Happy Halloween!!!

This year I actually got to go over to Grandma Ida's house to see all of the cousins in their adorable costumes!!! The last time I did this, I am afraid to say, Ana was probably only 4 years old????

We had a crazy time at the house as usual!!! It never ceases to amaze me how we can all fit inside Gran I's house at one time and not be crawling on top of each other! But I guess it goes to show that just like your heart grows to love each and every child in your life, your house will grow as well to accommodate them!!! Ethan agreed to come over and meet the rest of my "family" since hadn't met anyone other than Tom, Ronda, Blake and Ana. I honestly don't think that he knew what he was getting himself into when he agreed to come over!!!

The Hankins-Sutton clan on great Gran's swing!!!! This is an annual tradition to take a picture on the swing on Halloween for Uncle (well I call him Uncle at least, they call him Papa) Jim.

Even Uncle Jim got into the spirit of the holiday and had Kimbo paint his hair orange too!!!!

Cousins Luke and Lauren looking so sweet and cute! Luke was Indiana Jones (so fitting for him!) and Lauren was a fairy pumpkin (very fitting for her!!!)

Lauren by herself...

Luke by himself... with Lauren dancing in the background...

After we left Gran I's house we met up with my nieces!!! Syrina decided to NOT dress up this year, apparently at 14 she feels like she is "too old" to dress up...

Kenzie Ann as a cute witch...

Me as a black cat with pink stripes in my hair and the "teenager" so cleverly dressed up...

Me and the girls... gotta love the look on Kenzie's face!!!!

She is looking MUCH happier now!!!

Who ME????

We had the cutest trick-or-treater ever come over, but she wasn't big enough to enjoy the candy so we just held her instead... Olivia was a cute pumpkin, her mommy Whitney was a jack-o-lantern and her daddy was a pumpkin patch!!!!

Here is the Serio family.. See the adorable lil' pumpkin that came to Trick-Or-Treat with us???

Frustrations

It feels like no matter what we do, it turns out to be not enough or we should have done something different in the past... Case in point... the divorce... We had a sneaking suspicion that my ex-sis-in-law had her boyfriend living at the house with her, however, we couldn't prove it, and she denied it when questioned about it so there was nothing we could have done... so when my brother filed to get more time with the girls, we did everything we needed to do to prove that this FELON (explain more later) was living in the house AGAINST the divorce decree that specifically states that NO MALE WILL LIVE IN THE HOUSE WITHOUT BEING MARRIED or something along those lines... so we are basically told that we have to deal with it and move on, prove it later... yet today, later, we are told that we knew about it from the get go and that since we had known from the get go nothing had changed... and we didn't do more then to change the situation...

There is more but I won't go into it now. I have some information from my parents but I am sure that I will get more in the days to come. It is just frustrating to know that my precious nieces are living with a known FELON in their house, and that his TEENAGE son is sharing a room with my little niece when he stays over... that the FELON is consistently drinking in front of the girls and is not putting forth his best effort to show the girls how to be the best that you can be. It is frustrating to know that every chance that they have, their OTHER grandparents are degrading us to the girls and trying to convince the girls that we are not their family and other lies. We know this because my little niece has told us as much, she can't keep anything from us (wow she really does take after me!)... it is hard to sit back and watch knowing that these precious children deserve better and that they could get better... if the lawyers would just do what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it...

Please keep my family in your prayers. My brother is pretty hurt by this ruling, he was really hoping for a better outcome, at least joint-parenting with 50-50 custody... instead of Friday after school until school on Monday morning on his weekends... this is a blow to him right now... but there are still things that we CAN do to make life better for these two angels and to help them to be better people.

Monster Cookies and Pizza

I am not sure whether or not I have made an entry for our adventure in making monster cookies and pizza from scratch... if I have... ignore the commentary and enjoy the pictures...

Syrina measuring out ingredients for the cookies.

Ethan helping Syrina get just the right amount of peanut butter.

Group effort to mix the batter...

Ethan directing the mixing of the batter...

Now to add the oats...

Mixing the oats... by hand...

Looks like fun!!!!

Hand shot!!!

Kenzie's messy hands...

Misti's hands...

Syrina showing off her hands...

Kenzie's mix... reese's and hershey's kissables

Misti showing off her mix of snickers and dark chocolate M&M's

Syrina's mix of butterfingers & M&Ms

The cookies ended up being wonderful! We learned some good lessons about baking with candy bars as well!!! We must thank Ethan's mom for sharing her recipe with her sons... and Ethan for sharing the recipe with us! As well as making cookies, we also made pizza dough from scratch and even made our own pizzas! The evening was a lot of fun! The girls and I are looking for another fun weekend that includes a slumber party like this one!

More Spring Pictures...

Even more spring pictures from Woodward Park...

Even more Spring Pictures with my girls

Here are more pictures f rom last weekends photoshoot at the park with all of the girls!

Tomorrow... tomorrow... I'll love ya tomorrow...

Last night Ethan and I took Syrina and McKenzie to the PAC to see the musical ANNIE. It was a very special evening for me, and a tradition that I wanted to share with my nieces.

Let me start off by saying that the evening was special for me because I wanted to share the love of the theater experience with my nieces in the same way that my grandma had shared these experiences with me. It was always a big night when my grandma and I went to see a play, even if the play was at the high school! I can remember getting dressed up to go to the old Tulsa Little Theater to see different plays when I was Kenzie's age and younger.

Annie is my favorite of all plays. When I was about 6 my grandma bought me a red wig, made me a red dress like Annie's, bought me a little Annie doll, and even let me play with her dog Rocky (who looked a lot like Sandy!) She and I went to the Little Theater to see Annie, as well as to several other productions of the play. We found the album to the play at a garage sale and of course we bought it! To foster my love for the play even more, grandma bought me the VHS tape of the play as well...

So of course, when I saw that Annie was going to be in town this month, I knew that I HAD to take my nieces to the play. If not for my love of the play, for the memory of my grandma. I bought tickets for the 4 of us, and then off we went to buy dresses for the girls for the event!!!

Pictures coming soon...

Weekend fun in Tulsa

This was a fun weekend in Tulsa! I drove home on Thursday to have dinner with one of my friends who is very difficult to contact and make plans with! We had a great time at dinner, and I am looking forward to many more fun nights this summer with this friend...

Friday night I picked up Syrina and Kenzie from their mom and we went home to grammy and papa's house. Kenzie had a special surprise when Davie came over!!! We played SWAP and then read books before going to bed. Here Kenzie and Dave are reading "Little Bunny FooFoo" while Dad and Syrina are reading "SOCKS"

Saturday morning Kenzie was excited about going to John and Patty's to see the new baby donkey! Lucy had a baby two weeks ago and Kenzie thought that a good name for her burrow would be Little Ricky since it is a boy. But we have now decided that isn't a good name after all. We just don't know what to name the little guy!
Here is Kenzie with lil' burrow and Lucy. The donkeys like peanuts just as much as they like carrots!!!
After playing with the baby donkey, Kenzie and Gavin drove around in her Jeep. She attempted to let Gavin drive but after he ran them into a ditch and overturned the Jeep she decided that maybe she should drive from now on! They had a lot of fun in the Jeep! Too bad the wheels are hard plastic and not soft rubber, she could really get up and go!!!
This was the first time that Kenzie has ever completely ran the battery out in her Jeep!!!

We went home from our exciting morning and got all pretty to go watch AnaRae dance at her recital! Syrina and Kenzie had fun at the recital, and enjoyed getting to watch Ana dance!!!

My girls at the wedding

Weekend trip to Tulsa

Last weekend Trevor and I drove to Tulsa to visit with my family and some of our friends. On Saturday we dressed up with the girls and went to see Ana Rae in Peter Pan at the Spotlight Theater. Poor Trevor, he was the only guy in our group... we had my nieces Syrina and Kenzie, my grandmother, and Brittney (the daughter of my brother's gf) - to say the least we had a gaggle of girls with us! Of course we had to take two cars to the play so the girls had to take turns riding with Trevor in his truck in the little jump seats in the back, they thought that was cool!

After the play we met up at Woodward Park with my mother, brother and girlfriend, and Ana Rae's mom for some spring pictures at the park. Sorry to say that I don't have any decent pictures with me in them since my budding photographer, Kenzie, managed to cut my head off in every picture she took... guess that should have given me a hint! :)

Ana Rae, the cutest fairy in the play

Syrina and Kenzie

More pictures will be posted to my kodakgallery photo albums as soon as I get my mother's pictures from her camera as well as Ana Rae's pictures!

Happy SPRING!!!!