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......