I can do it, yes I can!!

Things around the Silva house are changing everyday. Jason's still working away and seems to enjoy his job (from what little he tells me). I bug him to tell me about work, but he says he just got off of work, so the last thing he wants to do is think about it somemore. I can't fault him for that. I finished school (Yipee!!) and am official a college graduate. And also, I'm officially a business owner. I leased space in Bonney Lake for my portrait studio, named The Portrait Place. I've been really busy, so busy that I sortof forgot Christmas was sneaking up on me. Andrew and Alivia are getting bigger by the minute, growing into sweet little children.

Andrew is in his second year of preschool, and is doing very well. He's learning how to read, write, use scissors and comes home projects o'plenty. His latest one is his Gingerbread House. He carries that thing all around the house. I think he's afraid it may sprout wings and fly away. His preschool Christmas Program is coming up this Friday and I need to make his costume. Does anyone have any ideas for a Guard? They are recreating the Nativity Story and he's a Guard...and did I mention I don't sew?

Alivia is moving around like a little champ. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but earlier this year she was in physical therapy once a week because she had just started crawling right before her 1st birthday. We stopped the therapy once she started walking at 16 months and haven't been back since. And honestly, we didn't have such a great experience with her therapist. She didn't do much more than have Livie crawl around on the floor, which I could have done with her at home. Then the therapist started being 10, 15 and 20 minutes late, which was not typical for all the other therapists. It was a lot for me to get childcare lined up for Andrew and be in Puyallup by a certian time, just to sit in the waiting room while our therapist was doing who know's what? So, long story short - once she started walking, we stopped going to physical therapy, if that's what you wanna call it. I, however, never really felt it qualified as actual physical therapy.

Anyway, I took her to the doctor for her 18 month check-up, and Dr. Hendrie (who has been our pediatrician since Andrew was 1 week old) recommended that she be evaluated for physical and speech therapy. I can understand the physical, she's still a bit behind most kids her age. She's not running yet, but she's getting close. The verbal just blew me away. That girl talks non-stop. She's saying new words every day, just like I remember Andrew doing at this age. I just don't see a delay there. Nor does anyone else that spends a signifigant amount of time with Alivia. However, I'm going to take her in and see what the therapist recommends, but after our last experience with a physical therapist, I'm not very excited about the whole idea.

So, that's about it here in the Silva household. Merry Christmas, if I don't get back to this blog before hand...I'm so great at keeping up on it:) I seriously do not know how people find the time to do this every day. Here's a fun little picture of my children. I took them in to the studio for a portrait shoot, and you should have seen me monkeying around to get a smile out of them. Well, in this particular instance, I got more than a smile.....Enjoy!

Alivia Likes Black Licorice

Yesterday I needed to clean the floors which in all takes about 30 minutes. I needed Alivia to stay off the floor and keep her happy, so I did what all wonderful caring mothers do...I gave her candy to keep her quiet. Yes, I bribed my daughter so I could clean. And don't try to pretend you haven't done it, either. I gave her a big fat piece of black licorice and waited to see if she would like it...and, yes, it was a HUGE hit. She slowly chewed her way through the entire thing, happy as a clam. Here's some pictures I took of her enjoying her wonderfully (nasty, in my opinion) tasting piece of candy.

Camping at Lake Cushman

We went camping over the weekend at Lake Cushman with our friends Steven, Laura and thier two boys Cole and Aiden. This was the our first camping trip in 2 years. We had a blast!!!

We went for boat rides, did some wakeboarding and even got to use the neighbors jet ski's! We sat by the campfire at night and roasted marshmallows. It was very fun and relaxing. Both Andrew and Alivia loved being in the water and on the boat. It was a great way to close out the summer months!

Mexico was....fun.

Hola! Okay, here is a little slideshow I created of our trip to Mexico. It was alot of fun, with some crazy happenings to go along with it. (see below)

We have been planning this trip for four years and 7 months. We haven't taken a vacation for that long, and we were REALLY looking forward to it. Alot. The plan is that we are staying at my friend's dad's house in Cabo San Lucas. And we are bringing BOTH grandma's, which equals a ton of extra help.
So departure day rolls around, so Jason, me, the two bambinos and the madre-in-law all load up, and roll out to the airport at 3am. We get on the plane, everything is smooth sailing. I can almost taste the margarita on my lips.

Day One, Tuesday:
We land in Cabo, and it's hot and wonderful. We clear customs, no problemo. We go to get a taxi to the house, and sure enough, we get suckered into a presentation for a time-share. But they give us lots of free stuff, so we think...what's an hour of our time? For free stuff. We get to the house, and it's amazing. 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a pool....so amazing. And we go swimming. Later that night, Jason and I drive back out to the airport in the car provided with the house to pick up my mom. It's still going great. Then we get home, and what greets us at the door? Big cockroaches. Live ones. And they scramble in every direction when they see us. So, while my mom and Jason kill the cockroaches, I scream and jump around like the insect wussy I am.

Day Two, Wednesday:
We get up, and Jason, his mom, and I go to the timeshare presentation. It's this amazing resort, and the facilities are incredible. Do we walk away? No, we purchased a timeshare. 30 years worth. But hey, I mean that's great right? It's a fixed vacation every year!! And in Cabo, too!
That night, Jason and I decide to go out and see the nightlife. It was fun, we danced.....in a cage (for those of you that know Jason, that's a pretty big deal!)....and later, while at Burger King, this kid starts talking to Jason and pretty soon, Jason is introducing me to my high school boyfriend's little brother, who is no longer the 8 year old I remember. He's an 18 year old man now. What are the odds, right? Only in Cabo.....We go home to more cockroaches and more screaming by me.

Day Three, Thursday:
Jason and I swam with Dolphins. This was something I have been looking forward to doing for the last 8 years. And it was amazing. They are so beautiful, powerful and suprisingly, they smell like fish. At one point Monet (our dolphin), rolled over on his back so we could pet his belly. He really seemed to be enjoying it! Then the instructor asked me to refrain from touching his genitals. Whoops!
We left that afternoon to go to the day spa. Us three ladies (me + 2 Grandma's) all had an hour with heaven, in the form of a swedish massage. I was so excited. We get to the spa only to find out we have to reschedule due to a city wide power outage. Nice. No fun for the senoritas.
More cockroaches at night, and I'm sure you are all familiar with how I handled it.

Day Four, Friday
I must preface this day by stating that Cabo is in a major water shortage right now. So, we were using water from the underground reserve tank. The owner's of the house explained that we needed to be extrememly limited when using that water. Keep that in mind.
We leave around 3 pm for our rescheduled spa appt. This time, they get us in. It's great. Except the burning hot towels they keep pressing and grinding on my horrific sunburns. All in all, it was wonderful.

THEN, Jason comes to pick us up only to inform us that the car that comes with the house?....Yeah, it overheated and is useless. Okay, so we go out to dinner and let it cool off.
We get the car back to the house, and I go to rinse off my baby girl's cup out and, what's this? No water coming out of the facet? We start investigating around the house and find that the pool guy came and he turned on the hose and drained our entire tank of running water into the pool. INTO THE POOL!!!! WHICH WAS ALREADY FULL!!! (He left and forgot to turn off the hose.)
Many more cockroaches....(You'd think I'm getting used to them at this point. Well, I'm not. I've had like 4 nightmares about them since I've been back.)

Day Five, Saturday
Jason goes into town and gets us a rental car. Cool.Our mode of transportation is taken care of. No water still. We are showering with the (out of town and unaware) neighbor's hose on the side of the house, and making trips from the pool to the toilet tanks, so we can flush. We have to heat up the neighbor's water on the stove to wash dishes and our hands. I'm just laughing at this point. I'm a water thief!

Day Six, Sunday
Still no water. But plenty of cockroaches.

Day Seven, Monday
The water gets fixed!!! Things are looking up! The sun is shining, not a could in the sky. And it's HOT, per usual. We start swimming, it's a great time.
Then, what's that I feel? A rain drop? Within minutes (no exaggeration), we are being dumped on with wind and rain. It's a tropical storm, a residual of Hurricane Emelia. There is thunder, lighting, wind, and so much rain. It's coming in under every door. We have towels pushed up against the doors and it's getting soaked in the house!! That continues all day, off and on. It's so loud, I'm afraid the windows are going to break from the sheer force of the wind. Oh, yes and still Plenty 'O' Cockroaches.

Day Eight, Tuesday
Time to go home! I can't wait to go home. I just wanna sleep in my own bed. With no cockroaches crawling at my feet. The wind and rain are still in full force. We get to the airport at 12:30pm, for a flight that was supposed to leave at 3:30pm. We watch planes come and go for over 8 hours. Mind you, we are with two small children, no water and all the food places closed down because the power is flickering. Did I mention I had two small children there? And it was hot and muggy with SWARMS of flies?
Finally, at 8:30, they tell us our flight can't land (in order to pick us up) so we have to spend another night in Mexico, with no help from America West. Because this delay is "weather related." Oh, and we can't make phone calls from there either. And all the taxi's have long gone home. So, we all get back in to the check in line, to check-OUT our luggage.

Five minutes later, they tell us: "Whoops! Just kidding, the plane will land, everyone back through security again!!" So, we get on the plane in record time, and take off. The entire plane is clapping and cheering! Then we start to get to close to Phoenix, (we were supposed to have a connecting flight from Phoenix to Seattle, but had long since missed it) and ask me what's going on in Phoenix last night. OH, no big deal.....Just a MONSOON. And not just any....They haven't seen one like that in YEARS!! I was watching lightening from the airplane window that was so close I could have touched it. Over and over again. It was like fireworks. The turbulence was like nothing I've ever been in. Somehow, they make it to the ground, and it's pouring and booming and the entire Phoenix Airport is leaking worse than the one in Cabo. We clear customs, get our info for which hotel we are staying (napping) at. We get there, get the kids a bath (they both smelled disgusting) and got into bed at 1 am.

Day Nine, Wednesday
Then we got up at 3 am. Pack up, get to the airport and fly out of Phoenix and landed in Seattle. I'm so thrilled to be home, and in America. I swear, I haven't felt this patriotic since 9/11. I'm not kidding. Did I mention we purchased a 30 year timeshare there?

And here's one more little fun fact for you. I was unpacking, and guess what I brought home. You guessed it! A cockroach. And it was still alive. I think I need post traumatic stress therapy.

My son...

I have the best son.

There are so many moments that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God intended him to be my son. He is my blessing. Andrew keeps me laughing, talking and thinking all day long. If it were up to him, our conversations would never end. I am literally in awe of how smart and perceptive he is.

Some days, it is extremely trying to be a mother. I don't have enough time or energy to be the mom I'd like to be. It is so much work trying to balance this dance of motherhood with the rest of my life, and the reward is not always obvious.

Well, tonight I got my reward.

We had a contractor out at the house tonight who was going over pricing for hardwood floors. Since Andrew believes that every person who sets foot in this house does so to be engaged in endless conversation with him, I sent him to his room until we were finshed talking with this nice man. It was so hard for Andrew. He kept poking his head out of the door to ask one silly question after another, just to be noticed. When the contractor left, Jason tucked Andrew into bed. About an hour later, I went upstairs to kiss Andrew goodnight. Before I even turned his door handle, this is what I found sitting outside his door.

My four year old son left me a love note.

I went into his room and kissed is soft cheeks while he snored in my ear. And I thanked God not only for the blessing of children, but for the blessing of Andrew. What an amazing little man.

Busy, Busy, Busy....

I (Alecia) have been very busy in the past few days. Not only am I still plugging away at school (I graduate next weekend!!!), but I've also been doing a few photo shoots attempting to build up my portfolio. I wanted to share a few shots from the most recent work that I've done.

Also, I wanted to share a link to my website, for the portrait studio I plan on opening when I'm done with school.

www.aportraitplace.com

It will most likely be a year from now before that actually happens, but things are in the works, and I'm really excited. Like I said, I'm currently in the process of expanding my portfolio, I need a bit more variety, so if you want or know anyone who wants portraits done, shoot me an email. Shannon - how's the belly? Is it getting big and round? Your my next subject!!!

Puyallup Parks

UPON REQUEST, here's the latest with the Silva Family!

Jason - started his new job yesterday for General Construction. For those of you who do not know, his company Kiewit owns General and this year has brought a bit of change for the Seattle Building District, so Jay had to choose another distric to go to work for, so he chose General. It's still Kiewit, but it's called General. Confusing enough? It's a bit of transition for him, with the new people and new responsibilties, I think he's feeling a bit overwhelmed. But I know he will do great!

Alecia - I just finished my E-business class, and got an A! Woo-hoo! My GPA is now a 3.86! Do you like that? How does it sound? Well, it won't last for long. Next Tuesday, I'm starting my upper level Statistics course, and I think we all know what that means....I'll let you know what my "Real" GPA is after this course is over. (sniff, sniff...It was good while it lasted!) I only have 3 - count 'em, 1-2-3, classes left. After Statistics, I have 7 weeks off of school, where we will be going to Mexico and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Nothing like the tropics to help mend wounded souls, and trust me, Statistics will seriously wound a soul. Also, I graduate June 24th at the Key Arena at 10am. (So, if any of you wanna come see me in my cap and gown, come one, come all! No tickets required)

Andrew - His first year of preschool is quickly coming to an end and he has done very well. I am simply grateful and very impressed with all he's learned this year. I love that his school takes education seriously, and does not turn preschool into a glorified daycare. He is just growing up so fast, but he's still my baby and I really do love what a sweet little man he is!

Alivia - She turned one in April and is doing very good. She's still the sweetest little peanut and I absolutely cannot imagine our family without her. Her doctor has signed her up for physical therapy because she is not pulling up to standing, crusing or walking on her own yet. I'm hoping this will be good for her and help her catch up physically where she needs to be. And the way it has been described to me, she's pretty much going to be doing Baby Pilates. She's so trendy.

And.....Lets see....yesterday I took the kids to the park, in Puyallup, because after living her for 5 years and complaining about how the round here suck, I finally learned that the Puyallup ones DO NOT! So, off to the park we went, it was a wonderful day outside and both the kids love being outside.

I brought a big cozy blanket to set out on the grass to keep my baby clean, however she had other things in mind. She decided not only to venture far, far out into it, she also decided to eat it, blade by blade. (Someone please insert a witty comment about the coincedense of my nickname "Moo-Moo" and my child grazing grass)

So we moved her to the swings and as you can see by the pictures, she loved being ON the swing. She did not however love being taken OFF the swing. Notice there are no picutres of that.






Now to all of you who religiously look at our blog, I apologize for neglecting it terribly. I have not been doing my job as a Blogger. And I thank you for caring enough to call me hideously filthy names, all in the name of love....er somethin'.....

My Little Posers

My Little Posers! It's what I've always wanted, a couple of posers.

I swear I should get Alivia into modeling, simply because if you hold a camera up to your face, she stops whatever she's doing and smiles like it's school picture day.

Miss Alivia has finally started to get up on her hands and knees. Some days I thought she never would. And now that she's done it once, she's perfectly happy to do it all the time. She's getting into everything and I mean everything. If she can get her hands on it, it's in her mouth. Today I looked over and she's in the corner of the room chewing on an electrical cord. (I know, I know, please stop sending the "Mom of the Year" awards, I simply have no more room to store them.) Luckily, she has only cut her first tooth with in the last couple weeks, so not much damage could have been done, it's more the shock of seeing my baby chewing on an electrical cord that made me freak.

Okay, now time for some funnies....This one of Andrew just cracks me up. Honestly, I don't even think he made this face for more than a second. I have no idea why he suddenly broke out with it, but it cracks me UP!

And for all of you X-Men fans out there, here is Baby Wolverina. Yes, folks, I have the only picture of Wolverina as a youngin' and for all you who don't know, this is Wolverine's twin sister who never quite made it into the comics or the movies. I guess she wasn't scary enough.....

New Picture...

Here's the latest picture of Alivia, I took this the other day. I tried to get one of Andrew as well, but he was too busy watching SpongeBob to come have his picture taken.

The kids are both doing very good. Andrew is still loving preschool and is learning so much. We just registered him for next year and he'll be doing a 4 day preschool rather than just 2. Alivia has started talking. She says mama, dada, bubba, and hi. Her favorite is "HI!" in her little mousy voice. She is still sweet natured and just a huge blessing in to our family. Jason is going through some transitions at work. He's going to be moving to a new disctrict within his company in the next couple of months. I'm still in school and am looking forward to graduation this June. It's been a long time coming! That's it for now, I'll post more pictures soon!

Latest Pictures of the Kids

Here are the latest of our little rugrats! I took them in today and had thier pictures done. I wasn't very happy with how they turned out (like I usually am), but hey, they can't all be spectacular! The girl who did the shoot today didn't really seem to like her job or kids for that matter (I think the feeling between her and Andrew was quite mutual...). It always makes such a difference in who you get. But here they are anyways, so you all can take a look at how they've grown in the last 2 days.

I really liked this one of Alivia, except for the GINORMOUS shadow on her forehead.

It was so hard to get Andrew to give a real smile because all he wanted to do was cross his eyes, scrunch up his nose and stick his tongue out at the photograhper. This was as good as it got today.

Here's my beautiful 9 month old hunchback.

This was a particularly hard shot because Andrew did not want Alivia sitting on his lap. And you can't really blame him because she kept grabbing fistfuls of his cheeks and ears. Poor guy!

This is my favorite of the group. Not my favorite ever, just of this group. All in all, it turned out not too bad and hey, let's look on the bright side. I don't have to do this for another 3 months!

Miss Alivia Karinne Silva

Here is our girl who is just now sitting up on her own (finally). She is just taking her sweet time getting around to all her milestones. But, it's okay with me, she's just taking after me and my mother. We did things on our own time table as well. Alivia is really such a wonderful addition to our family. She is sweet and happy and smiles at everything and everyone. Right now, her favorite things are Andrew and either of our two dogs. She cracks up when Rage "grumbles" at us or when Maggie starts barking. And all Andrew needs to do is grace her with his presence, and she's happy as a clam. He's really good at helping me with her. When I'm doing homework and can't pick her up right away, I tell Andrew to "go talk to Sissy" and that keeps her content until I can get to her. She really makes our family complete!

More Christmas Pictures

These are some more Christmas photos of our Christmas at home and with my side of the family. After our trip to Orcas we came home and opened presents, and then opened presents again with my mom, dad, brother Tony, his wife Susan and their daughter Kira.

Alivia really liked the paper, it took a while for her to focus on the actual present...
But then she did!!

Susan suprised my parents with a picture she took of all 6 grandchildren(She is a photographer with Kiddie Kandids). We secretly got all the kids together when Clinton and Jen came for Thanksgiving. They told my parents they were leaving for a while to "meet friends at southcenter". Well, my dad gave them a hard time for leaving and demanded to know why Clinton's friends couldn't just come to HIS house?? So, here is my parents opening the nicely framed and matted picture of their grandkids...........

...And here is my dad's sheepish grin when we revealed WHY Clinton and Jen's "friends" couldn't come to his house. His face turned a little red, but it was well worth it.

PS: We just wanted to let you all know that our computer crashed two days ago, and it's VERY unlikely that we will be able to recover any of our pictures, music, documents that sort of thing. (The only reason I was able to create this post is because I had saved it as a draft before the crash happened). SO, if any one you have any pictures that we sent out over email, it would be great if you could just forward them back to me. Thanks!

~* Christmas on Orcas Island 2005 *~

This year we went to Orcas Island to celebrate Christmas with Jason side of the family. It was a very busy trip, and we had a great time seeing everyone. Alivia was the hit of Orcas Island, and of course Grandpa Chuck was quite smitten with our baby girl. (I think she likes him, too...)

Grandma Kare-Bear got to meet Alivia for the first time when she and Chuck opened up thier restaurant Chimayos so that we could eat the best food in the world, and I'm not kidding. I always tell Jason, even if I had just stuffed my face with a huge Thanksgiving dinner, I still would not turn down a meal from Chimayos.

Christmas morning, Andrew woke up first thing and found his "super-fast wagon with two seatbelts and two doors" he has been asking for FOREVER! He was very happy!

This was actually one of Andrew's presents, but Jason likes Charlie Brown so much, I think he might try to steal it....

Alivia got to meet her Great Grandpa Von (Ronni's dad) for the first time. He just held her and held her and she loved every minute of it.