Life, Silva style!!

No car seats for me!

Is it weird that my dog thinks he's one of the kids? Because he seriously does! My mom picked me up from school the other day in her van and I turned to put my backpack on the back seat and saw this:

Crazy dog could have layed/sat anywhere in the van, but he actually sat in the built-in baby seat!! How insane is that??!! I absolutely draw the line at buying a car seat for my car! (:

Wishing you a wonderful Labor day weekend!!

For all of fifth grade, Tita had her heart set on playing an instrument as soon as she got to middle school. All that year she talked of playing the saxophone. When school started a couple weeks ago, she decided she wanted to play the flute. Well, since school started, the band teacher had the kids each play every instrument to help them decide which one they really wanted to play. The mouthpieces were washed with antiseptic after every kid until each one in the class tried it. She said that she immediately changed her mind when it came to the flute. She said that she didn't like it AT ALL. After trying the saxophone, she LOVED it. So today, she got it. It is absolutely beautiful!

She struggled at first with positioning it...

Not for long though..she quickly learned to adjust it to her, rather than adjusting her body to it..

I got my fair share of saxophone "sounds," today, that's for sure! (:

I am so proud of her! I know she'll be playing like a pro in no time. I can't wait for her very first concert.

Marko is also in the band. He plays the trumpet, so this year, I will be able to enjoy listening to both of my babies in the school's band! I'm excited!

13 going on......nevermind (:

Well today I kind of-sort of reverted back to my childhood. It sure felt weird and it was all the cable guy's fault! He came over this morning and the hubs had to get to work, so my mom and Danny came over so Danny could wait here with the cable guy while my mom gave me a ride to school. Yeah! I seriously hadn't had my mom drive me to school since probably the 8th grade!

Anyhoo..my mom drove to my lecture hall and pulled right up to the door. I was suddenly overcome with nostalgia big time! I was 13 again!

The year was 1978 and we lived in Alliance.

Alliance = Eleanor and she was my best friend!

Now, I've posted of how I started working at age 12, because in 1978, you could. Obviously. Even though I was working all the time, I still enjoyed my childhood. Except for the fact that I always had some money to spend after age 12, unlike the majority of my friends my age, I consider myself to have grown up pretty normal. I just happened to be more responsible because I kind of had to.

At 13....well, actually all my life to that point, my hair was long. I remember sitting down at my desk at each of my classes and actually having to immediately lift my butt up off of my chair because I sat on my hair everytime.

At 13 I actually went to the 1-screen theater downtown.....oh, probably a total of 15 times to watch this:

Everyone went- over and over to see this in theatres! Even now, it remains on my top 10 list of movies. I love love love it!!

At 13, I walked 98% of the time to school with my best friend Eleanor, her twin Elaine and their sister Bonnie. One day as we were crossing a very busy street we crossed every single day to and from school, we were all walking side by side: Bonnie on the left, then me, Eleanor and finally, Elaine on the far right. We all started crossing at the same time and I still don't understand how this happened, but a car came very fast over the hill and missed Bonnie and missed me, but hit Eleanor!! She flew up in the air and landed on the street! We were so scared! Again...we were 13 and didn't know what to do, so Elaine, Bonnie and I all took off running to different houses in the area to ask them to call an ambulance. We finally found someone home and the ambulance came and picked Eleanor up and raced to the hospital. Thank God she wasn't seriously hurt! I remember she cut her lip really bad, and for about 2 months after that, everytime she would laugh, she had to hold her bandage over her cut lip real tight because she didn't want the stiches to open up. I also remember that after the ambulance left, Elaine and Bonnie helping me look for my expensive comb that I lost when Eleanor was hit by that car. I never found it.

As you can guess, we didn't have cellphones back then, but I actually did have my own phone! I felt so privileged to have my OWN phone in MY room (with my own phone number and it was even listed in the phone book!) and I paid for it myself. (:

It was listed in the phone book like this:

XXXXXX, Mary................................123-4567

Rosi's Teenline................ ................123-4568

Wow! I would give my mom $4 a month to pay for my "teen-line." It was awesome!

At 13, I listened to the soundtrack from Grease (who didn't!), Andy Gibb, The Commodores, Paul Davis, Wings, and of course...MeatLoaf - just to name a few. .................and yes, I am aware that just yesterday, I didn't want to reveal the music I listened to in my childhood.........And??!! (:

So there you have it. A mini trip down memory lane.

Thank you Cable Guy! (:

Disclaimer: Images via Google.

Jasmine's angels..

The last few weeks were pretty exciting for my cousin Jasmine and her fiance Ray. Jasmine was excitedly letting the world know of their wonderful news. She was telling everyone of her double blessing. Yes, she was pregnant with TWINS. Any woman that has been, or is pregnant can tell you of the incredible joy and instant love you have for your precious baby. Her joy and love was double that. Jasmine and her mom, Andrea were busy stocking the nursery for one baby when they suddenly found out that there would be not one, but two babies.

Her joy quickly turned to heartbreak and sorrow because she found out yesterday that her pregnancy terminated. My heart breaks for her and Ray, because her beautiful babies never had the chance to grow and thrive and LIVE.
Only a woman (such as myself) that has gone through a miscarriage truly knows the immense pain and "what-if's." Life isn't always fair.
I ask that if anyone reads this, please keep Jasmine, Ray and their angels in your prayers. I know that Jasmine's oldest sister, LaToya is loving on those babies in heaven!

"Dear Lord, Jasmine would have loved to have held her babies on her lap and tell them about you, but since she didn't get the chance, would you please hold them on your lap and tell them about her?"

I love you Jasmine. I pray that God wrap his loving arms around you and Ray and comfort you.

A day in the life of older people...

So....today has certainly been....interesting, for lack of a better word. Remember I posted of my changing schools? I now attend a big university. And I love it. I'm majoring in Journalism with a minor in Legal Studies. Although, I'm seriously considering changing my minor to French. Marko and Gabriella are taking French also, and since we study together, my hubby is learning it right along with us! It's pretty awesome! We all can actually carry on a conversation, count, write it. Yeah....amazing! I am considering changing my minor because I love it THAT much!
Well, as you can imagine, since I am a non-traditional student, i.e., married, children, Bill (You know the Bill I'm talking about, right?...light BILL, gas BILL cell phone BILL...you get the picture), plus I'm slightly older (: than a "traditional student....right? Well, today in my journalism class, my professor asked us to get into groups of 4-5 and discuss a few things and brainstorm on "What did you watch or listen to as a kid, and do we still. If not, why?" Ok, my group consisted of 3 young girls (of course, I'm not including myself in that equation!), 2 young boys and a man older than moi (: My group's discussion went something like this:

Older man: "I remember watching Little House on the Prairie!"
Young girl 1: "I don't know what show you're talking about. (Complete with a dumbfounded look on her face!)

AKWARD SILENCE #1...

Older man: "I also watched The Andy Griffith Show.."
I almost mentioned that I used to watch I Love Lucy as a kid. I decided to just stay quiet.. (:

AKWARD SILENCE #2...(I think the young'ns were trying to remember if they read about that in the history books...

This is I Love Lucy:
My favorite episode was the one where she worked at the candy factory. Hilarious!

And this would be Little House on the Prairie:

I grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show. I loved Opie and Barney Fife. But I kept my thoughts to myself because I could literally feel the grey hair ooze out of my pores on my head!

Well then the topic changed to music. Oh my gosh, I wanted someone to put me out of my misery by then!!!
Older man: "I used to listen to the BeeGees"
( I was thinking "I did too, but why don't you quit while ~~you're~~ we're AHEAD??!!")

This is the BeeGees and I love them!...yeah, present tense! I may or may not have had their posters plastered all over my bedroom because I used to dream that I was going to marry Barry Gibb someday (: and I may or may not have owned every single 45. (Look that up in the history books...or perhaps the museum!):

And this is Dr. Hook. Now, I used to listen to this and I still listen to it quite frequently!:

Older man to young people: "What did you watch as a kid?" (I guess God didn't hear me pleading with Him to NOT let older man ask the dreaded question..)

Young people immediately answered almost in unison with this:

I'm not E V E N kidding!!!...I wish I were.. They actually grew up watching Bear in the Big Blue frickin' House, Dora and Blues Clues!! (I know you are LYAO Laura!)
Now, I "used to" watch these too....with my kids!!
The older man and I literally wanted to crawl under a big ass rock right about then..
Oh! And as if wanting to rub salt in our wounds, the young kids actually had the nerve to ask older man: Why don't you watch your favorite shows anymore?
Appropriate and only response to that??......Uh....maybe because they are archived already!! Sheesh!

Have a great Thursday!

Planting Mutt & Jeff!

Today was a good day. It was Armando's day off; I had my French class this morning (which is going tres bien, merci. (My professor would not be too happy with me for writing that without the accent over the e in tres, but I don't know how to do that on my laptop...) and then I had a class at noon. I got picked up at school and we raced home because Dell's computer tech was coming over. The generous scholarship I was blessed with also included a laptop (!) and I've only had it about a week and kept having problems with the mouse not working. So the tech came and replaced it.

This evening, Tita helped me plant my avocado trees in potting soil. Here is the post of the day I started the trees from the pit. It was definitely time! The roots were growing like crazy and were really running out of room in the cups they were in.

This is a view of the "small" one from the top. It has grown so much!

I love my trees!

See how crazy the roots are growing??

I planted the pit with the toothpicks still attached.

Lovin' that rich green color of the leaves!

Tons of roots!

I planted them so that the pit was about 2 1/2 inches under the soil and then just added more soil to the top and pressed lightly on top of the where the pits were.

And I planted them both in the same pot. And then I watered them pretty good. Now, I will only water them about every 4-5 days. They really grew fast! I planted them on June 4th and already they are bonafide TREES!!

I will close this post with these pictures of a rainbow we had today.

Ok, Everyone that knows me knows how I always have my camera closeby. Well, I actually had someone call me today to tell me that we had a magnificent rainbow outside just to the East, and they thought to call me to tell me of the rainbow because they thought i would probably want to take a picture of it! How sweet is THAT?!

They were right....I grabbed my camera and went outside (:

I only wish I could have captured the complete rainbow, but it just wasn't there.

Oh, BTW....Where in the world did August go?? Am I the only one shocked that we're a day away from September?!

God bless!

hApPy TuEsDaY!!! (:

Ok, I have to admit that I've been pretty spoiled lately. I have received beautiful flowers continuously from my wonderful hubby and even my beautiful kiddos for the last month. Now, don't get me wrong.........I'm not complaining! Not at all; however, I'm kind of getting used to it. The "window" between my livingroom/dining room always has something colorful and beautiful and happy going on! The hubs picked me up from class today and took me to breakfast. On our way home, he needed to stop at the store, and I waited in the car and studied my French with Peditos....(Yes, I really did!) while the hubs went into the store. I didn't even see Armando exit the store when suddenly he hands me these through my open window: