HORNETS oh HORNETS...

We LOVE you so.... This weekend is my 10 year reunion from Booker T!!! I can't believe (well, yes, I actually can...) that we graduated 10 years ago! It doesn't seem like it was that long ago... but then again... they say that time flies when you are having fun!

I will post pictures of THEN and NOW after the reunion is over!

Where in the world is Tracey...

So I have received a few emails, some texts, a curious comment on myspace or two all to the point of: WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN???? I haven't seen you...

WELL.... I can answer with one word... just which should I choose... I could go with...

WORK... SCHOOL... HADES... INSANE... NUTS... Arkansas... BUSY... BABYSITTING... WORK... CLAREMORE... CLASSROOM... oh and school...

Yeah, school started much to my chagrin... and I have been busy! As many of you may know, in the middle of July I started babysitting for a local company called SEEKING SITTERS... I thought that this would be a good way to make some extra money (we all know that teachers need it!!!) and keep myself occupied while E is studying or working when school starts back for him... I know... I babysit for some of the MOST FANTABULOUS families already... BUT...

Last week alone (our first two days back with students, plus two days in the building...) I babysat for 18 hours... this week I have already sat for 12... with 4 more on Sunday!! I think I am nuts...

BUT... on the flip side of this crazy, hectic schedule I have thrown myself into... I am practicing my teaching skills OUTSIDE of being a speech pathologist... and practicing all sorts of patience with one little guy that I have been sitting... AND... I am saving money to go BACK to Germany in March to see my oldest and greatest friend, Jeremy!!!!

CRISIS...

I love starting my morning off with a little crisis... always a good way to start the day...

Background information: Last night my best friend Z sends me a text saying that he is going to be working on his race car if I wanted to come over and help him out with some of the basic things I could. So I change clothes and head out to his house about 10:00 in the evening. I was starting to go a little stir crazy mainly because I had been inside ALL day long with the exception of driving to and from my babysitting job. Once at Z's house I actually did help him with his race car... I finally found a comfy place laying down out in his garage on the four wheeler and I fell asleep only to leave myself defenseless against the ravaging mosquitos we have here in Tulsa...

Fast-forward now to this morning (well later this morning... it was kinda late when I came in "last night")... I get up, get dressed and get my stuff together to head over to watch my lil' Ana... only to not be able to find my keys... I search all over my apartment, I retrace my steps... I call Ana's mom to tell her I am goin to be late because I can't find my keys. I continue to look all over, I even called my own mom to see where she would hide if she were my keys! I looked EVERYWHERE! I mean literally, EVERYWHERE! I looked in my washer and dryer (who knows it was late when I came in, I could have checked for clothes in there), the fridge and freezer (I do remember getting a drink), the trash, under the bed, IN the bed to no avail. Lucky for me, Ana was able to go over to her grandpa's house for the morning... but goodness gracious!

I finally found my keys, after an hour of searching. Any ideas as to where??? In the bag that I was carrying that had stuff in it for the day for an arts and crafts idea!!!

Happy Independence Day!

This is a day to reflect on HOW our country became the free and right-giving country that we are today... We should thank each and every person that we know that is in the military now and in the past.

An awesome pic of Ol' Glory taken on July 4, 2006

Fireworks



I hope that everyone has a wonderful and safew Fourth of July weekend! Enjoy all the fun, sun, bbq and firework displays!!!

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!

Spring Pictures

Last weekend we gathered as a family at Woodward Park to take some springtime family photos. We were not at a shortage for cameras... we had a total of 5 digital cameras and my manual camera on hand. I think we got a few good shots to go into the memory books and that are worthy of sharing with my family and friends that read my blog!

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!

So wonderful..

I have so many wonderful things in my life to be thankful for... for starters...

I am thankful for my family. My parents are my best friends in many ways. I am blessed to have such a good relationship with both of my parents. I had a wonderfully close relationship with my grandmother, who left us in 2006 to be our guardian angel in heaven. My nieces are the light of my life, and I truly do live for them and their activities!!!

I am thankful for my friends. I have so many friends that have been around for so long that they feel like family. There are the Sutton/Hankins/Marf/Blakemore families that have so graciously adopted me and consider me to be one of them in their family. They have allowed me to watch their children and watch them grow into wonderful children. Then there are my friends from school... Sasha, Val, Crys, Ana... these girls have been there for me through it all... boyfriends... crushes... not so stellar grades (anything less than a 100)... and life...

For everyone in my life. THANK YOU for everything that you give me. I know that it is too easy to forget to show your appreciation to the ones that you around the most and that you tend to take for granted. I love you all very much and I appreciate everything that you do for me.

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...

Circus...

Cue the circus music... envision the big top... smell the funnel cakes... and hide from the clowns... The SHRINER circus was in town last weekend and Ethan and I were the lucky people who took Ana!!! This was the first time I had been to the circus since I was a little girl with my grandma.

We had a lot of fun at the circus. I think that Ethan and I almost had more fun at the circus than Ana!!! She opted to sit in Ethan's lap throughout the entire performance, and even listened to him and his instructions during intermission!

Here is Ethan and Ana before the circus started. I can't decide who is sillier, Ethan or Ana! Usually she is the one who has her tongue out in pictures!!!

Ana having fun before the performance started...

WOW! What more can one say??? The man is suspended by a hoop around his neck from a bar dangling in the sky while holding a woman using his feet above the ground... without a safety net!!!!

The clowns! I must say that clowns are really amusing... from a distance... I love watching clowns, they make me laugh, really they do... but I am not the biggest fan of clowns being up close and personal with me. These clowns were funny!!!

Ana hugging one of the Shriner clowns. She isn't the biggest of fans of clowns up close, kinda like me! We had a great time watching the circus, Ana was a big fan of the trapeze acts.... and I enjoyed watching Ana with Ethan playing and being silly...

Traditions

Lately, I have been asked what my family's tradition is for Christmas... it is hard to explain my family's tradition at Christmas... it has always fluctuated depending on whether or not my dad was at the fire station and which day he was at the station!

As a younger child, I remember going to my mom's parents house to open gifts on Christmas Eve, then FINALLY getting to open our gifts on Christmas morning before going to MaAlan's for breakfast and more gift opening and eventually dinner... as I got older, dad gave in to our pleas and started allowing us to open our gifts at their house on Christmas Eve before going to church with MaAlan... this allowed us the time to be together as a family with my brother and his children. Then on Christmas day we still did breakfast and gifts with MaAlan... but throw in the random year when dad had to work on Christmas... then we went to the station for dinner... craziness!!!

Some traditions that we have in our family, which even though my beloved grandmother is gone we are trying to keep alive include:
- the girls getting an ornament every year (except this year cause we didn't find any we liked)
- taking Christmas pictures all dressed up on the stairs, in front of the tree and in front of the fireplace...
- SCOTCHEROOS!!!!
- family breakfast before opening gifts (regardless of the day we open the gifts)
- for my nieces they have been able to go with my parents to pick out the tree just about every year that we have been in the new house
- I have been blessed to be part of the Marfechuk holiday traditions with decorating the tree, the advent calendar with Ana, the family (me, Blake and Ana) picture in front of the tree after we are finished, putting the angel on top of the tree (and having a picture taken as we do this) and putting Ana's first ornament on the tree. I have also participated in exchanging gifts with Blake and Ana on Christmas for several years now!

I can only hope that these traditions will continue into the future and that some day (sooner than later) I can have my own family participating in these traditions too!!!! !

One thing that I had as a child that I am wanting to be able to give to my nieces and eventually my own children is a beautifully decorated stocking... my MaAlan made stockings for me and my brother when I was little, and eventually she made stockings for my three younger cousins. I want to make stockings for my nieces that are similar to the stockings that granmda made for us.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Christmas is here again...

I can't believe that it is already time to celebrate the birth of Christ Jesus!!! It seems like just yesterday I was iced in at my friend Brian's house (see blog from Jan 07) over MLK Jr weekend!!! Alas, it is that time of the year again and we have, in usual family fashion, started the holiday process...

Last weekend I actually got to decorate the tree WITH my family, not a weekend AFTER them... Kenzie was very happy to have me there with them!!! She enjoyed seeing all of the ornaments that were hers and mine and her sissy's...

Here she is hugging her Clifford ornament... this is the ornament that she got her 2nd Christmas. She even picked him out herself!!!

Just like her Aunt Tracey, Kenzie is carrying on the Barnes tradition of taking pictures of EVERYTHING at all family get togethers... although, I would hope that I am a little more methodical about HOW I take the photos and WHAT I take photos of... thank heavens for digital cameras!!!!

Last weekend I got to decorate the tree with Blake and Ana, another tradition that was started way back when Blake was little... in all of Blake's 20 years on this planet I may have only missed a handful of years decorating the tree with him and his parents! Ana and I have a tradition of putting her first ornament on the tree together. We have a picture of me and her when she was only a few months old looking at the ornament... here (above) we are putting it on the tree in her room.

Blake just came home from working at a TU basketball game... and yes we all had on Santa hats...
Another tradition... the Blake, Ana, Tracey picture in front of the tree... this year Blake had the honor of being Santa, I am an elf and Ana is one of the reindeer...

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful holiday season despite being iced in and powerless for the past week!

Adventures of Gilligan's Island

Growing up, I can remember the intrigue and mystery of the boat that was floating off of Hwy 169 in Tulsa... what was that boat doing there off of the highway??? How did it get there???? Why would someone want a boat in the middle of a golf course??? Well, for me, the mystery was solved the first time that I went to All Star Sports Complex to play miniature golf with some of my friends... now it is my turn to be the one to help solve the mystery of the boat to my nieces. Only difference is that in 2007 you can't walk through the boat anymore because it is sinking slowly into the pond in the middle of the course like you could, say back in 1992...




Kenzie and Syrina had a blast playing mini-golf, even if Kenz didn't quite get the right idea as to how to hold the putter... or if my mom never realized that she didn't need to hit the ball hard enough to send it soaring down the freeway into the greens like at the PGA... Kenzie actually had a hole in ONE and Papa had two hole in ONEs!!! Uncle Davie had to come out to help Kenzie near the end of the course when the obstacles were more difficult, but he didn't mind being rudely woken (awaken??) by Kenzie screaming in his voicemail!!!!



All in all, a good time was had by everyone! The girls still don't quite understand how when I was their ages we could walk through the boat and even golf on it... or how the boat even played a part of the course, but they still liked the boat!!!