like to take Lainie to the concert with he and Emme (Chris failed to mention to me that he was invited first)-he just asked if lainie and I would like to go and I said sure and Ted had an extra ticket, so Lainie invited Ella to go with us. Lainie was very concerned that she was wearing zebra print and not cheetah print-I told her she looked cute anyway. Ella, Lainie, and EmmeSo we had pretty great seats and THe Clique Girlz opened up for the Cheetah girlz (I have no idea who they are, but they are played on radio disney alot and now Laine, Ella, and Emme have added their cd to theor xmas list-they loved them!) The Cheetah Girls put on a pretty good performance-nothing compared to hannah montana and the jonas brothers last fall!-but the girls had a great time and we had to buy a few momentos on the way out...then this story will crack you up..Ted ran into a friend of his-who is also a police officer who was on duty at the Scotttrade Center-as we were leaving. He tells us how lucky we were to see their concert tonight as it is their last...i was thinking last on their leg of the tour and further inquired about his statement....he corrected me and said "No, they have like 2 more shows, but then they are breaking up-so this will be their last performance in St. Louis ever!"....You should have seen the girls faces-Lainie shrieked and said "WHAT? THEY"RE BREAKING UP?" Ted went on to congratulate his friend on his statement and told them that the 3 girls now were crying! It was pretty funny and now I guess we'll find out in months to come if that statement is a rumor or true......

a little bit greedy

So I am really having a problem with how greedy I have become in my hunt for the cheapest gas. Let me start out by saying how excited I was when gas prices started to fall....I would constantly call Chris and give him a heads up as to where the cheapest prices were (when you drive a big Yukon you're constantly bargain hunting). So you can only imagine how thrilled I was when gas went below $3 and then below $2 and hit the bottom of the barrel last weekend at $1.33 right by our house and held there for the weekend! I filled up Chris' volvo for him before he went to Kentucky and it only cost $27.00-I can;t remember the last time that happened...the only problem was I didn't get smart and fill up my Yukon. So guess what, prices are back up-and I shouldn't be mad but I am. Yesterday, being the smarty pants I am, while out doin g my errands, watched my gas light come on to remind me that my tank was low...well I just didn;t find the best bargain on gas(it was up to $1.59) so I thought I'd wait till this morning-after all I only drive like 2-3 miles a day (brentwood just isn't that big)...so this morning I have Bradley go start the car-it was frigid outside-to let it warm up. As I was loading the troops in, y car died. Surely there was something wrong with the engine-and then it hit me-I had run out of gas for the first time in my life. I grabbed the gas can from the side of the house in attempt to get to the gas station-but no such luck-not even enough to start the car. Bradley (being the mature young man that he is) volunteered to walk Lainie and Tristan to school and then walk himself to school as I was trying to get into Chris' truck (our 3rd car...its always nice to have a spare in an emergency)..but came to realize it was filled with his hunting stuff and the back seat was out-this wasn't getting us anywhere fast. I let Bradley walk the kids to school and ran in to call my friends to see if they would casually drive by and offer Bradley a ride to the middle school-cindy's husband craig came to the rescue! i knew lainie and tristan had made it safely to school and bradley was well on his way in a warm friendly car. I called Chris to let him know what was going on and he calmly said he would be home to take care of it...prolly 30-40 minutes later he came in the door and let me know my car was up and running and I would need to go put gas in it. Did I?...I ran and got a workout in and then ran some errands and that light came on again...as I approached the first gas station the sign said $1.59-no way-i knew the station by my house was $1.55 so on I drove to pay $1.55 (I know I shouldn't complain) but guess what-not 3 hours later when I left to pick the kids up from school it had come down to $1.51! I know, can you even believe I am complaining, much less blogging about it-when I told Chris I couldn't believe that gas had gone up so much he just started laughing and put it all into perspective for me!