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!

still catching up!

so now i'm about up to date on my weekends. this past weekend was an absolutely beautiful weekend in stl! it really seemed like the beginning of spring...everything is just popping open and blooming. on saturday morning we woke up bright and early (6am) because the kids participated in their first marathon. it is called the read, write, and run. this was a new thing that their p.e. teacher and a 5th grade teacher introduced to their school this year and it was optional....but my kids definitely wanted to participate. over the course of the last few months they were required to read 26 books, do 26 good deeds/acts of kindness and run 25 miles (with their 26th mile being completed in the marathon). they kept a journal of all of their completed requirements and chris and i and their teachers signed off in it. this was all in conjunction with the go! st louis family fitness marathon weekend. i was all excited that they wanted to participate and very excited about everything they had been completing in their journals up until a few weeks ago when i found out that there were 3000 children throughout the st louis area participating in the final mile run and parents were not aloud to run with their kiddos. talk about anxiety....how were chris and i going to find our 3 children in forest park amongst the 3000 participants and their families? i prayed for rain/sleet/snow any excuse to not go...i even tried to bribe my children with their own family marathon through tilles park, followed up by lamars donuts to reward them, but no, my children wanted the metal you recieve when you cross the finish line. needless to say i think god wanted to teach me a lesson and answered my prayers with beautiful weather (exactly the opposite of what i prayed). when i realized that we were undoubtably participating, i came up with a plan to tie big red helium balloons to my 3 children so i could find them in the crowds....bradley and tristan did not like the idea at all-so not cool mom- but lainie did. on race day we were divided up on cricket field by schools and our school had 5 volunteers (parents) who took our children to the starting gate and then collected them at the finish line....it was very well organized, i watched as my 3 kids ran as fast as they could out of the gate (no red balloons attached) and then went to watch them cross the finish line...i have to admit i shed a few tears...and not just because of their wonderful accomplishments, but i was overcome with emotion when i realized no one had gotten lost). god knew exactly what i needed to experience and let my kids experience and now i cannot wait until next year! our school had 30 participants from kindergarten-5th grade

tristan-in the orange-running as fast as he could!

michelle, rachel and i - we were a bundle of nerves and excitement!

lainie and alec - so excited to get running.

bradley, skylar, hadley and wesley get ready to run

bradley and tristan show off their medals

after the excitement of the mile marathon on saturday morning, we went to our friend parker's birthday party. it was so much fun..he had a carnival party...so there was a bounce house, cake walk, face painter, etc...the kids had a blast. then it was off to baseball...it is already that time of year again. bradley had a game on saturday evening and then another on sunday evening...he is so excited to get out on the field and play.

these were just practice games but his official season kicks off april 18th. lainie is starting softball this week, her first practice is this sunday and she is a little nervous. this is her first time playing, so bradley has been taking her out in the backyard and pitching and catching with her to get her used to it. tristan also starts baseball this week but he thinks he's a pro because he already has one season under his belt-last spring when he played pre-k ball!

the windy city!

lainie is ready for shopping!

so i am a little behind in keeping my blog current-to-date...i'm going to work on that this week, but just in are the pictures from our trip to chicago to visit nichole on the tail-end of our spring break. lainie, my mom and i flew up on thursday after easter and stayed through the weekend! we had lots of fun and ate very well-one thing nichole takes very seriously is eating in chicago...we are not allowed to go to any chain restaurants nor too many touristy places!-it also drives her crazy when i wanted to stop and take pictures along michigan ave.....it may make her look like a tourist! hahahaha! thursday was quite an adventure...we arrived at about 9:30 in the morning and were ready for brunch...so we parked in a loading zone outside of nichole's apartment (she now lives in the gold coast neighborhood...very nice!) and ran our bags upstairs-we came back down in 5-10 minutes to find that her car had been towed. we took a cab to brunch at this fabulous restaurant called the bongo room then ventured under the city to find nichole's car at an impound lot (who knew you could go under chicago...and apparantely that is where many homeless people camp out....lainie was really learning some life lessons!) it started snowing so we just drove around to different shops in different neighborhoods that day(i told my mom we should've stayed on our plane....it was heading to miami!)

friday we woke up and had breakfast and headed to the american girl store...lainie wouldn't let us miss this tourist attraction...we picked up a new friend her name is ivy ling...she is the historic asian doll...friends to julie albright(70's girl) that we picked up on our last visit to chicago! this made lainie's day and onto the hershey store...i forgot to tell you that on monday before we went to chicago lainie had a visit to the orthodontist to have an appliance put in her mouth (an expander) to fix her cross-bite, so she was kind of on a soft food diet and hadn't really eaten much since monday...she got a hankerin' for mcdonalds(let me tell you how thrilled my organic vegetarian sister who refuses chain restaurants was when i told her we were making a stop at the golden arches!)

laine was thrilled ! nichole obliged, she would rather have lainie indulge than hear her whine-remember she's not around kiddos much these days! we then walked for miles and shopped up and down michigan ave. in the early evening we got a hold of casey and met her for snacks and drinks at ditka's. lainie was too excited that we got to take a minivan cab there!

(above) ...lainie and the lego kids in the new lego store! (below)...pop quiz....can you name the sitcom in which this was a regular hang out?

Easter!

I completely forgot about saying a little something about easter! when we woke up at the ranch connie had an easter egg hunt all ready for the kids...what a nice surprise seeing how the easter bunny forgot we were going to the ranch and left their filled baskets at our house...afetr a delicious breakfast we headed home and showered and headed to bob and mona's for the annual eater lunch and egg hunt!

i think each of the kids found about $12.00 in the egg hunt this year (if you are not familiar in the becker family it is a tradition to hunt for money-filled eggs!) after counting their loot, we had a wonderful lunch with way too much food-lainie was very disappointed in kathy and david because they did not bring the pickles!

and then it started snowing!..........and tristan crashed after all of the sugar!

a weekend of celebrations!

we had an incredibly busy but wonderful weekend! happy belated birthday to molly-i am the worst at getting cards off on time, but you were thought about alot on saturday! on saturday morning we woke up early and headed down to the ranch. my dad invited us, my mom, nichole came in from chicago, grandma, chris payne's family, and all of sam's friends to come down to the ranch for a day of sam! sam's birthday was saturday also (he and molly share the day). sam would have been 24 this year. although a bit chilly (like 49 degrees) we bundled up and basked in the sun-it turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day!

this is a picture of the party deck on the lake and we kept a fire going in the fire pit all day.

we all gathered at connie and skips house in the morning and my kids dyed easter eggs for connie, we then headed up to the lake where my dad and natalie(his wife) prepared salmon, bison burgers and bison brats for lunch. while we ate we shared funny stories of sam that brought smiles to all of our faces. my mom and i put together a collage of all of his past birthdays throughout the years and everyone enjoyed looking at the pictures and sharing memories.bradley is standing at the door to your dreams-you walk through and make a wish....

after lunch we met back at the bison offices and watched a video of the history of the ranch and bison business and then grandpa skip took us all on a tour around the ranch and into the bison fields where they came right up to us...my kids said it was much better than grant's farm!after the tour we all gathered back at the lake, a few of sam's friends went and conquered the jeep and hummer course successfully (without getting stuck) and others rode dirt bikes around the lake. we girls chose to sit around and eat and chat and play with puppies.

stacy and casey

as they were preparing dinner-bison steaks and chicken-my dad and chris built a huge bonfire (it was at least 15 ft tall)in honor of sam. after dinner, and when it was dark, my dad had my mom light the fire, it burned for a while and when it finally fell we all made wishes on the embers that were "flying up to sam" as my dad so kindly said.

the bonfire

Happy Birthday Sam/Uncle Sammy! We love and miss you bunches!