4th of July

We had a great 4th of July weekend this year.

Erin & Jon were in town from Norman and it was great spending a night at Baker's Street catching up with them. They are in the midst of wedding planning and it sounds like it will be a beautiful night. I can't wait!

Jon & Kenny

Sara, Erin, and I

On the 4th we went to a BBQ and Mom and Dad's house. It of course was delicious and it's always great to get the Burke clan together!

Later that night we took Kaleb to see fireworks.

It was a great show and so fun to see Kaleb enjoy the festivities!

Courtesy of Kaleb: Kenny and I at Los Cabos firework show

Kaleb and I before the fireworks

It's finally here...

Well the awaited day finally came. After over a year of anticipation Toy Story 3 finally arrived in theaters. It was like Christmas morning at the Stone household. Kaleb could hardly sleep the night before and that Friday morning came bursting into our room screaming "It's Toy Story Day". We arrived for the first show of the day and thank goodness we purchased our tickets in advance.

There was a crazy line waiting to buy tickets to the show!

The movie was of course adorable. Pixar doesn't dissapoint. Although I will warn you; a tissue may be necessary. For me in particular the movie hit home showing "old footage" of Andy playing with the beloved Buzz and Woody dolls. It of course made me think of Kaleb and his obsession with these characters. It reminded me that just like Andy Kaleb will too grow up and outgrow these characters that have been such a huge part of his childhood. Needless to say I cried like a baby but I highly recommend the movie.

He woke up to some images of the new characters that he will see in the movie

Special whatever he wanted breakfast

He took advantage and picked donuts...a very rare treat in our house!

Waiting to get into the theater

Hicks Girl Come to Town

All 3 Hicks ladies packed up and headed to T-town for the week. It was so great to see these 3 ladies and see how much those little girls have grown.

Carson is even more of a personality and literally running everywhere! I forget how much toddlers change over the course of a couple of months and she is now talking up a storm.

She gets more adorable every time we see here and Kenny and I are smitten with her picture face ( smile...smirk...scowl??)

Too cute for words!

Following in her adorable sisters foot steps is Ms. Caroline who is just as photogenic.

Caroline is such a good baby and is about the longest leanest little girl I've ever seen. She'll outgrow Carson soon!

Kaleb loved seeing his baby cousins and I am so glad we got to spend time with these lovely ladies!

Kaleb & Carson hitting the pool

It was so great seeing Shelly and the girls and we can't wait to spend more time with those pretty Hicks girls!

Heading to the Farm

Well the day finally came when Mr. Beef settled down and had a baby.

As most of you know Beef is one of Kenny's best friends and a constant source of entertainment all around. We are so glad he found a great girl to marry and that they had an adorable little boy.

The 3 of us headed out to the country to pay a visit to the Tinkler family and Kaleb was psyched to check out some farm animals!

He loved seeing baby Aden and spending time with Clif & Laken's nephew Matthew.

The couple took us out to a great lunch and then all the boys headed out to feed some cows!

Kaleb was disgusted by the cow tongues but otherwise he was very excited to see cows in real life.

And of course here are plenty of pictures of the adorable Aden.

We are so happy for Beef and his growing family and can't wait to see this precious little boy again!

Proud Daddy

Excited for the Country!

Feeding Cows!

Kaleb & Matthew

Kenny & Aden

Worn out!

Teacher Appreciation Week

This week was Teacher's Appreciation Week at Kaleb's school and it was a great opportunity to show Kaleb's teacher how much the students care about her.

It was a fun week where the students got to give small tokens of appreciation to Mrs. Adams.

Mrs. Adams has been a wonderful teacher to all the students and Kenny and I really appreciate how much Kaleb has grown while in her class....and it looks like we'll be looking forward to more growth with her next year!

After some soul searching and lots of talking we have decided to keep Kaleb in kindergarten another year. Even though he is doing fine academically we are worried about him being so much younger than the other students. All though the differences aren't huge at this point we are worried that has he gets older the maturity gap will grow. Even though it was a hard decision we think this growth year will be best for him in the long run!

Today capped off TAW week and it was a great morning. We brought the class Krispie Kreme..their second day of donuts for the week! (Thanks Ms. Jayden for Wed. donuts)

Mrs. Adams got to open her gifts from the class and they were very excited to show off thier work!

Movie Night basket with some treats & Target gift card

This was the kids big project. The theme this year was "Teachers Are Heros".

Each student drew a picture of why Mrs. Adams was a hero to them.

I made a cover and put them in a book for her to keep.

Here are a few of the students pictures (they are all so cute).

And finally I made this shadow box for her to keep in her classroom. I saw this idea on a blog and loved it! It turned out to be a little more difficult than I anticipated but in the end it was pretty cute!

(I promise I cleaned the glass before the kids gave it to her!)

It was a great week and we feel blessed that Kaleb has had such a wonderful class this year. It has been great being the home room mom and getting to know all these wonderful kids.

Thank to all the other parents who helped with TAW and throughout the year!

Now the countdown to summer begins!

Baby Caroline!

Baby Caroline is finally here! We got to visit the Hick's family this weekend and see the newest addition to the family. Caroline is precious of course and Shelley is doing great! She is one busy lady and luckily Kenny's mom has been staying with her this week to help her adjust to two kiddos.

Carson is all of a sudden a toddler! She is running around and saying several words. We had a great visit and Kaleb loved spending time with his little cousins. Both little ladies are too cute for words so I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Those are 3 adorable kids! It was great to see the family and how well they are adjusting to their ever growing family. Shelley of course looks great and is a natural juggling the girls.

We also got to spend a little bit of time with Michael. It was great to catch up with him and hear all about his upcoming semester of grad school at SMU. Jason and Kenny both have plenty of insight to dealing with the challenges of grad school and I know he will be very successful as a SMU Mustang!

Between the business with the girls Nana was nice enough to take Kaleb to heaven...otherwise known as the Lego Store.

To say he had fun would be an understatement and he finally received the final Lego Set to complete his Toy Story Lego collection.

Thanks Nana!

It was great to visit the Hicks and I can't wait to see those girls again!

Houston!

I was lucky enough to take a weekend trip to Houston to visit Ms. Lauren.

Lauren has been a best friend of mine for a few years and she has been living in Houston for a little over a year now. It was great to see where she is living and explore a new city. The weekend was filled with good food, good drinks, and good conversation. It was great to catch up and see how well she is doing in the big city! Surprisingly Houston is really nice (at least where she lives).

Thursday night we had a great dinner and then went out for some drinks. I got to meet some of her friends and it was a great night reliving ladies nights at OU. A favorite past time of our Norman days.

Friday was a great day seeing some of the Houston sights. After a power breakfast of Mexican food and margaritas it was off to a house covered in beer cans. A house seriously covered with beer cans. I can't imagine the time it took to do or why anyone would do this but it was really cool to look at!

Next up was a brewery tour at Saint Arnolds. It was a really neat place and the beer was delicious. It was my first brewery tour and actually pretty informative!

I had so much fun and can't wait to visit again! Thanks for having me over Lauren!