Russ & Anne Burnett Family

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Birthday Girls

Here's a quick recap of the June birthday girls.

On June 6th Ashlyn turned SEVEN

Russ tries to take the birthday girl out for breakfast, and they almost always choose donuts.

Our favorite donut shop has ENORMOUS cinnamon rolls.

For dinner Ashlyn chose Los Cucos, a Mexican restaurant she really likes.

Our awesome waiter informed the Mariachi Band that it was her special day, so they came over to our table and sang "Happy Birthday" and a few other numbers. She loved it, but was pretty embarrassed.

She asked for a "Watermelon Cake" this year, so I did my best. :{

Before we drove home from dinner we gave Kaylee and Ashlyn a small gift to open in the car. They each unwrapped 3 American flags. Confusion.

What did you get?

flags

How many?

How many did you get Ash?

Hmm . . . 3 flags + 3 flags . . . how many does that make?

. . . . . . .

SIX FLAGS!!!! We're going to SIX FLAGS!!!!!

Our main gift to the girls was passes to Six Flags.

And they made their first trip of the season the following day.

On June 7th Kaylee turned NINE

(this was taken at home just before the trio took off for Six Flags in San Antonio)

The all had an AWESOME time!

(in spite of Ashlyn's anger over Russ unintentionally taking her on a REALLY intense roller coaster)

Because Kaylee was at Six Flags on her actual birthday, we did her regular celebrations a few days later.

The donut shop also has GIANT apple fritters.

She loves a book series called "Warriors" (about some clans of wild cats),

so that's the cake she requested this year.

Russ thought my cake looked like a dung hill. He's mean.

All in all, another successful round of birthday celebrations!

Sunday, June 22, 2014

We finally decided to purchase a grill.

Russ fired it up for the first time last night and the girls were like,

"Wow! This dinner looks SOOO good!"
"Thanks for dinner, AWESOME Dad!"
"I declare this the BEST dinner I've ever eaten!"

Seriously? Hot dogs on a grill. I'm pretty sure they don't react to my dinners that way. I'll take it though, if it means Russ is now going to be in charge of meals once in a while. :)

Thursday, June 12, 2014

2014 Spring Piano Recital

Kaylee participated in a piano recital the first weekend in May (I know, this post is really late in coming). I was actually out of town at that time, but I made her play her songs for me later so I could record them. She continues to be an excellent student and she is generally really good about practicing on her own (which both her mother and her teacher appreciate!)

Here's the duet she performed with Samantha, who is the piano teacher's daughter and also a friend of Kaylee's from her primary class at church.

Stars & Stripes Forever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8J2bqA-tfyQ&feature=youtu.be

Here are her 2 solo pieces.

The Juggler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ax4wDGV6qrM&feature=youtu.be

and Brave Hawk (which she had memorized)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpNvFmcgeU4&feature=youtu.be

And if you want to see how far she's come in a year,
here's the post with her recital pieces from Spring 2013.
http://russanneburnettfamily.blogspot.com/2013/05/piano-recital.html

Thursday, June 5, 2014

End of School

First Day of School - 8/26/13 Last Day of School - 6/5/14

(Apparently she still really likes this outfit.)

Saturday, May 31, 2014

We LOVE Emily & Doug!

For Christmas Uncle Doug and Aunt Emily, who live in Chicago, gave us a promise to visit us some time this spring. Last weekend they paid up! We spent 4 fabulous days together and were so sad when it had to end.

Playing at the park after school on Friday.

I left them all to make a quick run to the store, and this is the happy scene I found when I returned.

We had lots of fun with XBox Kinect games (Ashlyn is one mean boxer!)

All dressed up for our "Ratatouille" movie party.

"She likes the soup!"

As part of the movie party we split into 2 groups and prepared "surprise desserts".
Group 1 made Dirt Cups.

Group 2 got creative with their cinnamon rolls and formed them into "Rat Tails"
(I think Rata-tail-e was the official name).

Doug and Emily are going to have to come back again, if only for Ashlyn's awesome back massages.

They all spent a long time Sunday afternoon writing Secret Admirer notes to one another and hiding them in mysterious places.

We had planned to go swimming on Monday (Memorial Day), but rainy weather meant we had to settle for a visit to Chuck E. Cheese instead.

McKell isn't really old enough for most of the games at Chuck E. Cheese, but she found other interesting things to do while we were there.

The night before Doug & Emily left Brenna informed me that we now had 2 choices - to visit Doug and Emily lots of times, or to let them live with us. :) We sure love them!