Little Silvestri Boy

Happy 2 yr family-versary!

2010-05-25T20:58:00.000-07:00

Today we celebrated 2 years of being a family! All day I have been saying and singing HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! to Malak. He was immediately singing along with me but after a while I realized that he was saying HAPPY IT'S A MYSTERY! Not quite the same... but cuter and much funnier.

I tried to spend then entire day focusing on Mal and making sure he knows how much we love him and the treasure he has been for the last 2 years. Obviously, he gets my attention every day but on a normal day there are errands to run, places to go, people to see and chores to be done as well. So I blocked off today with nothing to do but play with my baby. It was fun to give him every ounce of my attention and let him know how much I adore him.

After playing at the house all morning we went and met Eric for lunch. We ate, we played in the play area in the mall and he "drove" some cars- a few of his favorite things to do.

Malak's favorite thing in the whole world is helicopters. They make his life worth living.

So after lunch I took him to go see a helicopter. It may have been the best moment of his life. Well, until I wouldn't let him get in it. And then it turned into the worst moment of his life. But let us not focus on that part...

Malak's second favorite thing in the whole wide world is bikes.

(Okay, he thinks that bikes are motorcycles, so we just go with it cause it's funny)

Today we got him his first bike. And I'm pretty sure it is the baddest tricycle in OKC. It's a low rider. It has leather tassels. It is chromed out.

That's how he rolls.

All he needs now is some gold teeth and we'll be good.

After cruisin' around on his sweet ride for a while we ate dinner- his favorite foods: Homemade pizza, strawberries and raisins. Random? Yes. But who am I to not add raisins to the dinner menu if it's his fave?? On May 25th the Silvestri's eat raisins for dinner. Deal with it. ;)

After our funny little feast we headed off to the park for some serious play time.

He loved swinging with daddy...

And jumping with mommy...

After the park we met friends for some coffee and let the kids run around together. We also attempted a few family pics... Which was kind of a joke. :)

Fun, fun day celebrating life with my sweet baby.

Our story...

2010-04-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

Every Sunday our church shows a video of someone in the community who is living out a mission. Someone who is actually DOING what we've all been asked to do and are being Jesus to Oklahoma City and other parts of the world. Nearly every Sunday we walk away moved, inspired or with a new vision of ways we can get involved.
This month our church is focusing on orphan care, adoption and foster care. We LOVE being a part of a community that is passionate about the things that we are passionate about, a place that sees the value in caring for the orphans, widows and the lost. These are things that prick our hearts and knowing that our family at Skyline feels the same pull makes us feel right at home and eager to do more.
So when they asked us if we would share our adoption story we were super excited! While our story is simple and not a huge deal to some, it is ours and we love to tell it to anyone who will listen. If there is any chance that our little journey to adoption and throughout the process of bringing our son home will push someone even a tiny bit closer to adoption, then heck yeah, grab a cup of tea, get cozy and let me talk! That being said... I was definitely NOT excited about seeing myself on video- You know how you get all awkward and weird when you're nervous? That was me. It wasn't pretty, folks. I was trying desperately to hold in the tears that were threatening to pour out of my eyeballs. You can kinda tell, but oh well, I'm setting my self dignity aside and hopefully letting God work through my awkwardness however he wants.
ANYWAY! They did an amazing job on the video and I love that we will have this little chronicle of our adoption journey and where are hearts were at at this place in time.

After the video showed they prayed over and laid hands on our family and talked a little bit about our future with Sierra Leone. We feel so embraced and blessed by this community and are excited to see what else the Lord has in store for us! The good news is that we have now had so many people wanting to talk about adoption and how their hearts are feeling pulled in that direction, so mission accomplished! :)

Easter and hair...

2010-04-07T18:20:00.000-07:00

My sweet boy on Easter Sunday...

He makes my heart full...

Good news! I did Mal's dreadlocks ALL by myself! We have been going to the salon to have them re-twisted and cleaned up every 2 weeks which is kinda INSANE. Reason #1. It takes almost 3 hours every time. (that's 3 hours of me having to hold him still and keep him quiet and happy. Tricky, my friends, very tricky) Reason #2. It costs $40 (plus a hefty tip because well, anyone doing the hair of a 2 yr old deserves a big fatty tip) So, this means we're spending over $100 a month on THE HAIR OF A 2 YEAR OLD. And that is just re-freaking-diculous. So last week I decided it was time to attempt it. And it worked! It was a pre-Easter miracle! And as an extension of the pre-Easter miracle it only took about an hour. Cause I have mad dreading skills. (Or cause I don't do it as thoroughly as the hair dresser did but whatever)

So let us rejoice that our Lord (and the Easter Bunny) has risen from the grave and also that I am saving $100 a month! Woot!

We of course, did the traditional Easter egg hunt... He didn't really care about finding the eggs as much as he just wanted to eat the glorious treats inside. It was his first M&M experience and it was too delicious to be able to hunt whilst eating. So we mostly just ate.

Come on, Mal... We're giving you a few subtle hints here...

But who cares about dumb ol' eggs when you can play in the mud??

And moisturize your squishy little face with it...

We took a few Spring pics... Cause that's what you do on Easter.

Random addition:

Malak likes to play with my hair a lot these days, which I love and highly encourage. It is beyond me as to why he is eating it in this pic... and why I am apparently oblivious to it.

Wierd, wierd kid.

Yum. Shampoo-y.

The pit...

2010-03-30T07:19:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling you want a play by play of my day yesterday... So I am going to give you what you ask for...

Cause I'm a giver.

Yesterday was glorious. The weather was perfect. Mal and I played at the park with friends, then while he napped I laid a blanket out in the grass and read until I fell asleep. Divine.

When Eric got home from work we went to film a video about our adoption journey to be shown at church as we focus on adoptions, foster care and orphans this month. VERY excited about that!! (Seeing our church get so involved in things that were passionate about- NOT excited about seeing myself on video... In front of a few hundred people. Pretty sure I'm going to be the William Hung of church videos. Oh well, I'm letting it go.. Letting it go...)

ANYWAY! For dinner we went to my new favorite restaurant, Cool Greens. It is ridiculously fresh and delicious and makes me happy. After dinner we went to the park and let Mal get some more energy out and then went out for ice cream with friends.

Once Mal was in bed Eric and I made a fire in the fire pit, busted out some hot chocolate, roasted some mallows (yeah, I call em mallows) and cuddled up for a movie by the fire. SO fun!

I am pretty sure I want every day to be like today.

Oh pit, how I love thee...

Very attractive. I know.

Chalk it up, punk.

2010-03-12T12:55:00.000-08:00

After a trip to the store the other day I came home with some sidewalk chalk for Malak. He LOVES to color these days and whoa buddy, sidewalk chalk was the jackpot. He has been chalking his little heart out on the patio. It is also apparently, very fun to paint your face with it. I like him with his war paint on....

This is his drawing of a helicopter. Obviously. I know, I've got a freakin Picasso on my hands. Genious...

Does this sweet painted face make you gasp and sigh and swoon all at the same time?

No? Just me, I guess....

We've had such great weather lately and have spent every available moment out in it. The only down side is Malak is apparently a big boy now cause he comes in smelling... boyish. He smells like a wet dog who's been rolling around in pennies. Ugh. It's gross. More baths. Must give the kid more baths.

Random things...

2010-03-08T17:53:00.000-08:00

So.

I cook A LOT. I love, love, love to cook and bake and make fun things for my family. But because of this I have worn out some of my kitchen appliances. Malak and I have a green smoothie (spinach, berries, bananas) every morning and apparently that's hard on a blender cause I've gone through 3 blenders in the last few years. Some of the blenders were crappy but the last one was a Cuisinart and last week while making our smoothies, there was black smoke pouring out of it and started melting. Woopsy daisies! So this week I got some fun new things from Kitchenaid! A food processor and blender. Woot!

Another fun purchase was made last night...

I know, I'm a real babe in this pic.

But let us focus on the fact that I have a SWEEEET camera in my hand! We got a Nikon 3000 and am pretty sure we're going to love it.

And of course, every girl has to have a pretty strap to make her camera look cool and original.

~~~~~

Random story: Today Mal and I were at the grocery store and a man walked up to us (after staring awkwardly for a long while)... We had this convo:

Him: Are you babysitting that boy?

Me: Nope.

Him: He's yours??

Me: Yep.

Him: I mean, is he really yours? Your actual kid?

Me: Yes. He is my "actual kid".

Him: But... Did he... You know... Come out of you? (He then points to his crotch)

(I am amazed and baffled and laughing because he actually felt the need to point to his crotch to ask this awkward question)

Me: Um, no. He is adopted. Welp, see ya later!

Wierdish? I thought so.

~~~

And now some random pics...

This is Malak's sultry pose.

See food.

Bestill my heart...

2010-03-06T19:25:00.000-08:00

I adore this boy with every fiber of my being. Every. Single. One.

Dreadlocks...

2010-03-04T12:29:00.000-08:00

I thought I'd show you the latest on Malak's current hair situation.

Eeks.
There was period of three weeks when his hairdresser told us we couldn't wash, touch or even get his hair a little bit wet... Oh sweet Jesus, it was unreal. No words can describe the ugliness.... We made a beeline for Baby Gap and got that kid a couple super cute hats to hide the atrocity that lied beneath. When he would take his hat off, children screamed and mothers ran.

(Yeah, that's right, don't even pretend like it's not that bad. It's bad.)

And after those first three weeks we went back to the salon for ANOTHER 2 1/2 hour hair session. Oh my word. He did awesome for the first hour or 2. A complete angel. And then we had to sit him under the giant hair drier thing and all hell broke loose. He screamed. He cried. He threw food. Of course the salon was full of other customers and I felt horrible about the unfortunate day they chose to go to the salon. For some unknown reason they were all super sweet and understanding and were generally laughing at us more than wanting to poke our eyes out with those sharp little silver scissors. Although, I have no doubt that as soon as we left they danced and sang and rejoiced.

No doubt.
The good news is that our sweet little hairdresser gave us some great locking product to control the craziness called dreads and also told us to get him a do-rag to sleep in.

He's so gangsta now.

But man, does it make a huge difference in the cuteness of the dreads. No more crazy horns and hooks poking in a million different directions- they all lay flat and I'm not embarrassed to take the poor boy out in public.

(Yeah, I laugh every single time he wears it. Sometimes it pushes his eyebrows down over his eyes so he can barely see... And he looks like Chunk from Goonies. And then I laugh more. But luckily, this awesome accessory is just for the non-waking hours)

But then the scary hair started getting cuter!!

He's really working on perfecting his ginormous fake smile.... It's going well, I think.

Almost perfect....

There it is. The biggest, cutest fakest smile ever. Ugh, I want to eat that kid.

And here is his pouty Don't-bother-me-I'm-putting-on-my-lipstick, face.

He looooves to draw these days. Everyday we spend SO much time coloring dinosaurs, airplanes, helicopters, trains and writing out the names of every single person we've ever met. Or come in contact with. Or even just seen.

This is Mal and his best friend Eli...

Unfortunately, Malak thinks it's funny to push him down. A lot. Or slowly walk up him until his big fat belly is almost touching Eli's cute little belly and then knock him over with a gentle belly bump.

Or sometimes it's just easier to wait until Eli is laying peacefully in the grass and then walk up and give his head a little nudge with his shoe.

Poor sweet little Eli! Mal has taken on the predator role. He is an angel with most kids... But he waits for the little guys, the toddlers, the ones who just learned how to walk and he takes em out. Picks off the weak ones of the herd. Usually, it's just a gentle shove or a tiny pointer finger poking them until they teeter over... it's so sad. I secretly laugh a little (cause come on, using his big round belly to knock things (or people) over is a teensy bit humorous), but I'm obviously also trying my darnedest to get the kid to ease up. Ugh.

Amidst his funny hair and ridiculous quirkiness, I love this child more than life.

He owns my heart.

Anyway, the dreads are getting kinda cute, right?? Everyone says it takes 6 months to a year for them to get cute... But I love them already. I already think they fit his crazy little personality perfectly and am excited to see how they'll look down the road. Fun!

News!

2010-02-28T13:35:00.000-08:00

This year has brought lots of possibilities... Will we move to Costa Rica so Eric can go back to school? Will we start the adoption process again? Now it looks like we will be spending some time in Sierra Leone, Africa! Our church, Skyline is involved with and supporting an orphanage/school, a micro loan organization and is in the process of digging 5,000 wells across Sierra Leone. There is MUCH work to be done and in May Eric and I are going to head over to check it all out and be a part of what's going on over there. So for the next 2 months we will be scrimping, saving and trying to raise enough money to get both of us to Africa. We are SO excited about this!! We've been praying for years that the Lord would show us how we can be involved and serve the people of Africa, so we're thrilled to get our butts over there and get our hands dirty.

David Beckham was in Sierra Leone a while back... I'm kinda hoping he'll go back while we happen to be there... You know just so we can maybe hang out, talk... make out... Whatever happens, happens.

SO! I will keep you posted on exact dates of when we will be leaving ect, but please just keep us in your prayers! Now, hurry up and get excited with us!!

***Do I even need to mention that the David Beckham make out session was a joke? It has been brought to my attention that some may not catch that I am being silly and ridiculous. So FYI, I WAS BEING SILLY AND RIDICULOUS. I promise not to make out with anyone but Eric Joseph Silvestri. Cool? Cool.***

Zuppa Tuscana...

2010-02-19T19:12:00.000-08:00

This is not a great pic but use your imagination and pretend there is tons of natural light pouring in, making this look as glorious as it actually was.

I found the most amazing recipe for Zuppa Tuscana- just like Olive Gardens. We rarely eat there but when we do that is what I get. Every time. Cause it is the bomb. Ok, but for real, this recipe looks and tastes exactly like it. I made a few adjustments to the recipe and you reeeeally need to try it. I also made breadsticks (cause if we're going Olive Garden style, you have to) and they were fab. I made ours gluten free (cause that's how we roll) but feel free to make whatever kind you want. Slather them in lots of melted butter and olive oil and garlic salt...Mmmmm.

Add a glass of red wine and it sounds like a perfect meal to me!

Just thought I'd share... Cause I'm a giver like that.

Zuppa Tuscana

1 lb ground Italian sausage
1½ tsp crushed red peppers
1 large diced white onion
4 Tbsp bacon pieces
3 minced garlic cloves
10 cups water
5 cubes of chicken bouillon

(Instead of water and bouillon, I opted for a healthier, 6c. homemade chicken stock plus 4c. water)
1 cup heavy cream
1 lb sliced Russet potatoes, or about 3 large potatoes
¼ of a bunch of kale

salt to taste

1. Sauté Italian sausage and crushed red pepper in a large pot. Drain excess fat, refrigerate while you prepare other ingredients.
2. In the same pan, sauté bacon, onions and garlic over low-medium heat for approximately 15 mins. or until the onions are soft.
3. Add chicken bouillon and water to the pot and heat until it starts to boil.

4. Add the sliced potatoes and cook until soft, about half an hour.
5. Add the heavy cream and just cook until thoroughly heated.
6. Stir in the sausage, kale and salt. Let all heat through and serve.

Grate a little fresh Parmesan on top...Delicious!

Gluten free breadsticks

1-1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast

1-1/2 cups white (or brown) rice flour

1 cup tapioca starch

2 tablespoon nonfat dry milk powder (I was out and just omitted this)

1 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin powder

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 tablespoon of dried herbes de Provence (I opted out of herbs in mine)

1/2 teaspoon sugar

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

3 tablespoons cider vinegar

Nonstick spray for greasing baking sheet

Olive oil or melted butter for brushing on breadsticks

sea salt

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a mixing bowl with the hook attachment, combine rice flour, tapioca starch, dry milk powder, xanthan gum, gelatin powder, 1/2 teaspoon sea salt and herbes de Provence. Mix on low speed to blend.

2. Put yeast in 1 cup warm water and add sugar. Let sit for a couple of minutes until it begins to foam - you'll then know the yeast has proofed. Add to dry ingredients with olive oil and vinegar. Increase speed to high, and beat 6 minutes. The dough will stay very soft and should not pull off sides of bowl; if necessary, add water 1 tablespoon at a time until dough does not resist beaters. Liberally spray or oil a baking sheet, and set aside. Scoop the dough into a zip lock bag and cut one corner off to make a hole about and inch and a half around, pipe 12-18 breadsticks leaving about 2 inches in between. Spray or brush tops of breadsticks liberally with oil, and salt generously.

3. Bake breadsticks 10 minutes, turn and spray or brush again with oil. Continue to bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes more.

Serve warm.

~~~

I put half of the breadsticks into a ziplock and threw them in the freezer. That way next time we have spagetti or something that needs these delicious sticks, we can just pull em out, heat em up and have fresh hot breadsticks with dinner. I also went ahead and poured half of the soup into a few large jars and put them in the freezer as well so that sometime in the next few weeks when I don't feel like cooking we can just pull em out and have hot, homemade soup.

Easy as pie.

Or frozen soup.

It's official...

2010-02-10T13:50:00.000-08:00

It's officially official! Malak is ours! :)
It only took us a measly 20 months to finally get Malak readopted. Most people do it about 6 months after brining their child home... Not us. Nope, we thought we would draaaag it out. I like to be different, go against the grain. I figure if everyone is doing their re adoptions right away, shoot, I'm going to wait 2 years. FYI, it's what the cool kids are doing. (well, now :) The good news is that we did it ourselves. So instead of paying a lawyer over $2000, we filled out the necessary paperwork, filed it at the courthouse and went to our court hearing by ourselves... It was SO easy. Totally worth it. If any of you other Oklahoma adopting families are wanting to save yourselves some money- feel free to email me (daisytara at hotmail dot com) and I will give you all the info/paperwork you'll need and a step by step how-to. Easy peasy.
Remember today when we were in the silent court room and the judge entered the room and they said, "Presenting the honorable Judge Graves" and Malak yelled, "Oh my gosh! That's so crazy!"..... And then the judge asked Eric to take the child out of the courtroom?? Yeah... That was awesome. Or horrific. But funny now. And quality material for the baby book (or blog)!
In other exciting news in t-minus one hour I am taking Malak to his first hair appointment at the salon to get dreadlocks. Woot! I am afraid it will be a nightmare getting him to hold still for 2 hours (yes, 2 hours) but nothing good was ever gained without a little (LOT) bit of blood sweat and tears. So we will sit in the salon and peacefully eat crackers (gluten free), suckers (sugar free), and juice (made from vegis) whilst watching quietly a video on the laptop. Please Jesus, keep him happy... and keep him from screaming... and keep him from all the things I know he will do in those 2 hours.

Remember this cute little fella when he was hairless? :) Sweet baby...
(I shall call him... Bald Malak)
Goodbye sweet afro.... :(

Oh come on, this is a little funny. My husband "loves" it when I play dress up with our son.

**UPDATE! **

OK! We're back from the salon. The hair has been did. He screamed bloody freaking murder when she washed his hair. (Why? I have no idea.) Two and a half hours later we went through 5 suckers, 6 crackers, one orange and one sippy cup of juice... and he took about 200 pics with my camera.. and we sang every song ever written... and we prayed for every person we've ever met (Praying is his latest hobby. Sweet boy!)... and we played with orange peels... and we pretended he had a ginourmous hat on when he had to sit under the funny salon hair drier thingy.
All in all, it went well! Because his hair is so soft, she just did a million little double twists on his head so that his hair would learn how to stay put and tangle up. We will go back in a few weeks for her to put the actual dreads in. Can't wait!

Here's the twisties. :) Heehee. Kinda funny...

Malak Kidus Silvestri.

2010-01-10T16:24:00.001-08:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

How we roll...

2010-01-09T07:48:00.000-08:00

Alright, I know, I'm a sucky blogger. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just finding it easier to post pics and quick stories on Facebook... So the poor little blog is getting the shaft. Feel free to just find me on Fb if you are DYING to get a more timely glimps into my life. Unless you're a creepster, then feel free to not find me... And feel free to go punch yourself in the face.

ANYWAY!

Yesterday morning Malak got overly excited about his spinach/banana/strawberry smoothie.

After green smoothies we spent some good, quality time with our friend Mr. Potato Head.

We ate his eyeballs...

We filled his butt with all of his body parts...

And of course we wore his specs, as every child has to do at least once in their life.

THIS lovely Saturday morning Mal and I let daddy sleep in and we made blueberry pancakes together... (And ate an apple, seeds and all)

He poured batter all over his leg...

And was then thoroughly grossed out by the batter after it so rudely got on his leg.

We were VERY excited about eating the fruits (and pancakes) of our labor!

(Also, I know I have about 7 whole friends who are gluten free but if you are one of those seven- this is the most AMAZING gf pancake recipe. Ever. Even our friends and family who eat like normal people love these and can't tell a difference. Make it. You'll love it.)

So that is what's going on here! It's awesome, I know. ;)

Family pictures!

2009-11-19T05:44:00.000-08:00

We took a few new family pictures the other day... How cute is Malak?? Sorry, I know I am being THAT mom right now but come on, he's freakin adorable. He did great during this quick photo shoot, Eric on the other hand....

Oh well, they turned out great... I love my boys. :)I'm so mad that I forgot to change out of these dorky flip flops before we shot this pic. The cute heels I was wearing were to high to wander around in so as we were looking for a new location I changed into these more comfy shoes. Dangit. So please ignore the stupid shoes that don't match.

ANSWERS!

2009-11-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

Ok! I have gotten (roughly) a million questions and emails about recipes and how-to's from my Naturally Natural post a while back... So here are the answers to a few of your questions!

Laundry detergent:
One large box (4lbs, I think) of baking soda.
One large box (also 4 or 5 lb) of washing soda (This is found in the laundry detergent section of your grocery store. It can be hard to find. For you Oklahomans it can be found at Homeland. For the rest of you, this website might help you find which store carries it near you)
One large box of Borax
4 bars of soap, grated or shredded in a food processor (I use Dr. Bronners which can be found at any natural food store and happens to be at Target also)
Thoroughly mix all of these together. Use 1 tablespoon per load.
FYI, this gets our clothes fresh and clean. The whites stay white, the colors keep their color. It is a gentle, mild soap that gets the job done well but if you're looking for something like Tide with bleach... well, go buy Tide with bleach. :)
~~~
Bubble bath:
1 cup baby shampoo or eco-friendly liquid soap (I use Burts Bees)
3/4 cup water

1/2 - 1 tsp. glycerin
Essential oil for scent (optional)
Combine 1 cup baby shampoo or eco-friendly liquid soap with ¾ cup water, and ½ to 1 teaspoon glycerin in a reusable plastic bottle. Add a few drops to running water at bath time for a fun, bubbly, nourishing bath. As an added perk, add a few drops of essential oil such as lavender, orange, or chamomile directly to the bath water. Add dirty kids or a stressed out mama and wash the day away!
I got this recipe from The Green Parent, they've got lots of great ideas for healthful, natural parenting, check em out!

(Look how pretty and fall-y my tree is!)

~~~
Household cleaner: (That I use for EVERYTHING, windows, counters, bathrooms, wood floors, literally everything)
Equal parts water and white vinegar in a spray bottle.
I also add a few drops of lemon essential oil to make it smell fresh and clean.

For tougher jobs that need a good scrub (like toilets or the oven range) I just sprinkle baking soda on the surface and scrub w/ a scrub brush. These are the only two cleaners I ever use. No need to spend money on anything else or have any other chemicals in the house! Easy peasy.
~~~
How I compost: I have a bin in the backyard that EVERYTHING gets throw into. (It is actually a large garbage can that Eric drilled lots of quarter sized holes into for aeration and air flow) I also have a small bowl under the sink in the kitchen and toss all our food scraps into that so that I don't have to run to the backyard all the time. I just empty that into the large bin outside every few days. Here are some of the things you can put in your compost bin: Any food scrap (NO meat), egg shells, peels, coffee grinds and filters, pet hair, dryer lint, leaves, grass, weeds, shredded newspaper, tea bags. Ok you get the point, anything! Keep it out in the elements- sun, rain, snow, whatever, it all just helps in the decomposition process. FYI, If you start getting too many pests or flies in the outside bin, you probably have too much moisture/food scraps and need to add more dry material. (grass, leaves, yard clippings, paper) Every few weeks, give it a good stir, to mix up the mulch and it will slowly start to decompose. After a few months you will have beautiful, rich dirt for your garden! If you don't have a garden but want to do this just to keep those scraps from going to the landfill, give it away! Anyone who has a garden will love you forever if you give them your glorious dirt. :) Here is a website with lots of helpful tips.
~~~
Many of you have asked for some of my gluten free recipes. Instead of posting them on here when most of you are not looking for such info, I am going to tell you to go to this blog. She has AMAZING gf recipes and I have made most of her recipes and always been very impressed. I particularly love her lemon poppy seed loaf, crepes, brown rice waffles, chocolate pudding cake and lemon custard pudding cake. Just a few faves. :)
~~~
I buy almost all of our supplements and vitamins at Vitacost. They are a fraction of the price that we'd pay at our health food store. Vitacost sells a huge variety of brands and different qualities of products but a lot of our supplements are made by NSI which you can buy on Vitacost and it is a great quality product. Our pro-biotic and fish oil are both made by NSI and the daily vitamin that Eric and I take is made by Synergy. (it is their version 3 once daily vitamin) I just ran out of the vitamin that Malak takes and I can't seem to think of the brand...I will check on that and get back to you.
~~~
Here are two recipes for granola bars that we love! Malak chows down on both of these and I love them because they're full of protein and keep us full when were out and about or if we just grab one for a quick breakfast.

Granola bar:
2 cups rolled oats
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup wheat germ (optional)
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup whole wheat flour (I use brown rice flour for a gluten free version)
3/4 cup raisins (optional)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup coconut oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 9×13 baking dish. Mix together first 7 ingredients, then make a well in the center and add the honey, beaten egg, oil, and vanilla extract. Mix well. Pat the mixture evenly into the baking dish.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or until the edges are beginning to turn golden. Cool for 5 minutes and then cut into bars and remove from dish while still warm.

Honey nut bars:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease (with coconut oil) a 9 x 13 casserole dish. Grind the following nuts into a coarse nut flour. Don’t let it turn into nut butter!
1/2 cup cashews
1 cup of pumpkin seeds
1 cup of almonds
Put into a medium size bowl and stir in the following.
1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pf pumpkin seeds
1 cup of raisins
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Melt in a small saucepan:
1/2 cup of honey
1/4 cup high quality coconut oil
Pour honey/oil over the nut mixture and stir until everything is evenly coated with it. Press evenly into the prepared casserole dish and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until it is lightly browned on top.
Allow to cool for 20 minutes, then very gently cut and remove bars and allow to cool on a plate. They will be crumbly at this stage, but I found that if they started to fall apart, I could gently mold them back together (the honey acts like a glue). As they cool they will harden. Once cool, place in an airtight container and enjoy!
That recipe was taken from this blog which I LOVE LOVE LOVE. She has SO many nourishing recipes for your family. Check it out and love it as much as I do.
~~~

Here is a picture of the cloth napkins I made. I just used some left over fabric from some curtains I made. You can do them as big or small as you want, mine are probably about 13x13 inches.

Look how well they work?!! Amazing, I know...
Also here is an old post that I did forever ago about our experience with cloth diapers and homemade baby food. Check it. It may be helpful for some of you.

So that is all I have for now! Let me know if there are things missing that you'd like to know more about!

Random happenings...

2009-10-25T19:28:00.000-07:00

I've gotten fairly close to one million emails and comments about my "Naturaly Natural" post a few weeks ago. Have ye no fear, I am working on it. I'm gathering info, recipes, pictures and answers to your questions and compiling it all together . I will post it soon, it will be soon.

(On an unfortunate note: Here are the fly body parts that I pulled out of my son's mouth. Gag.)

My good friend Gina and I often up going to try out fun new restaurants together, we have lots and lots in common and she's a sweet friend that I love hanging out with. Last week we tried a new restaurant call 105 Degrees. It is a 100% raw restaurant. Nothing is cooked over 105 degrees. The reasoning behind this is that after that point food is no longer living and therefore no longer contains all of the nutrients and vitamins that it was intended to have and that your body needs. So everything is raw (though some things are dehydrated) and completely unprocessed. Their ingredients consist of Fruits, vegis, nuts, seeds, sprouted grains and legumes (most of which is local and organic). It may sound a little boring and tasteless but I assure you, they knew their food and everything was DELICIOUS and SO flavorful! They have a lasagna that I am interested in trying and some fabulous looking deserts... Mmmm....

(Here is the blue corn tostada which was amaaaazing)

(Spicy summer rolls with a mango tamarind chutney)

(Malak and Mira shared the walnut toast with almond butter, honey and bananas. Mal inhaled it. Gina and I snuck some bites and it was really, really good. I need the recipe.)

(Proof of his scarfing)

(And cute little Gina scarfing the tostada. Jk, she eats like the perfectly civilized lady that she is)
I am about to share a secret here.... I have mad skillz. (yeah, skillz not skills) Mainly when it comes to Wheel Of Fortune. I could beat you. I'd take you down to china town.

Ok, I don't think I'm that great but I do love it. Ok, I never have time to watch it on tv... but when I do, I win. The glorious news is that the Wheel Mobile came to OKC and so my friend Nikki and I went to the audition! It was a blast and my Wheel Of Fortune lovin heart is willing for there to be an email from them asking me to be on the show SOON. I'm sure of it. Please God... It is the one thing I need in life.

While we wait for the email that is SURE to come they gave us these awesome sweatshirts, hats, key chains and buttons that of course are worn often. Don't pretend that if you had an entire wheel of fortune outfit you wouldn't sport it everyday. (I know, I wouldn't either)

And now I will leave you with a few pics of a cute little boy whom I happen to love so much I want to squeeze his guts out. I'm sorry, gross but true.

The lips, the hair... Gets me every time.

When I made out with Bono...

2009-10-19T15:06:00.000-07:00

That's a lie. I did not make out with Bono, I just thought it was a catchy line.

The real story...

We bought tickets months ago to the U2 concert here in O.K. Then last week got an email from the ONE campaign asking if we would help work the concert and of course we said yes! We ended up selling our own tickets because working the concert got us in for free. Glorious! We arrived at the venue at 2pm and met up with the other 15 or so workers, we all got (RED) laptops, ONE t-shirts and gear and went out to go talk to the masses in line for the show. There were already about 2,000 people waiting so there was much to do. Our mission: Get people informed and signed up for the ONE campaign. I'm sure most of you know about it but I was amazed at how many people didn't! FYI, ONE is a campaign that Bono started in 2004 to help eradicate hunger and poverty in Africa. They are basically working hard to hold our government accountable to what they said they would do for the people of Africa. It's a numbers game, the more people we can get to sign up (just their name and email address), the more voices we have to speak to our leaders on Capitol Hill and follow through with promises to get things done! SO! We were out talking to as many people as possible getting them signed up and informed. I somehow got chosen to be one of two photographers for the day as well. It was a blast! Bono's latest campaign is The Future Needs a Big Kiss, Kiss Poverty Goodbye so he wanted us to take pics of people kissing that were later showed on the jumbotron big screen during the show, they have also be seen here on ONE's blog . People LOVED being in front of the camera (knowing they were going to be on the big screen) so everyone was excited and wanting to know if I would take their picture. It was awesome to get to talk to so many fans, we got to chat and have some really good conversations with a few hundred very excited people. We did this for about 7 hours. Which, amazingly went by fast when you're just talking to people, getting them involved and having a good time. While we were waiting to get in to the show later and were in a backstage area, all of the guys (U2) walked right in front of us on their way up to the stage. I almost peed. That right there almost made up for a day of standing on my feet for 10 hours straight.

(I don't know why we felt the need to do this with out hands but the cool old guy with the leather jacket and bandanna next to us was doing it through the whole concert, so it felt like the right thing to do.)

Once the show started they gave us special passes to get us into the "inner circle"- the stage is 360 degrees around so it is as close to the stage as you can possibly get. IT. WAS. AMAZING. Bono was amazing. The show was amazing. By far, the best show I've ever been to or will ever go to. Not only is the music untouchable but Bono himself is so inspirational, the entire concert was very moving. There were quite a few times that Bono walked over right next to us (literally about 5 feet away) I may or may not have jumped and screamed like a little girl and tried to touch the hem of his garment. :)

Last nights show was dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi, a 64 yr old Burmese woman who has been under house arrest for 14 years simply because she fights for democracy in her country. During the song, Walk On, me and about 20 others walked on stage carrying a picture of her face to honor her and her brave fight for justice. It was an unreal experience to be onstage with U2 but mostly to be a part of something so huge and moving, to look out and see people moved to tears... Powerful. Singing Amazing Grace with Bono and 60,00 others... Powerful.

(Props to my friend Kevin The Man DeShazo for taking this video from his seat and letting me borrow it)

Also, we were featured on ONE's blog today And they posted a bunch of pics of us durring the concert! Fun! Check it!

(Awesome pic, I know but we were working with a camera phoneIn the dark. In the smoke. )

Summary of the night: BEST.NIGHT.EVER. UN.FREAKIN.REAL.

And then I made out with Bono. .

Naturally natural....

2009-10-04T12:25:00.000-07:00

Here is a glimpse of the cuteness I get to look at every day... Jealous? Thought so...

For the last few years we have gradually been attempting to make wiser and healthier choices in our home. For the sake of keeping our bodies healthy and how the good Lord intended them to be. For a while now we have been almost completely chemical free and it has been SO good to know that there aren't really things around the house that could harm Malak or us or even the dog. This is all within reason of course, I realize that almost every product created has some sort of chemical or unnatural substance in it somehow but you get what I'm sayin. Here a few things that we are doing in an attempt to keep our home healthful and be wise with our finances...

~Instead of cleaning products, I use white vinegar and baking soda for almost everything (floors, counter tops, mirrors, windows, toilets, literally everything) I add a drop or two of essential oil to make it smell fresh and clean.

~ I also use vinegar (apple cider vinegar) on my hair. Sounds weird, I know. But it is SO good for your hair, scalp and skin. I pour some over my hair after I condition- it makes my hair so soft and easy to comb through. Once you rinse it and dry it there is no vinegar smell at all. It is great for getting rid of build up from shampoo and product and helps with dandruff as well.

~I make our laundry soap (which makes it cost only about .03 cents per load).

~We compost/recycle/reuse everything- this has made a huge dent in how much garbage we send to the dump each week (for our family of three we only go through about one small garbage bag a week) all of the compost also makes for GLORIOUS dirt when spring comes around for the garden which means I don't need to go buy giant bags of dirt at the home improvement store.

~I make all of our bread (gluten free), tortillas, granola, jam, almond butter, applesauce ect so I never have to spend the money on them but mostly just so I know exactly what is going into our bodies.

~ I buy a large amount of our produce (and honey and eggs) at the farmers market, this way I know it was locally grown, organic and am supporting local farmers.

~ We all regularly take a good amount of vitamins that I know were lacking in or need which has kept us healthy. (none of us have been sick in almost a year) For Mal, he gets a daily vitamin (a chewy one that he LOVES), a pro biotic (to keep the good bacteria in his body thriving and multiplying to fight off the bad bacteria) and a fish oil (Since he has been taking those we have seen a HUGE improvement on his memory and how well his little brain is working. In my opinion, everyone should be taking these)

~ I make most of our soaps (laundry, dish soap and bubble bath)

~ Other than TP we don't use any paper products. Instead of paper towels we use dish towels or rags for clean ups, I have a few dozen flannel "wipes" that I made for cleaning Mal's hands and face and made some cute cloth napkins so we haven't had to buy those in years. They're all so small that they don't even really add to the amount of laundry loads.

~ I make almost all of our food from scratch- This way I know exactly what I am putting in my families body. When I grocery shop, I can really stay on the outer edges of the store (where you find things like eggs, meat, dairy, fruit and vegi's), it saves a huge amount of money to not have to buy any of the processed/canned foods and actually keeps my shopping trips short and sweet because I am mainly just getting those things that are around the outer edge of the store.

So that is a handful of things that we do! I know that there is always room for improvement and I am in no way even close to making all the "right" choices... So I don't talk about this to make anyone feel like they're not "doing enough", it is simply some of the things we do and maybe it will give you some ideas for your own home! These are just my own points of view and thoughts. So no judging please? :) Thanks.

Now I think you need to tell what you do! Feel free to ask questions or for recipes or if yo, I love talking about this stuff so speak up! I would love to hear your ideas and the things you are doing- I'm always open to new ideas or suggestions.

I just found out about these sweet little shoes! Bugaloo. They're made in my hometown, (Vancouver, WA) are handmade and are precious! They are similar to Robeez, have really sweet designs and are only $15! They also donate a percentage of each sale to Internation Justice Mission (an AMAZING organization that Eric and I are very passionate about), to help fight child trafficking. Your little one probably needs these cute shoes and they might make great gifts too... I'm just sayin...

A man-boy...

2009-10-01T14:04:00.000-07:00

Why does the cake look green? I can assure you, it was blue, definitely not Shrek green.

He is a man now. My son is a man. He turned two today and I'm fairly sure that this is some kind of huge milestone in a boys life where he can take on bigger challenges... you know, thing's like sleeping in a big boy bed or not throwing the dang sippy cup anymore. Man stuff.

He's a man-boy who lifts his shirt for anyone. Classy.

Right now, I am sitting on the patio, watching Mal push his car around the yard and stick his fat little fingers through the fence so the puppy next door will lick them. Just watching him, seeing how big he has gotten, knowing how much he needs me but even more, how much I need him... I am overwhelmed. With love. There is no little boy that could fit into our family more perfectly, he is woven in to me, a part of me. Our family will never look the same, literally, he has changed our DNA and for generations after him, the Silvestri's will look like him, have a piece of him, a piece of Ethiopia. And I love that. Malak Kidus, I love you.

Last weekend we had a birthday party for him. Lord almighty... kids parties are CRAZY. Although, I will say this, we celebrated at a great little park and never again will I cram 40 people into our little house. It was glorious to be able to let the kids just run and play and burn energy and then be able to go home to a quiet house that was not thrashed from the festivities. Mal loved when we all sang Happy Birthday to him, he has been singing it for MONTHS, so it was a very exciting moment when everyone else decided to sing along as he sang it to himself again. Now, he has realized that you can really sing Happy Birthday to just about anyone... or anything. Happy Birthday airplane, Happy Birthday puzzle, Happy Birthday weenie and legs... anything really.

BTW, I have had a million questions about the cake (from facebook friends) so here is the link, if you want to make this fun, festive little cake. Disclaimer: It is so unhealthy it may kill the children who consume it. Just an FYI.

Yeah, we throw a freakin sweet party. Obviously. She loved it. Obviously.
Yeah, you try taking a picture of a two yr old at the park. Madness, I tell you.
Some sweet friends who graced us with their presence. And presents. :)

(a little play on words... cause I am witty like that)

Fun times were had, thanks to everyone who celebrated with us!!

~~~

Today is Malak's actual birthday so we woke him up with his room decorated with streamers. A wonderland, if you will. His bed was surrounded with his gifts from us and we opened them and sang Happy Birthday (again).

We ended the birth-day with pizza (Mal's fave) at Hideaway. It was delicious and fun. Aside from when Malak kept grabbing the butt of the same (male) server that walked by about 47 times.

Cute boys having fun at the birthday dinner...

And, apparently I am not nearly as fun. Wah-wah.

Happy birthday Malak, Malak, Malak dear.

One month later...

2009-09-20T19:43:00.000-07:00

Alright, I only expected about 4 comments on my last post but 100 will definitely do! :) Who knew anyone still read this thing?? I would like all 100 of you to know that now that I know you read this blog, I fully expect to get exactly 100 comments... on every post. :) That stipulation was in the fine print. (quite possibly so fine you couldn't see it) But really, come on, even if you just stay anonymous, it would be glorious to know if you're still reading... It would warm a girls heart and quite possibly make her want to blog more often. I'm just sayin. Also, I am so intrigued by all the anonymous comments... who are you? I kinda (really) want to know... maybe you should give me hints. That would be a fun game! (for me anyway) Or maybe I don't even know you... So very intriguing.

The other day I woke up with a stiff neck. Not sure why. Later in the evening I was in the shower and reached for the soap and my muscle spasmed or I pinched a nerve or something and I was in excruciating pain. I felt like I was being stabbed with a dull knife that was being twisted in my neck or like someone was trying to rip my head off. You probably don't know what that would feel like but trust me. It. Was. Unreal. Poor Eric was like a deer in the headlights... (you should know that I am not a crier. Usually I am a cold hearted snake) Picture me standing in the shower suddenly sobbing uncontrollably, tears streaming down my face, begging for drugs to make the pain go away. He hands me 4 Advil and I can't move so he basically spoon feeds them to me as I am crying, freaking out. (I might go as far as to say I was wailing... I don't know if I've ever wailed but I like to think I came close that fateful night) It was a sad sight. But Eric was helpful and got me into the bed (still FREAKING OUT crying, crying, crying) went and got me some real drugs (in the middle of the night) which calmed me down, he also stayed home from work the next day so he could help with Malak and take care of me. Sweet boy.

Want an update on Malak?! I thought you might. :) He is talking all the time now. It is pretty hilarious to hear him copy everything that we say. Except for when he says things like, oh my gosh. (which actually sounds more like, oh my dosh) But when I say it he scolds me with a, "Oh no, mommy, no, oh my dosh". He has also decided to call Eric, "daddy-Eric". Apparently he hears everyone else call Eric by his name so if Eric doesn't answer to daddy fast enough he gets hit with, "EWIC! Daddy Ewic!"
I must admit as fun as it is to hear him say so many new words everyday... A little part of me is sad to see him changing from my little baby to a real live boy. I don't want to forget the sweet little things he used to say...

This is how he used to ask for a bite of food, back in the day when he was a little baby... You know when he was only 17 months old. :)

And because I don't have much to blog about, I am going to give you a glimpse into our oh-so exciting life... Through pictures. (ie, a lazy version of a blog post)

Big cheesy smile anyone?

Around here, we accessorize.

Around here we also tend to look like Lenny Kravitz.

Picnic at the park...

I posted this pic because until I saw it I didn't realize that I have some seriously bendy elbows! Check it. Ew. I am sorry for the bendyness but thought you should know about it.

The end is near...

2009-08-24T12:08:00.000-07:00

Alright. Here's the deal yo. I am considering ditching the blog. I LOVE, love, love my blog friends and all the amazing people I have met through it. (Infact, we met 3 different people last week who randomly knew our family from our blog) But seeing as I have become a horrible blogger, only posting every few weeks, I am afraid there aren't many readers left. I mean, maybe you all don't really care how often my son poops his pants or that he told me the other day that he wants boobs. So while I am fairly sure the end is near, leave a comment and let me know if you actually read this and would want me to continue... no need to leave your name, if you feel the need to remain annonymous but just give me a shout out. I am more than happy to continue posting if there are more than 4 readers but.... if not, well, I think it might be closing time.

So, HOLLA! (lol, I never say that and am glad I just did)

I had a birthday.

2009-08-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

We're trying to teach Malak how to be gentle... it's not working very well. Sometimes it's hard not to whack people it the face...

Yesterday was my birthday!! Because I am a classy lady we had my favorite restaurant cater... don't even pretend like you haven't always wanted to have an entire tray of Chik-Fil-A nuggets all to yourself. It was basically a dream come true. Andrew (my brother in law) and I were in heaven and ate about 42 between the two of us...About 2 litters of baby chicks.

Eric gave me some cash for my birthday (that way I could go shopping and buy the things that I want and that actually fit...I like it this way) But he got creative and instead of handing me a wad of cash he got online and figured out how to make origami out of the dollar bills! Um seriously, when I woke up he had decorated the entire bedroom in streamers (we do that every year for every birthday) and there were millions (that might be an estimation) of origami animals hanging everywhere. I'm talking, every animal God created was hanging above my bed. How cute is he?? Very. And very thoughtful. And it was very sad when I had to unfold them. I should have just taken them to the store in their natural state of animalness and then when I needed to pay for an item I could hand them an elephant, a duck and a few giraffes.

Eric also made me 2 pies from scratch! A lemon meringue and a peach pie... cause he's a good little husband like that.

This was the fake candle blow out...

And the real blow out.

Hey remember that video where my son bashed his cousins innocent little head in? Dang.

Confessions of an almost 29 year old mom...

2009-08-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

There are some things I need to get off my chest. It's time to bring a few hidden secrets (as opposed to public secrets?) into the light in an effort to be transparent and show you the real me.
1. I haven't brushed my hair in probably 12 years. Don't even own a brush. Never have.
2. I am deathly afraid of the crack in the couch. ANY couch. (You know, where the cushions and the back pillows meet) It freaks me out and I feel like bugs are going to crawl into my pants.
3. Much to my husbands dismay I have a secret love affair with the music of Elton John (strictly the old stuff), Paul Simon... He rocks my world, Chigaco and if I'm putting it all out there I. Like. Lionel Richie.
4. Yesterday at the grocery store I made a big, fat, ugly assumtion about the lady in front of me in line with the stray dollar bill sticking out of her tube top.
5. I have an uncontrolable addiction to chatting and/or writing certain friends on Facebook. It's out of control. and I should cut back.
6. I ate a peice of toast this morning that I shouldn't have (food allergies) and the Lord punished me...when I was halfway done I notice the back side of it was green and fuzzy. I almost threw up but fed it to the dog.
7. Malak wants me to sing to him ALL. THE. TIME. One day I told him that I would only sing if he would cuddle with me. He did it and now every time I sing to him he thinks it's part of the rules.... Now it is my favorite part of the day (about 47 times a day) and I can't bear to tell him that he doesn't HAVE to do it.
8. I gave my husband the okay to buy a motorcycle and ride to South America.... and I think I am going to go with him! (Not right now, after we get back from Costa Rica)
9. I want to be Amish. Or at least live like one. I am a simple little pilgrim in my heart of hearts. I really, really want to not care about what I look like (but I do). I want to grow a giant garden and completely live off the land (but my normal sized garden is dead and shriveled and I kill everything). I want to be outside all day long and for my children to run around and be dirty little curious things. I was homeschooled...I think that's where this weird side of me came from.
10. I want another peircing but have nothing I want peirced.
11. My dream job is to work at Pappa Murphy's pizza. Seriously. I have no idea why. My friends make fun of me for it. And if my pride would allow it, I would get a job there. (also, I would have to make more than 5.85 an hour...)

12. Noses freak me out. If your nose ever touches me I will throw up. (or at least want to) It makes things a little tricky when I kiss my husband but I can manage. Ugh. Cold and hard and rubbery...noses are sick.

13. When I am alone in the car I sing as loud as humanly possible but try to make my face look normal so that no one knows that I'm basically screaming.

I feel better already. I hope we can still be friends.

This has nothing to do with confession... but how much do you love the little tiny fedora hat I found for Malak?! It is basically the cutest thing I have ever seen. And he is basically the cutest thing I have ever seen when he wears it.

Locked out...

2009-07-22T11:56:00.000-07:00

So, today Malak I were playing outside in the backyard. He cruised around in his sweet ride for a while,

he mowed the lawn and also the patio. Cause he's just a good helper like that. He started playing with the back door, opening and closing it... then, he went inside the house and closed the door which was no big deal until I heard the sound of the door locking. Aw, crap. Sure enough, it was locked and so was every other door to the house. I looked at him through the window and he just stood there sucking his thumb, laughing at me. Nice. Luckily, I had taken my laptop outside with us so I messaged Eric (who was at work) on Facebook and told him our little situation and he headed right over. (Facebook basically saved my life. Or Malak's. Or no ones. But still, it played a major role in our rescue) While I waited for him to come save us (about 20 minutes), I went to the front porch where we have a large front window so I could keep an eye on Malak. When I looked in the window at him he already had my phone in his hands (which is forbiden fruit in this house because he has a nasty habit of chucking it as hard as he can...ok, let's be honest, he chucks everything as hard as he can). He just looked at me and smiled and began texting someone. Then he decided to call a few people...4 people actually. He called my sister in law Jessica 3 times and would just yell, "Hewoooo?!" (hello). It was killing me to just stand there and watch him call completely random people in my phone book. Then he threw it, and the battery a faceplate flew off. He just looked up at me and said, "uh-oh, mommy phone, uh-oh". Grrrrrrr. Eric showed up at about that time and all was well. Later, I got a few calls from people wondering what was with the creepy phone call where "I" just breathed into the phone.

Good times.

In other news Malak also thinks it's funny to pick his nose. Sweet. He isn't looking for anything in there, he just likes the huge reaction it gets from me.
He has become quite the little kisser these days and of course, I am LOVING it! He's got a great set of lucious lips that I can't get enough of.
Yesterday it was cool and nice out (which is rare for Oklahoma) so we took a little trip to the zoo and had some good mother/son time. I am realizing how intentional I need to be about giving him my undevided attention. It is SO easy to get absorbed in things around the house or running errands or hanging out with our great friends and I realize that sometimes I just need to get on the floor and play with him- no interuptions, no phone calls or texts, no cleaning as we play, just being with my son and enjoying him in the place he is at right this moment. I have also noticed how much his temperament changes when he gets full-on mama time... he is so much more content and enjoyable. So it's a win-win situation. :)

Malak is cracking me up these days! He is talking SO much and it is quite entertaining!
This morning we were eating breakfast and in the matter of about 10 seconds he said:
(as if it were one long sentance)
"I want toast.
I want airplane.
I want sky.
I want help please.
I want snack.
I want diaper.
I want poo-poo.
I want strawberries.
I want go swimming.
I want Kathy." (his swimming lessons teacher)

Uhhhh, how is one supposed to respond to such a statement??

Camping!

2009-06-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

We went camping this weekend...

Just the three of us...

It was SO much fun!
We went to a great campground that has a river and waterfalls running through it...it was beautiful. (cough, cough...as beautiful as you can get in Oklahoma anyway) As soon as we arrived Malak began playing in the dirt...He would fill cups with dirt and then dump it out and start again... he would transfer handfulls of dirt from one place to another.... he would pick grass and throw it...he would pick up gravel and pour it over his head... He had a constant ring of dirt around his mouth... I often caught him trying to sneak a secret snack of dirt clod. Yum. Oddly enough, we found lots of gravel in his diapers. But this is what he did all weekend and had a blast! Normaly, I am a clean freak but when were outside, having fun I am all about wanting him to just be a boy and explore! He definitely did that and had SUCH a fun time doing it!

Not too happy when I wouldn't let him suck on the beer bottle cap that he found in the dirt. I'm a meany.

Even out in the wilderness Eric can find reasons to play on his iphone. Nice. (In his defense, we both put our phones away shortly after being there)

We played in the river and tried to keep our son from wandering straight out into the moving water. He really wanted to pick up all the rocks from the bottom of the river... it's tricky when your head goes under water every time you bend over to pick up a cool rock..The river was cool and shallow and was the only way we survived the thick, nasty heat (about 95 degrees). We floated around and spent most of Saturday in the water... I went in so pale, I was alomst see-through... now I'm a lovely shade of lobster. Nice.

Sweet boy... just relaxed and layed with me for about 30 minutes. Loved it.

We went for walks...

We wore sunglasses...

We ate s'mores... (which, I've realized I don't really like! I am more of a burn your marshmallow and then eat it off the stick kind of girl. Huh, who knew?)

We pondered the meaning of life..

I like that Malak and the dog are both laughing for this pic. They're pals...

The weather was so hot that we left the rain fly off the tent and just slept under the stars (through the screen of course). It was wonderful to just lay there watching fireflies, hear the bullfrogs and crickets chirping and be all cozy (and safe from those oh-so-soothing but oh-so-nasty, when upclose, creatures) While we were peacefully sleeping, minding our own bidness a racoon family decided that we wanted to share our food with them... they ate all the hot dog buns, most of the dog food, half a banana and half a box of raisins. They also scared the bejeezes out of me when they screeched and hissed right outside the tent. Dumb racoons.

With such a lovely weekend, one would think that I would have taken lots of great video... but no, I took this awesome footage.

Yeah, I know... SO glad I got that bat on tape... in the dark.

HAPPY FAMILY DAY!!!

2009-05-24T18:42:00.000-07:00

One year ago today.... We stepped off the plane in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, stopped for some coffee and within 20 minutes of arriving in Africa we became a family of three when we met Malak Kidus Silvestri.

Have I ever told you how we came up with his name?? I think it's high time.
Grab a cup of hot tea...it's story time...

Eric and I had been trying to get pregnant for about 2 years.... it was hard. It was gut wrenching. And it was draining me. We never really tried to firgure out why it wasn't happening, but once the Lord laid adoption on our hearts there was no turning back and we didn't really care if we could concieve anymore. I'm still amazed at how He took away that desire and replaced it with a deep longing for a child who may not have our genes but is more a part of me than anything I've ever known. He is my heart. He might not match our skin tone but he fits into our family perfectly and I wouldn't want our family to look any other way. He's the most amazing gift God could have ever given me.... I love him more than life.

Very soon after we decided to adopt I was spending some time in the Word, reading scripture. I was praying and talking to the Lord about our child, our unknown baby boy who was somewhere in Ethiopia waiting for us. (actually, he was still inside his mama's belly at this point) I feel like the Lord gave me this verse... Numbers 20:14, 16 "You know all the hardships we have been through...but when we cried out to the Lord, He heard our cries and sent us an angel.."

And so we looked up the word for "angel" in Amharic....It's Malak.

He is an angel.

He is a super hero.

He's a grump.
He's a goofball.

He's a peanut butter and jelly lover.

He da man.

He's a ball stealer.

He's all attitude.

He's a mama's boy.
HAPPY FAMILY DAY TO US!!!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

My first time...

2009-05-10T12:33:00.000-07:00

All day Malak has been saying, "Happy Mother's Day!"...

which sounds more like, "Happy Happy Mftdlay!"

Today was my first Mothers Day with Malak here! (I was his mom this time last year but it was right before we left to pick him up in Ethiopia) Eric got up early with Mal and "they" (we can pretend that Malak helped) made me breakfast in bed.

(Notice that I was so very gracious and posted a picture of myself all gross and morning breathy?? Your welcome. Also notice that Malak is, for some unknown reason, sucking on my finger....weird. I should've posted the picture taken right after this where his hand is completely submerged in my glass of juice. Nice.)

Eric was very thoughtful and made me everything that I am allowed to eat. (I have an ungodly amount of food allergies, so eggs, bacon and oatmeal are the only things this girl can eat without barfing) It was all delish!

They gave me a lovely little necklace (and earrings) that I have been "needing!!" It's from Junk Posse...the round world pendant says, "I would go to the ends of the earth for you"....

(I know it's a little hard to see, but I promise that that's what it says)I LOVE IT.

I thought about having Malak's name engraved on the back, but decided I want it to be representative of all our children...wherever they are in the world.

While the boys played and got ready for church, they locked me in my room...I lounged, I ate, I read, I played on Facebook, I took a bubble bath...it was glorious. I am beginning to see what all the hype's about for this Mothers Day thing. IT'S FUN! After church we went down to the Deep Deuce District to a new restaurant called, Sage, for brunch. It was such a lovely place and their food is all natural, locally grown and organic...it was amazing! Seriously, my new favorite. I got some stone ground, whole wheat oatmeal waffles with sweet butter, maple syrup and fresh fruit and Eric got a fritata with homemade spicy sausage, havarti cheese, vegi's and potatoes with a balsamic glaze...um...YUM.

Me and my baby...he had just woken up from a post church/pre lunch nap and was all cuddly. :)

Whoa. The sexy windblown look. Or the not-so-sexy-at-all windblown look. I think it should be known that the lovely face Malak is making in this pic is the same one I see when he's pooping his pants. Nice. I'm glad we have it on film now.

BLOG UNION 2008 VIDEO...

2009-05-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

Last year a big group of adopting friends, only friends through the blog world decided to get together for a weekend in Hermosa Beach, CA. We all brought our Ethiopian children (or pictures of them or dreams of them) and had an AMAZING weekend on the beach, eating, and building lifelong frienships.
B.U 2009 is coming up this Summer...you should TOTALLY go...

Amharic?

2009-04-26T18:13:00.000-07:00

I can't be sure, but I think Malak is taking it back to his roots and busting out some Amharic. (the language spoken in Ethiopia) It could also possibly be Chinese. Maybe.... (but maybe not)
It also sounds like he yelled "crap" once...but I'm sure that just had to be more of the Amharic/Chinese.

Gladney friends!!

2009-04-20T11:59:00.000-07:00

This week we got together with the OKC Gladney Family Association peeps and it was wonderful!! It is pretty much a group of all the local Gladney families who have adopted or are in the process of doing so. It is always such a blessing to get together and chat with friends who are in a similar place in life and to see all of our sweet babies playing together! We got to also catch up with Mary and Natalie who are Gladney caseworkers- Mary is the one who walked us through our adoption of Malak, listened to me BAAAWL my eyes out and when we didn't get through court, talked me off the ledge :) She also showed us Malak's face for the very first time...a life changing moment. She is just precious and loves all of these kids so much!

Mal and Mary huggin'...

Mal and Mary kissin'...

Of course we had to have a family shot with the woman herself. (Could I look any cheesier??)

Here are the Ethiopian mama's!

Nikki (who has 3, yes 3! kiddos coming home from Ethiopia SOON), me, Amy, Erin and Corrie (who needs a blog! :) Erin and Corrie and their families came all the way from Arkansas...it was so much fun to finally meet and talk with you ladies!

This is Addis and Malak. We took pictures of Addis when we were in Ethiopia picking up Malak, so it was fun to see him all grown up now! They were in the orphanage together...I am choosing to believe they remember each other and loved being reunited. :) They are the same age and were pretty stinkin cute together! It was so fun to see all the little Ethiopian boys running around together. :)

Malak, giving him the eye....

Then, he closes his eyes and slooowly leans in....

And plants one right on the smacker! Sweet friends!! This is the best shot of all 4 boys together. Haha. (Silas, Addis, Eli and Mal)
All of us ladies again with Andrea (our social worker who did all of our homestudies), Natalie (Gladney caseworker) and Mary (gladney caseworker).

And as an added bonus...This is where I found Malak this morning...playing in the dishwasher of course. Where else would you play while mom is trying to do the dishes??

An unfortunate photoshoot....

2009-04-16T13:10:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics we took last week...it was a little crazy because we live in Oklahoma where the wind comes sweeping down the plain and nearly blew us away and Malak was sick...so needless to say we will be retaking these, but there are a few cute ones. Since he wasn't feeling good it was next to impossible to get Mal to take his thumb out of his mouth for more than 1/8th of a second and he was also deathly afraid of the grass (don't ask me why?!) and would freeze and cry until there was no skin touching the scary grass....so all this made for an excellent photo shoot! Hahaaa.

This picture of me and Mal was so close to being really cool. Oh well!

This is what Malak thought of the photoshoot.

Yeah, he's tough, he hangs out at the dumpster...and sucks his thumb.

Big news: Malak saw his first ladybug.

Bigger news: Malak smooshed his first ladybug.

One second later and this would be a picture of ladybug guts. :(

Ugh. On Easter we were making deviled eggs and found this nasty twin egg! It freaks me out to look at it...I don't know why...I like twin humans, but twins egg yolks...blech, I can only look at this picture for a second before I want to throw up. Seriously. And my sister in law Jenn accidently ate the twins!! I almost threw up just knowing that she took a bite of them.

What do you do with your leftovers when you're done eating? Malak puts his in his hair. I have about 20 pictures of him with random food items nestled in his sweet curls but his fave that he puts in there everyday is raisins. Seriously, every time I brush his hair I find at least 4 or 5 raisins hiding in there (luckily we brush every day). They're the exact color of his hair and are perfectly camoflauged in his curls!

Hair is a perfect spot to store any food...

a sandwhich....

ricecakes.....

goldfish......

more goldfish..... and I'm sure there are some secret raisins in there, we just won't know for sure until we brush the hair. :)

18 months...

2009-04-01T19:09:00.000-07:00

Today we went to McDonalds for lunch so Malak could have his first happy meal, because he is 18 months old today and what else would you do on your 18 month birthday??
While we were standing in line this went down...
An older African-American gentleman puts his hand on my back and says:
Him: Excuse me, are you Madonna?
Me: Huh??
Him: Are you Madonna?
Me: Uuuuh....no?
Him: I was just asking because you have glamorous sunglasses and a black kid.
Me: Oh.....uh, haha. (awkward fake laugh)
Him: Or are you Angelina?
Me: (half smile, with not much of the fake laugh left)
Him: Is it the cool new thing for white people to adopt black kids?
Me: Well, if they need to be adopted... (I can't tell if he has a weird sense of humor or is just being rude)
He walks away while I'm talking. (So I guess he was being rude.)
He comes back a minute later and says: So, since I'm black should I adopt an Asian kid?
He rolls his eyes and laughs.
Me: Sure, feel free! Every child needs a family.
He didn't say anything and just walked away.

How awkward is that??

Side note: I realize that there are about a million things I could have said to that man...but in the heat of the moment, I was kind of dumbfounded. Especialy since he had such an awkward way about him. Now, I am thinking of all these great things I could have said...instead, I was like, "Duuuuh, ummmm, uuuuh...." I guess it didn't help that he walked away every time I said anything. Oh well! Now I am fully prepared for the next time anyone questions my family!

Here is an update on Malak and what he is doing at the ripe old age of 18 months...
He is ALL boy. All day long he runs around the house screaming with his tongue out, throwing toys. He chases the dog for hours with his push car thing and try's to run her over. Poor dog jumps on the couch to get away from being run over and he just ditches the car and tries to pull her paws and hug her endlessly. Ok, I'm realizing that this makes him sound bratty, but he is actually just playing and entertaining himself and is just BUSY. He doesn't really play with his toys much, just chucks them as hard as he can across the room and runs to get them so he can throw them again. :) Honestly, I kind of love how much of a boy he is, we play outside for hours and he just wanders around exploring and playing with sticks and grass, kicking balls, "mowing" the lawn. He is talking so much now! He repeats anything you ask him to say and some of his most favorite words/phrases are: octopus, there she is!, dangerous, not yet, thank you, aaaw man!, raisins, oopsy, eat, diaper, poop... and tons more. I'm pretty sure that yesterday he said, "Hey Tara!" He is SO entertaining these days and Eric I just sit and laugh at him all the time. He just had 6 teeth come in...so that was a 3 week long nightmare. Ugh. Teething is evil. SO glad those broke through and he almost has a full mouth of teeth!

I found Mal having a fun little party with his toy camera in the toilet yesterday. Great. Luckily it was clean...as clean as toilet can get anyway.

But how can you be upset with this precious face??

He also was playing with his bottle of Hair Milk and figured out how to open it...and how to eat it. (Remember this post?)
It was sad times when I cleaned him up and took away the delicious lotion. Poor guy... all he wants is a little moisturization! (side note: the perk of using all natural products around the house, if your kid snacks on it, no harm done!)

We got Mal out of bed the other day and he looked like this. Sexy right? Off the shoulder is SO in.

I am a big fan of tan lines in the neck rolls. :)

2009-03-08T13:21:00.001-07:00

I realize that this video may not have portrayed Malak as the brightest kid ever...but it's funny so we will have to show off some of his more serious skills another time. :)

Here is a MAJOR (note my sarcasm) dilema I am having. We have these built-in bookshelves in our bedroom, I love them, but am kind of at a loss as to what to do with them. Obviously, I have some of our books in there and also I have about 37 thousand candles in there to take up space... I have always just had my shoes on the lower shelves and it has been great, but I've been trying to organize lately and am wondering if anyone has any great ideas for these lovely shelves that are not reaching their full shelving potential. Help. Give me an idea or two. I could always just leave the shoes there...or maybe there is some untapped glorious idea that needs to be addressed! Help me! What would you put on these shelves?
** Update** I got a comment (and 3 emails) wondering if we have a pink bedroom...the answer is yes. It's suuuper light pink with darker stripes on one wall and a black wall on the opposite side of the room. I am actually not a fan of pink, but for some reason thought a pink and black bedroom would be fun and different! I added a picture to this post, so you can invision a pink grown up's room. By the way, I am getting the itch to redecorate...any ideas??

I did Malak's hair in some little twisties the other day. Haha! He still doesn't have the most hair ever, although it is super long, so I just twisted it up and then laughed at the finished product. Cutie. I love this guy.

Mailman and milestones....

2009-02-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

The other day Mal and I were hanging out at home and Malak RAN to the front window, a huge smile on his face and joy in his eyes. When he got to the window he started pounding on it yelling, "Daddyyyyy, daddy, daddy!!" I went over wondering why Eric was home so early, only to be looking into the face of our mailman. A short, bald 75 yr old white man.... apparently, Malak's real father. Surprise everyone, the elderly mailman and I had a torrid love affair and he is Malak's daddy. :)

Last week we hit an adoption milestone. Malak was almost 8 months old when we picked him up in Ethiopia and we just realized that he has been home for over 8 months now....this means that he has been with us longer than he was in the orphanage. I love that, love, love that my baby is with his family forever and not in an orphanage waiting for us to come for him.

So here are some of his tiniest baby pics...

My son in his lovely (and very manly) pink blanket.

This was our referral picture the very first time we saw his face....

And here is my sweet boy today...all grown up. (or 16 months old)

From Ashes To Africa and more...

2009-02-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

Have you read this yet?? If not, you need to! Our dear, sweet friends Josh and Amy Bottomly wrote it, it's the story of their journey through a tough first year of marriage, infertility, reconciliation, having a heart for the less fortunate in our world and the blessed process that brought them to adopt their sweet son Silas from Ethiopia! It is beautifully written and will prick your heart on so many levels. Even if you are not going through things like infertility or adoption, you will be moved by the openness and candor of their story and feel the tenderness of their hearts. It would also be a huge blessing to anyone you may know who is going down these difficult paths. Order your copy here.

The other day I was sitting on the couch...let it be known that Malak DOES NOT like when Eric or I sit on the couch. It means that were not on the floor playing with him, and thus is a GRAVE mistake. He lets the whole neighborhood know that he does not approve and screams bloody murder. :) So, I made the mistake of sitting on the couch and he started throwing a tantrum, but after just a minute of crying he laid himself down at my feet, put his thumb in his mouth and fell asleep. Right there, on the livingroom floor, Justin Timberlake playing loudly on the stereo....fell asleep. Poor little fella was all tuckered out! I guess tantrums wear you out. I know they wear me out... :)

Mal has recently decided that he LOVES to wear my headbands. He asks me to put them on him and when I do he gives me a giant cheesy smile as if he knows how faaabulous he looks. Most of the time he doesn't want just one on, but as many as he can find. He hasn't learned the art of less is more in the accesory department... and yes, he likes to carry around my animal print wallet while sporting the headbands. It's all part of his look.

Luckily for Eric, our son doesn't always want to wear feminine jewelry and also LOVES to wear his daddy's hats. And that's just precious.

And...we've got a walker!

2009-01-13T10:31:00.000-08:00

We had been hoping that Malak would walk by the time he turned 3...so he is really exceeding our expectations and is quite the genius!! :)

I kinda love that while he's walking he says, "Yes, yes, YESSS!"

(could you tell we were a little excited??)

Not only does he walk...he knows how to snap! Well....almost. :)

re-cap...

2009-01-07T12:47:00.000-08:00

I am going to pretend that it hasn't really been a month since I last posted. I am also going to pretend that Christmas wasn't weeks ago and go ahead and do a Christmas post anyway. :)

We spent the holiday with my family in Washington. It was a wonderful 10 days and we were actually snowed in for most of that time. But we were all together, so it was fun to all be trapped and forced into playing games, working on projects and just hanging out. We love being with my family so it was SUCH a great trip!! For Malak's first Chrsitmas with us, he had a few favorite presents from Santa...he really liked his Koosh ball, really loved the lid to his cool new bowl (not the bowl, just the lid) but most of all... he loved the paper (shocking, I know). It was the best present anyone could have given him. I'm pretty sure he ate an unhealthy amount of tissue paper...can you blame the boy though, it is so bright and beautiful, how could you not want to eat it?? Even when were at home, all he wants to do is eat toilet paper all day long...sometimes Eric gets mad at me because I let him. :) (Aw come on, who am I to deny my son his favorite food??)

The cousins! (and Mal eating more paper)
Mal LOVED Grandpa and grandma!! Actually, his favorite new word is grandpa. When we were at the mall the other day he randomly yelled, "Ooooh! Grandpa!" to an inocent man walking by.
The guy turned around and waved- apparently he gets called grandpa often. :)
While were on vacation Malak decided to learn a million new words. Here is his list of words: Yellow, blue, Grandpa, GG (my grandma), banana, thank you, ball, apple, wow, yessss, mama, dada, more, all done, diaper, poop, yeah, oatmeal, oh no, uh-oh, dog, woof, Shiloh (his cousin), Tia (his aunt), Doodoo (his uncle, don't ask). Not bad, right?? I'm such a proud mama!

(toys are boooring, can a guy get some paper??)

And this is how I found Malak today. Glorious.

Here is my dear, dear husband...He leaves at about 6:45am so he is up and gone before I wake up. On this particular day he came home from work and I was APPALED to find that he had gone to work with THIS hair!! He does not work in a casual enviroment- it is a very nice business office. I laughed for about 2 hours and warned him that the blog world would see this grave mistake he made. Bless his little heart... :) (Tamatha, Emilee, I can't believe you guys saw him like this at work and didn't make him fix it!) :)

Tasty treat...

2008-12-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

Have you ever tried this wonderful product?!
Malak has. He ate an entire container of it today. He was playing with me one minute and then wandered off...next thing I knew he was in my bedroom with his tounge deep inside the container, licking it clean. He was VERY angry when I took away his delicous snack. :) (Me, being the good mama that I am, grabbed the camera so I would have some blogging material) The good news is that this is an all natural product, so there was no harm done....he will just eternaly smell like a banana. Yay!

Also! May I introduce....the SECOND cutest baby in Oklahoma!!! :) Sorry, I am just now posting the results of the contest, but somehow blogging has taken a backseat to everything else going on right now. (sorry about that) So yeah, the other little girl won by four votes! They said Malak was ahead the whole time and then she pulled forward with those four votes at the very end. DARN! But we are over it and I firgure, that's what I get for trying to be a pageant mom. :)
BUT, the four of you who didn't vote...I blame you. :)

We too, LOVE this.

2008-12-07T19:58:00.001-08:00

6 months ago today...

2008-11-25T06:06:00.000-08:00

6 months ago today we saw our son for the first time!
When we went to Ethiopia to pick up Malak we were so suprised and excited when we recieved a cd from Travis (the in country rep) with a whole bunch of pictures of Malak from the time he arrived at the Gladney foster care center!! He was only 3 days old when he was brought in, so it melts my heart to see my baby so tiny and fragile! One day I will show you the rest of his precious pics, but for now you can just see this one and see how much he has grown!! Precious boy...

I am also super excited to announce that Mal is a finalist in the cute baby contest!! It is between him and a little girl, so this is the last time I will ever ask you to pppplease vote for him, one last time!! I am sure I will forever be embarrased that I entered him in a contest, but at this point, he made it past a few thousand other kids, so my excitement of possibly winning is outweighing the rediculousness of it all. :) Click here to vote! (almost forgot that, thanks Laura! And our sweet friend Laura did a blog post to get more people to vote for Malak...I love that girl!)
I am sorry to say that my blogging skills are lacking these days- you know and I know it. I seem to have been sucked into the abiss called Facebook. It is rocking my world. :)

Round 3??

2008-11-17T07:10:00.000-08:00

First off- SERIOUSLY?! Malak's cute face made it to round 3! That means it is between him and only 15 other kiddos now and I am not going to lie- the competittion is getting a little more steep. Is it rediculous that I am getting a little nervous? Yes, I think it is. So I am going to guess that you might be annoyed, but I have to ask you one last time....will you vote? Teehee. I am a little embarrased to ask again but come one, this is the last round and if he makes it- then it will be between just him and one other baby. (fingers crossed!) Will you vote for him if I promise to never put him into any baby pageants again? :) Although if he won this...no, no, I promise. Here is the link to vote again, http://www.kj103fm.com/pages/babybracket.html?feed=305595&article=4592988 and don't be tempted to vote for the adorable tiny punkin patch baby. Stay the course! :)
In other news. I think it should be known that over the weekend I washed/dryed/folded/Eric ironed and put away every piece of laundry in this house. Woot woot! I am pretty anal about keeping up on chores around the house and try really hard for the house to be pretty close to clean when Eric gets home- but our poor unfortunate closet has become a scary place that has been neglected. There was a rediculous amount of clothes on the floor and since no one else ever goes in there...I pretended it didn't exist. :) But all is well now, I have admited that I have a problem and no longer have to wade through the sea of clothes to walk through the closet.
Malak is still not quite walking. He pulls up on everything and cruises around pretty quick, but has no desire to try and balance on his own! Silly boy. I know that he will do it when he is good and ready, I also know that our life will change dramaticly when he is walking, so I am perfectly happy to let him learn at his own speed. When we try to practice with him he just thinks it's super funny to fall (when we catch him of course). Other things that he thinks are super funny: Farting, burping, other people farting or burping, walking out the front door (I have no idea why that is so funny, but apparently it is), slapping himself in the face, the sound of his aunt Jenn's laugh (he mocks her every time she laughs), when I throw all ball at his forehead and when I suck his cheek with the vacuum hose. :) I think those are the main, exciting points in Malak's life right now. :)

I know a few of us have talked about it already (Stacie, Sam and Lori) but who all is going to see Twilight this weekend?? I don't read a ton these days, my busy son won't allow it, but I made an exception for Twilight and it sucked me right in. It was rediculous. I think I read it in less than a day, if you can count that I stayed up all night reading and then had a dream about Edward. :) So who is going to be standing in line at the theater with all of the middle school girls? Don't be ashamed, let the world know!

Spagetti and round 2!

2008-11-12T05:42:00.000-08:00

Last night we made spagetti for dinner. It was feeezing outside and it felt so nice and cozy to have a delicious warm meal simmering on the stove top while Er and I cought each other up on the happenings of the day. (The highlight of my day was Malak throwing the HUGEST tantrum in Target- hitting, thrashing and screaming were all involved. Good times. I have heard of the terrible two's but apparently we are paving the way for the terrible 13 month olds) :) I am posting the recipe for the marinara/meat sauce because it is pretty much the best you will ever have. No really, it should win an award for deliciousness or something. We served it over whole wheat noodles and with a crusty french bread in the side.....oh the yummy goodness.
(By the way, I cannot take credit for this is recipe, it's just one that I have come to love.)
1 onion finely chopped
1 Lb. ground beef (I always sub this for ground turkey for a healthier option)
1/2 shredded carrot
1 c. white wine
1/2 c. milk (I use soy since we are all allergic and it works just fine)
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1 c. chicken broth (or whatever broth you have on hand, I have used beef and vegetable)
1 1/2 tsp. salt
dash of pepper
1 tsp. basil
1/2 tsp. thyme
1 bay leaf
2 cans tomato sauce
1 Tblsp. brown sugar
In a large saucepan add the onion and brown it with ground beef over med heat. Drain. Add shredded carrot, cook 2 minutes. Add cup of white wine, cook 4-6 minutes. Add milk and nutmeg, cook 3-4 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and simmer with the lid off until sauce thickens.

Also, I did not realize until yesterday, but Malak has moved on to the second round in the cute baby contest!! The bad news is that there are 4 rounds. :( But would you mind putting in another vote for him?? We can't give up now, he has made it to round 2 people!! Please?? Here is the link: http://www.kj103fm.com/pages/beatmybaby.html?feed=305595&article=4552553
*Don't be tempted to vote for Princess Leah- you will see her when you go to the page...fight the urge.

VOTE FOR MALAK!!

2008-11-04T15:26:00.000-08:00

Eric and I made a pact when we first got married- we would enter EVERY contest that we came upon. Eric has drifted a bit, but I have stayed the course and have entered our son in a cutest baby contest. I am embarrased to even write that, but come on, he could win a $500 shopping spree!! Here is your task- should you choose to accept it- VOTE FOR MALAK!! Go to KJ103FM.com and scroll down until you see the sweetest face ever, (hint: it will be Malak's face) and cast your vote. I believe thisis the picture you will be looking for.
Now, go, even if you don't really think he is the cutest one in the polls...vote for him anyway. Even if you and I aren't really close friends...vote for him anyway. Even if your kid is in the same contest....vote for him anyway. WWJD? He would vote for Malak.

Haloween 2008

2008-11-03T07:52:00.000-08:00

Are you shaking in your boots at this super scary lion?
For Haloween we went with a few of our friends and family to the Zoo for their annual haloween trick or treat thing. It was so much fun! The weather was perfect- Oklahoma hasn't realized that it is Fall and should be getting cold, so we are stuck in this perfect 70 degree weather and loving it! Anyhoo, it was a lovely night and the kids got their fill of a bunch of great treats as we walked around the zoo- poor Malak doesn't really get any sugar, so he ate his treasured rice cake. Eric and I gorged ourselves all night on the goods.
It was a wonderful first haloween with Malak! The parents had a great time, the kids had a great time....until we apparently stayed a few minutes too long and every single one of them was screaming bloody murder as we left. Oopsy.

Is this night over yet??

New family pics and pumpkins....

2008-10-21T19:19:00.000-07:00

We took some new fall family pictures! My sister in law has a great camera, so it makes any picture look good- I think they turned out great! But who knew that it is so hard to get a good picture of a mere 3 people?? I think we had just as many pictures of Eric looking away from the camera as we did of Malak. :) I usualy end up tickling Malak's back to get him to smile for pictures- maybe I should start tickling Eric too, to get him to look at the camera and smile.

We made a trip to the pumpkin patch!

I am pretty sure Mal loved it...he sat in the dirt, grabbed a goat by the horns while it ate his sweater, picked out a pumpkin and put the moves on a few of his cousins. :) Way to go bud!

It is very rare for Mal to actualy cry...but that being said, he has got the fake cry down pat. GRRRRR! It is about to drive me crazy! The fake cry can come out at any old time and he will do it incesantly for an hour if you let him. To the untrained ear it may seem real, but it can be flipped on and off like a light switch and there will never be a tear- half the time he forgets to even make a fake sad face and will just sit there playing with a toy with his mouth wide open in an unconcentrated fake hollar. He will now bust out the fake cry when he is getting a diaper change, when he is waiting on his meal, when his toy rolls away and he doesn't feel like reaching for it, when his sleeve covers his finger, when his sock falls off, when he wants to stand up but only wants to do it holding each of your pointer fingers...I think you get the point. My heart is not as hard as it may sound- if he was really in need of something or if he were hurt or just needing mama, I will always come running to scoop my baby up! But, I am pretty sure that this is just a new found trick, that he wants to torture me with. :) All that being said, this kid is cracking us up these days!! He is just getting to the age where his little personality is coming out more and more each day, we are constantly entertained by him and he is such a joy to be around. So if we have to endure the crazy fake crying in order to see his other half- the part of him that has me cracking up all day long, and that keeps me kissing this cheeks about 287 times a day...well then, we will take it.What did we do before he was here?? I can't even imagine life without my precious son around, and I am SO looking forward to seeing him turn into a little boy!! He is already thinning and stretching out. When we picked him up from Ethiopia he was 26 inches long and weighed 16 lbs. Now, he is almost 30 inches and weighs 20 lbs!

Me + Malak Kidus Silvestri = LUV 4 EVA!

Tiggity tagged...EDITED

2008-10-15T13:43:00.001-07:00

Alright, alright already....

I was tagged by 5 people, so I think that means I should do it...a sign from the Lord.

I have a done a few of these tagging things before, so if you are new to the group- go head on over here and here and read some of my oldies. Oldies, but goodies.

7 interesting things about myself....I make no promises as to how interesting this will be....

1. Sometimes I feel like God made dirt and dirt don't hurt. Does it really hurt anyone if my child crawls on the floor at Starbucks? Is he really going to contract a disease from it? Is it really that bad if he eats a piece of rice cake that fell on the floor for more than 5 second rule?? God made dirt and dirt don't hurt. I am suddenly realzing that this may sounds like I am a dirty, neglegtful mama, but I just try not to sweat the small stuff.

2. I am lactose intolerant. No milk, cheese, yogurt, butter or ice cream for this girl. I am also alergic to wheat. No bread, cake, pastries, crackers or bagels for this girl. (coincidentaly, Malak is alergic to milk, soy and apples...it's in his blood to be alergic to everything like his mama) :)

3.I HATE hair that is not connected to the body. Uuuugh.

4. My current favorite restaurants are: Spicy Pickle and I order the Double Dilly-Yo with a Greek salad and the Garden State sandwhich, I also love Pei Wei and I order this and this.

5. I am a lover of tatoo sleeves and mohawks. Will you judge me if I think he is super hot??

6. I had this blog before I started our adoption blog. (warning: it is full of random boring stuff and possibly uncensored...I don't rememeber)

7. I was 12 when I had my first kiss. I was in South Lake Tahoe and it was a boy named Billy. We were out walking around outside and he asked if he could hold my hand and I of course, said yes. Then he asked if he could kiss me and I of course, said yes and he did. Then a frog hopped right onto my shoe so we chased it around for a long time until we caught it and played with it. I know, you guys are jealous that your first kiss wasn't as romantic as mine. :)

8. (yeah, just one more) I am embarassed to admit that I am reading the vampire books. I have been feeling the peer pressure and have been making fun of friends for reading them...and now I LOVE THEM! I am only on the second one, but I am dying to get the third. Oh Edward, why am I so in love with you??

10. Ok, I thought of one more that is pretty important. :) I love the show The Hills. Those people intrigue me! I have noticed on my google analytics that I have a lot of readers in the LA/Hollywood area and I secretly hope that Lauren is reading my blog....Lauren, if you're out there, just say it! We can be friends!

I always wonder after I do these tag things, if people will like me more or like me less after they know these wierd things about me. Hmmmm. Perhaps I don't want to know. :)

And I shall tag some of my non-adoption friends as well as some adopt-ers...Jess, Julia, Jen, Sarah, Gina, Jesi, and Shadley.

Camping...

2008-10-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

This weekend we went camping- our very first camping trip as a family! Eric and I have gone lots of times in the last 6 years, but this was our first one with Malak- our new and improved family! :)
Mal was quite the campin' boy...he was wedged in the backseat between the dog and the sleeping bags for an hour drive to our campsite, he crawled in the dirt, although, amazingly did not eat any dirt, he slept in the tent, "swam" in the river...lots of fun stuff!

The above picture is Mal in awe of the beautiful waterfall we were looking at, we were trying to teach him to say, "wow" but I believe his version was, "waaah". He was super excited about it and we had to keep a firm grip in order to keep him from excitedly hopping his way off the edge. Which, coincidentaly was about a 2 foot drop into about 7 inches of water. :)

Note to self: Set up campsite before it is pitch black outside. We did not heed Lori Rooney's advise, and left a bit later than planned and ended up setting up our brand new tent, that we had no idea how to set up, in the darkness. Oh and Malak would not let me put him down, so really Eric set up the freakishly dificult tent up all by himself in the dark with some occasional "help" from Malak and I.
On Friday night it was bedtime, and so we hung a quilt around the Pack and Play so that Malak could not see us laying there next to him and fight the need for sleep. So we hung it up and layed him down in there and then quietly layed on our own bed to see how this was going to go down. Malak was apparently not feeling that need for sleep and started fussing a bit, I wispered to Eric that it is a good thing that he can't pull himself all the way up yet or this would never work...Malak promptly pulled himself all the way up for the first time, popped his head up above the edge of the bed, saw us staring wide eyed at his new trick and started screeeeaming bloody murder for all of the mountainside to hear. Sweet. Eric and I started laughing at the unfortunate timing of this new feat and of course, that sent him into another blood curdling screeeeam. So that was the only tricky aspect of camping with a baby...other than that we had such a relaxing time, just our little family. The weather was perfect, mid 70's, so we went for walks, ate good camp food, walked in the shallow river, layed on a blanket in the shade of a tree and just played and read for hours, had 2 animals romp through our campsite- an armadillo and a black cat..although I still think it may have been a baby Panther...who knows. (Once, I was sure I saw a black Panther in Portland, OR...turns out it may have been a black Lab...they look so much alike) :) Eric and I were able (after Mal went to bed) to just sit in the dark under the stars talking for hours- eating marshmallows, chips and drinking beer. It was a delightful trip and we are eager to go again!

2008-10-07T17:59:00.000-07:00

So many things to tell....where shall I start....

I don't want to seem biased or anything but...Malak is going to be the cutest thing you have ever seen on Halloween. He will be a lion and he will be fierce. I am working on making his costume and as you can see from the picture...he will be ridiculous. He is also going to hate me when he is older. :) (but the costume is obviously not yet finished)

I am now the proud owner of a compost pile! Actually we are using a garbage can as our "pile" and so far so good. I have been driving myself crazy lately, (and my husband as well) trying to come up with ideas of how we can conserve, preserve and wisely use the things that the Lord has blessed us with. Since I am not working now and the cash flow is a bit more limited, I am enjoying thinking of ways that I can do my part in the home-aside from my most important job of being a mom to our son. So we are now avid recyclers of everything from junk mail to tin cans and everything in between and I am amazed at how much our trash has decreased! We have cut our garbage in half at least and it really doesn't take any extra work- my recycle bin is just right outside my kitchen door and I toss everything in there instead of under the sink- it has been great! Lately, I have been realizing how many food scraps we toss out and thus was born the idea for the compost pile. We got a garbage can, Eric drilled some holes in it for aeration and then we just started dumping! I also got some worms to help the decomposition move along a bit quicker. Nasty, but I just tossed them in and I try to never look to closely at the movement in my garbage can. I have been amazed at how quickly it is growing and how much you can put in that sucker- any food items, egg shells, t.p. rolls, newspapers, coffee grounds, tea bags, dog hair (woot woot! Less dog hair in my house is always good), vacuum cleaner contents...the list goes on and on! And Fall is the perfect time to do this because in a few months when spring rolls around we will have the most glorious dirt for our garden! Did you know that gardens using composted material grow 50% more produce?? I speak the truth. :)

I have found the most glorious new product! (well, new to me) My friend Gina introduced me to Everyday Minerals. It is similar to Bare Minerals but I am loving it so much more! I have only tried the foundation, concealer and blush, but they have all done wonders for my skin and make it all smooth, even toned and lovely. The best part about it is that you can order a free sample to see if you like it! (and you will) I just got my free samples a few days ago and they are huge, practically full size! You get to pick 3 colors of foundation, one concealer and one blush and they will last you for weeks! I am always lovin a good deal. And it is all natural, only true minerals are used, it is not tested on animals and is vegan and gluten free....so If you want to eat it but have a wheat allergy...all is well. :)

Note to Malak: One cannot push through the screen door...no mater how hard you smoosh.

Also, I have added about 40 new cuffs to my etsy site...many have already sold out but there are some crazy cute ones...you might need to check them out. :)

Heavy hearts...

2008-10-04T14:47:00.001-07:00

Would you say a prayer for my friend? Their sweet baby boy went home to be with Jesus on Thursday in Ethiopia. My heart is completely broken for them and I know they could use so many prayers right now. God is faithful and good...would you pray for their hearts to have some peace during this time?

Happy birthday sweet boy!

2008-10-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

Today my baby boy turned one! I can hardly believe how fast Malak's first year went by...it seems like just a few months. :) 4 months to be precise, that he has been home with us...and I am completely amazed at how much my love for him has grown in such a short time! When I first met him, I was amazed at his handsome face, I was smitten by his huge smile and adored his contagious giggle...but now? Now my heart is so completely full of love for every ounce of his tiny body. Almost every day Eric and I end up talking about how much we love this sweet child...sometimes I try to convince Eric to let me wake him up at night just because I want to kiss and hold him. His little personality is coming out more and more each day and it melts me to see how much he loves his mama and daddy. He prefers us to anyone and gets quite angry if you try to steal him away. :) It is a tricky thing with family and close friends who would love to hold him, but I must admit that it secretly warms my heart when he throws his arms around my neck and his clenched fists cling to my shirt for dear life.

Here are some of the things Malak likes do do, eat and say...
~Favorite foods-plain rice cakes, whole wheat pasta, oatmeal and spagetti
~He can say- "dada", "wha dada?!" (translation- where's dada?!), "uh-oh", "dog", "mama" (but that is on rare occasion these days) and "ball".
~He thinks it's hilarious when he burps and toots. (thanks Eric) :)
~Malak and Violet (the dog) are BFF. They play all day long- he pulls her hair out, she lays there, he chases her, she chases him, he grabs her ball, she takes it back, he pulls it out of her mouth and sometimes they chew on the same toy at the same time. Ick.
~He is pulling up on everything! He can't quite find the strength to pull all the way up, but can stand on his knees and is trying real hard. I give him an "A" for effort.
~He ate his first fist full of dog food. Mmm...
~He knows sign language for "more" "all done" and "water."
~ Malak has never, EVER been full. He is never "all done" eating and will cry and ask for more as long as you will give it...this has become a bit of a blessing and a curse. Sometimes I am afraid he will literaly pop.
~To most of us a barking dog would sound like, "ruff"- when Mal says it, it always seems to come out, "Ssssss". And it cracks me up every time. Another "A" for effort.
~He loves kissing pictures of grandpa and grandma and will always give you a kiss when you ask and if you're luck he may give you 4 or 5 in a row.

We had a birthday party for Mal on Saturday.
Whoa.
Birthday parties are....crazy. Or maybe they only are when you invite 25 people. Oh, the things we do for our kids. :) Malak recieved lots of toys and books and birthday clothes- it was wonderful! Remember how I told you that I wanted to find a sugar free birthday cake recipe? I found one on line and it was perfect! Well, it was perfect for Malak- it tastes more like a muffin for us adults but was very good nonethess. I am posting the recipe below because it is great for a healthy first birthday cake or if you are just looking for a way healthier version of any old cake.

Baby's First Birthday Cake (Carrot Cake)
(Makes 1 double-layer 9-inch square cake
2 1/2 cups thinly sliced carrots
2 1/2 cups apple juice concentrate (you may use slightly less)
1 1/2 cups raisins
Vegetable Spray/Shortening
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 whole eggs
4 egg whites
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup wheat germ
2 Tbsp low sodium baking powder
1 Tbsp ground cinnamon
Prep: Preheat oven to 350 F. Line two 9 inch square cake pans with waxed paper and spray the paper with vegetable spray/shortening.1. Combine the carrots with 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons of the juice concentrate in a medium size saucepan.2. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer, covered, until carrots are tender, 15 to 20 mins. Puree in a blender of food processor until smooth.3. Add the raisins and process until finely chopped. Let mixture cool.4. Combine the flour, wheat germ, baking powder, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl. Add 1 1/4 cups juice concentrate, the oil, eggs, egg whites, and vanilla; beat just until well mixed. Fold in the carrot puree and applesauce. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans.5. Bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, 35 to 40 mins. Cool briefly in the pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely. When cool, frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Here are a few birthday pics:
He's not too sure about this whole cake thing at first...

Nice frosting beard....

"Ho, ho ho, boys and girls it's Santa Claus!"

Sad sad times when we had to take away the cake. (after he had eaten about 3/4 of it)

This was right after everyone left...can you tell he was a little pooped

As you can see by the picture below Malak was super excited to go to Red Robin for his birthday lunch today! Incase you didn't know, you can get online and sign yourself and any family members up to recieve a FREE birthday meal at Red Robin! What a deal! So Malak had his free meal there and it was a fun little family lunch.

My heart broke just a little the day that Malak started to rip off all the cute hats that I was trying to force him to wear. :) BUT THEN...I figured out a handy little solution. Dorky, but handy. He had gotten a super cute new hat for his birthday and I really wanted him to wear it to church on Sunday, so I sewed a little strap of black elastic to go under his chin, to encourage him to leave it on. :) And low and behold, all it took was one day of a dorky elastic strap and tuh-duh, he hasn't even attempted to take his hats off since! Seriously, he has worn a cutie hat every day since and has kept them on even when sitting in his car seat! Elastic is miraculous. I think I will sell elastic on my Etsy site...I kid, I kid. :)

Happy birthday sweet boy!! Mama and daddy love you more than anything in the whole world!!!

Zoo and Fall....

2008-09-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

Precious boy...

I took these of Mal a few days ago as we were heading out to the Zoo. We end up going to the Zoo at least once a week, either with friends or just mommy and Malak time and it is so much fun! We head out early in the morning while it is still cool outside and even bring our breakfast and eat on a bench while we watch the animals. It is sooo nice and peaceful and enjoyable! I have started just using the sling instead of the stroller when we go so that I can really show Malak everything and play with him as we walk around...I think he just likes being held and cuddled for so long! :) Our Zoo passes here in OKC are only $40, so it obviously pays for itself after about 2 trips!
Funny thing: The gorillas LOVE Malak! Seriously. I always let Mal stand up to the glass to watch them and every single gorilla will come over to the glass where he is and pat the glass and kiss the glass! Even the big daddy Silverback will sit and stare at him and play with him! It is so funny and we both get a big kick out of it. Malak+gorillas=Best friends 4ever.

Just doin' our morning exercises....

and reach....

and stretch.....

It is finaly Fall in Oklahoma!! It has been wretchedly hot (I am talkin' 100 degrees) here up until a few days ago and now it is crisp and cool and lovely outside. I seriously want to be outside all. the. time. This morning I had the front and back doors open and so a crisp breeze was blowing through the house. I was baking cinamon apples with rasins for Malak's lunch and so it just smelled Fall-y...there is pitcher of tea brewing out in the sun and the smell of lemon bars in the oven is tempting me to eat every single one of them. Mmmmm. I love Fall.

2008-09-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

I guess I jumped the gun on my post yesterday- Malak is now crawling!!
A mere 11 months old and finaly mobile! :)

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

And yes, I realize that I have a squeeky, way too excited mama voice.

The latest...

2008-09-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

First things first: Due to popular demand, my etsy site now carries cuffs for babies, children, men and women!! Now, you guys told me that people would buy these if I made them bigger so if they don't...I blame you. :) But actualy, I should say a big THANK YOU! I have sold about 20 cuffs so far and I am so grateful to all of you who have blogged about them, told your friends about them and bought them! It has been such a blessing and has also been fun to see so many of our friends wearing them! So seriously, thanks guys!!
OK. here is what is happening in the Silvestri household.
Malak's latest trick is when you ask him how big he is, he stretches his arms above his head as high as he can. (but only when you say, "Soooo big!") He always gets this super stretchy look on his face as he tries to reach as high as his little arms will go. :)

So GQ right now.

And we are finaly so close to crawling!! He is not completely crawling...it's more like moving his knees and then throwing himself forward into a face plant. But hey, whatever works. :)

Part of the reason I was MIA for the last month was because we went home to Vancouver, WA to see all of my family. It was WONDERFUL! We havn't all been together in years so it was so like the good old days, staying at mom and dad's house...except all of us kids are married now and have our own children...infact it was a bit of maddness with about 37 (or 14) of us all crammed into one little house. Maddness but glorious. Here is a family picture...it was a divine act of God that this picture turned out so well- in reality the children were all screaming and crying and running around...but somehow you can't tell.

My sister took some SWEET pics of Mal and here are a few of my faves...

We really wanted some of him in his traditional Ethiopian outfit and I LOVE how they turned out!

They also had a baby shower for Malak while we were in W.A....such a blessing! He is now fully stocked with his cute new fall wardrobe and has enough books and toys to last for quite a while. It was so fun to be able to show off Mal to all of our family and friends that I grew up with!My mom, sister and sis-in-law threw the shower and it was amazing! I love those girls...my besties.

Malak also had his first birthday!! He and his sweety cousin India are the exact same age, so we celebrated them together. They are basicly BFF...or at least they will be when they realize the other one exists. : ) Nevermind that neither of them are one yet, infact about 2 months away, but obviously all of the family wouldn't be able to be in Oklahoma when Malak does turn one, so we jumped the gun and had a faux birthday party. Malak ate an entire cupcake and basicly licked his highchair tray clean, it was pretty amazing...until about an hour later and he threw it all back up while swinging in the hammock with grandma. :( Poor little dear had never had any sugar- ever- so I guess he O.D'ed on sugar and his little body wasn't quite up for it. India only ate a few bites of her cupcake but she had never had an sugar either....she was sick all night too! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIDS! Anyone have any oh-so-delicious recipes for sugar free cupcakes for Malak's real birthday??

Ok. So you are almost caught up on what has been going down in the Silvestri family for the last month or two. Phew!

Oh yeah, we've also been hanging out with the sweet Sials T. (at least they both think it's funny when we steal his pacifier!)

Cuffs 101...

2008-08-31T13:41:00.000-07:00

See the sweet cuff Malak is wearing in the picture below? Well, I made it and by chance, it has gotten rave reviews from friends, family and strangers....so I am going to sell them! They are just simple little cuffs for babies or young children that are made from vintage leather belts, so theyre pretty soft and comfy for little wrists. Malak wears his all the time (by his request, of course) and it makes any outfit funky and unique! They are fitted with elastic, so they fit most little wrists and if you purchase more than one, shipping is FREE. That's right folks, free.
They are now up for sale at daisytara.etsy.com! Will you help me spread the word- maybe even blog about them?? (if you actualy like them) Will you buy them for your little babes? Will you tell your mom friends that their children NEED these cute cuffs?

Ok. That is enough begging for one day. :)

FINALY

2008-08-24T19:21:00.000-07:00

I know it has been about 8 years since I last posted but everything that has happened in our ever-so-busy life is going to have to be put on hold so that I can tell you about a horrendous incident that happened today. I hope I still have a few readers out there...

***If you were grossed out by this story, I may suggest that you not read this post***

Today we layed Malak down for his nap as usual. About 30 minutes later I heard him awake in there, but he was just playing and talking to himself so I let him have a little quiet time since it was such a short nap. (he usualy sleeps for at least 2 hours) After a while, Eric went to get him up and when he opened the french doors that lead to the bedroom/hallway, he was hit with a wall of stink. I could smell it in the livingroom and we were both scared as to what we might find inside Malak's room. Nothing could have prepared me to see our sweet sweet son laying in his crib- diaper off and laying next to his head...a massive amount of poop also laying next to his head. Poop was smeared all over the crib, black beans from the night before littering the sheets, smears all over his blankie, smears all over the bumper, smears all over aaall of the bed rails and of course, there lay my little boy, sweetly sucking his poop smeared thumb. Eric and I just stood there for a looong time, laughing and gagging until we finaly mustered the will to gingerly carry his smeared little body to the tub. While Eric scrubbed him to the bone, I scrubbed the bedroom. As if all this weren't enough, my dog decided to get in on the fun and kept trying to lick up tasty morsels as I cleaned. Nice.

I'm sorry this is not the most tasteful post ever, but hey, this is my life now! The good, the bad and the stinky. Just know that as this was all happeneing I was thinking of what a glorious blog it would be and I took pictures...upon careful review, I decided to spare you the pictures. It is for the best.
Maybe I will add a few newer cute pictures of Malak, so that you are left with a dose of his sweetness and not the thought of him eating his poop.

And here are the rest...

2008-07-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

There are tons more, but maybe you guys don't want to see 800 pictures of my cutie little boy.

So which one is your favorite!

First family pics!

2008-07-27T14:12:00.000-07:00

Our sweet friend Megan is starting up her photography business and took some family pics for us...pretty great right?! I love them and these are really all I have seen. We will be getting the rest sometime soon and I am pretty sure I will love those as well. I must give her props because it was literaly about 110 degrees when we shot these and so she must have some mad photoshopping skills to edit out all of the sweat that was pouring out of our bodies. It was sick.

Madness.

2008-07-21T19:47:00.000-07:00

So today Mal and I were killing some time and I had one too many Dr. Pepper refills so I had to use the restroom. I saw a store that I recognized and thought I might go in to look around for another sundress that I need oh-so badly (note sarcasm) and use their bathroom that I also needed oh-so badly. For identity protection we will call the store TJ Shmaxx. I wouldn't want to taint their name, so I will just leave it at that. I put Mal in their shopping cart and made a beeline for the bathroom, when I got to the back area where it was located, the dressing room lady asked me what I wanted. (and it was as unfriendly as it sounds) I told her I just needed the bathroom and she snorted at me (because that apparently is a crazy request) and said that I couldn't take the shopping cart in there. (it was one of those super classy shopping carts with the giant pole so that crazy shopping cart steelers can't get them out of the front door or in the bathroom apparently) I was already annoyed because I was about to wet myself and that she had an attitude about me wanting to go to the bathroom. So I said, "well....what am I supposed to do with my baby if I can't take the shopping cart in there?" She snorted again and said "take him with you." Snort. So I snorted back and said, "So am I just supposed to hold him on my lap while I pee?" She didn't respond to that and just stared me down until I walked away with pee drizzling down my leg.

Haha, Ok. I might not have peed on myself. But seriously, if it would have made TJ Shmaxx change their horrible policy, I would have. Maybe. Maybe not.
There was also another lady coming out of the dressing room area who handed all of her clothes back to our super friendly employee and said that she didn't need any of them because there were no dressing rooms that she could fit her baby's stroller into. The lady told her that she could just park it outside of the dressing room and leave the door open while she changed.....uh yeah, great idea. I am sure the woman would have loved to try on her BATHING SUITS with the door hanging open.

Is there something wrong with all of this? I couldn't use their bathroom because I wasn't willing to pee with my child balancing on my lap or set him on their nasty crusty pee encrusted floor. and the other woman couldn't use the dressing rooms because her stroller couldn't fit in the stalls.
I know I am blowing this out of proportion but it feels so wrong to me.
Madness. It's all madness.

2008-07-18T13:55:00.001-07:00

So can your kid dial the phone with his tongue?? Gifted, I know. Olympics here we come.

Freaky...

2008-07-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

Every morning after Eric leaves for work, breakfast has been eaten and we've had our diapers changed (mainly Malak's), Mal and I head out for a morning walk or bike ride. We bought a baby seat that is now attached to the back of my bike and Malak LOVES it! So we generally find the bike ride more fun than the boring old stroller- and I like it better, seeing as it gets deathly hot much too early here in Oklahoma, I like to be able to coast down a hill or two with the wind cooling us down. Anyhoo, this morning, much like every other morning, we were riding in our neighborhood, having a relaxing ride...breeze blowing in my hair and through all 8 of Malak's hairs. It was glorious. Until, a ferocious beast much like the one pictured below,ran towards us, teeth bared, barking and screeching! It freaked the crap out of me and I nearly crashed our locomotive as I swerved to get away from the little devil. Either he was a super fast runner or I am a super slow pedaler, because he was on the attack and I couldn't get away!! He followed us for a block or so, me pedaling with all my might, screaming and laughing as the miniature Lassie tried to kill us. I of course, had to save my sweet new son who was just watching whole scenario with eyebrows raised, from the beast who was now trying to bite his tiny size one feet!! I am sorry to say I gave the little devil a swift kick in the jaw, but seriously, he was biting my boy! At that point he gave up on his breakfast feast of baby foot after I kicked him and we were free. Phew. The weird thing is that just a few houses down, our hearts still beating wildly from our near death experience, we came upon a Doberman Pincer (much like this one shown below)who was wandering the street- he looked at us, and took a stance like he was going to attack! Needless to say we turned our bike around and got out of there. What the crap?? Since when does a poor girl still in her jammie's and a cute little brown baby on a bike pose a threat to dogs?? Since this morning I guess.

Did I mention that our attacker was not just a collie but a miniature collie? So he stood only about a foot tall...but beastly nonetheless.

(To all you animal lovers, which would include myself, I am not usualy an animal kicker...these were rare and extreme circumstances and it was a more like a nudge)

An ode to Malak and mommy...cause were in love...

2008-07-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

Malak, how do I love thee, let me count the ways...
1. I love that you sing with me when I sing to you.
2. I love that you pucker and blow little breaths when I blow bubbles for you.
3. I love that you pat my, and only my, back when I hold you close.
4. I love that you make a weird loud quacking sound when you suck your thumb.
5. I love to hear you yell "dada" whenever you see your sweet dad.
6. I love that you have your own little party in the backseat when we are in the car.
7. I love that you smile every time I smile at you.
8. I love that you used to try and french me every time I kissed your lips.
9. I love that when I try to kiss your lips now you smack my face.
10. I love that I am the mama to you my sweet son-y!!

Random stuff...

2008-07-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

While in Ethiopia.... (this is meant for enjoyment purposes only, so please don't take anything I say too seriously.)

1. Don't wear shorts. You already stick out like a sore thumb...the dreadfully white legs will not help the situation. I speak form experience here folks, if I would have busted out my frighteningly pale legs...eeks.
2. Do let strangers wisk your baby away...I promise they will bring him back and you will have made lots of new friends.

3. Do bring the plastic, preformed drop-in bottle liners for your childs bottle.
4. Don't leave a huge stash of them on the nightstand...as the housekeeper will inevitably think you brought 120 condoms with you. (awkwaaaard) Seriuously, these things could have had a better design...google a picture, it is kinda funny.
5. Do stand up and be a part of the traditional Ethiopian dancing when asked! (I made a huuuge fool out of myself, but shoot, I did it! I may have also not known how to dance Ethiopian style and so I just busted out an old classic- the running man)
6. Don't do the running man at a traditional Ethiopian restaurant.
7. Do let Belay show you how it's done! The man's got moves!
8. Don't bring a soy based formula for your new baby.
9. Do make sure you are wearing rain gear if you do decide to bring soy based formula. There will be some major spewage.
10. Do stay at the Ayat house! We loved getting to know people in the community and being able to support a local family!

11. Don't bring any undies you wouldn't want the neighborhood to see blowing in the wind. The housekeeper was amazing and did our laundry every day...but imagine our suprise when we came home to find all of our whitey tighties dangling around at eye level for the world to inspect. Eeks.

12. Do bring a sling (or Bjorn or whatever). There are no high chairs, car seats or anything to set you little one in, so our arms were mush after a short time...the sling was a lifesaver!! And he would sleep for hours in it when we were out sightseeing. Glorious.

13. Don't be fooled by the cute little puppies that wander the streets. We were enthraled with one cute little fella and when he turned around we saw that he was knawing on part of a bloody goats head. It may have ruined his cuteness just a teensy bit.

14. Do bring some Mac N Cheese, Campbell's soup and saltine crackers. When you are eating out at restaurants for every single meal, (that would be about 30 meals) sometimes it was nice to just stay at home and have boring old familiar food. We also wished we had more of those types of things when we were barfing and pooping our guts out. Saltines would have been my best friend.

15. Do soak up everything you can while in Ethiopia!! They are such beautiful, friendly, warm people- get to know them as much as you can and you will be SO BLESSED!!

Ok. That's all I can think of now. Stay tuned, I may think of more. I know they are super helpful right??

This picture below was taken in Ethiopia- doesn't Mal look so much skinnier and balder?? Yeah, balder is a word.

Our boy is growin' some hair! When we got him he just had a little patch on the top of his head and a small patch on one side of his head. (Yes, it was as attractive as it sounds) But now, he has a whole aray of little curls! I won't go as far as to say that he has a head of hair, but we are on our way! The pictures above were taken a few weeks ago and now our little man's got a few more teeth! I am so excited to see these teeth come in but I LOVE his gummy smile...it will break my heart when it is gone forever. I mean, come on, have you ever seen such a huge, precious, gummy smile?? Anyway, one of his top teeth has come out and is a funny little snaggle tooth and the other top tooth is on it's way in and is causing some serious fussiness in this boy! It will be a joyous day when that one tooth makes it's appearance- I am thinking of throwing a party. Feel free to send lots of gifts.

Have I ever mentioned that Eric is Super Dad and offered to be the one who get's up with Mal durring the night? Every night. I basicly fell in love with him all over again when he told me that glorious news. Anyway, Mal's teeth have been causing him to wake up a little more than usual so last night Eric got up when we heard little squeeks over the monitor and groggily headed to give him his bottle. When he got there, Malak was laying there wide awake ready for his midnight snack but whenever Eric tried to give it to him he was acting weird and wouldn't latch on. Eric kept on feeling around in the dark for his mouth but whenever he would put the bottle in his mouth Mal would push it back out. After a few mintues of this Er realized that he was trying to force a giant Ozarka bottled water, that had been sitting on the nightstand, next to the BABY bottle into Malak's mouth. Hmmm, how weird that Malak didn't want to nurse from a giant plastic lid that was being crammed into his mouth.

Ethiopia part 2...

2008-07-07T19:42:00.000-07:00

This is the next excerp from my journal while in Ethiopia. It is still the first day-the day we got Malak.....some of this you may have read from the one time I posted while we were in Addis, but some is new. Maybe more information than you want to know but it is my blog and I am in charge. So read on suckas. :)

...After such a short nap Malak was very tired and cranky by about 6:00pm so we decided to just let him go down early. We rocked him to sleep with his bottle and he went to bed fairly easily. A short time later we checked on him and he was throwing up! Not spitting up, full blown projectile. It was so out of control! He probably threw up 10 times. Daddy was holding him and soothing him and so both Mal and daddy were completely covered in vomit. Completely. So apparently, Malak’s little tummy does not like the awsome, organic soy formula that we bought for him. The unfortunate thing is that it was all we had, aside from a little rice cereal and this little guy still wants to eat every 3-4 hours during the night. So here we were in the middle of the night, with a hungry, barfy baby with no food and no way to get food. Tricky. We ended up feeding him some rice cereal and a bottle of water and he seemed fine. As soon as he was done throwing up he was laughing and smiling again- silly boy.Mal woke up about 3 times that night and we would rock him back to sleep, but he decided to wake up for good at 5 am…grrr. We hung out and played for a while, talked to our housekeeper and owner of the house, Wagayu for a while and it was a nice relaxing morning. The house is beautiful and the yard is just gorgeous, so it is wonderful to sit outside in the perfect Addis weather. Wagayu cracks me up, in the mornings it is a nice perfect 65 degrees out and apparently that is cold for him because he keeps coming out in a ski parka- zipped up, hood on, with the drawstring pulled tight so we can barely see his face. I love that guy. (This is wagayu holding Malak)
Later, we met all of the other Gladney families at a Chinese restaurant and it was so fun to meet them and be able to see their precious children. I feel like we know them already, just from the blogs, so it was fun to actually meet in person and be able to catch up. We "knew" the Thorne's - we are old blog friends, but it was so fun to meet them in person! The two other families we hadn't met before- the Brown's and the Enright's, they didn't have blogs! GASP!! How one could survive the adoption process without blog friends is unknown to me, but they did and I stand amazed. :) We LOVED all of these families. (side note: you will notice that the Enright's do have a blog now (phew!) and you should go check out their precious family)
Later we came back to the house and played with Malak for a while and then wrapped him up in the sling- which we love! He is so cozy in it and it so comfortable to wear; he usually falls asleep in it. We headed down a few blocks to the Hill Bottom restaurant and ate dinner. Eric got a cheese burger, fries and African beer, which he said was delicious and I got spring rolls and Fanta which were also very good and spicy! All of that was only about $4.00. It almost feels wrong to pay them so little. After our great dinner we walked home and Mal fell asleep in the sling so we just put him to bed as soon as we got back to the house. The weather in Addis is nearly perfect, about 75 degrees during the day and around 65 in the evenings. We sit out on the porch a lot and just relax, it is absolutely beautiful!

Yesterday, we went to the Gladney foster care center. First we went to the tiny baby house (for babies under six months). This is where Malak lived for the first six months of his life. As soon as we got there he was swept away by the eager arms of the caregivers. Everyone was SO excited to see him, he was like a rock star! It was wonderful to meet all of the ladies that took such good care of our boy. It was very evident how much he was loved and he obviously remembered them as he instantly laid his head on their shoulders. It was a fun reunion! As we were getting ready to leave a girl ran up and said she was Malak’s nanny, his special friend who primarily took care of him. We were so excited to meet Fasika and she was so excited to see Mal one last time. She gave him an adorable Ethiopian outfit including a hat, what a treasure! She also gave Eric a scarf and me a blue shawl, it was very thoughtful and we took some family pictures with her.

While at the orphanage, we were able to meet all of the babies and play with them, although, many were afraid of us. It was fun to see the babies of friends and see Malak’s old bed that he was in for most of his life. Bittersweet really. I used to wonder why other families wouldn't take many pictures of Mal smiling...now I know it is because most of the babies are terrified of us! As soon as we would give them any attention, they would get real nervous. It was actualy pretty funny to see them playing having a great time and then all of the sudden cry because we looked at them. :)

There was one precious baby that I was playing with and I was told that he his brain has stopped growing and he has many disabilities…he will not live past 8 or 9 years old. My heart broke for him and I was completely consumed with grief for this poor sweet baby. I cried over him for a long, long time so I just kissed him and stroked his sweet face and played with him for as long as I could. One of the nannies saw me crying and handed him to me, to hold, it was wonderful to be able give him a little piece of love, because he will probably never have a family to love him. I am crying over him as I write this and each time I see his picture. Plesase pray that his life is somehow blessed and that Jesus will give his little heart peace. My heart still breaks for this precious child and I think of him often...

This is Fasika- she loved Malak and we hope to keep in touch with her. We are so grateful for the love she showered on Malak while we waited for him!!

EDITED Gdiapers-revisited and baby food...

2008-06-28T12:39:00.000-07:00

**EDITED**

Remember back in the day when I did this post about how we are going to use G diapers? Well, I have had lots and lots o' people asking how it is going and if it all worked out or not, so I am going to take a little break from the Ethiopia trip posts to update you on it all.
We love them!
The pics below are with Malak wearing them and I am pretty sure he loves them as well. He actualy told me that one day.

"Hey babe, You like what you see?"

Most people use G Diapers with their flushable inserts- that is the way they sell them and I have heard from many people that they are awsome and they love them. Infact, my great blogging buddy Jessi is using them on her sweet little twinies and they seem to be working well. (go to her blog and check out her adorable babes) Ok. So that is how most people use the G's...I am not. I made my own cloth inserts (made of 2 layers of microfiber, and 2 layers of organic hemp). It is just a strip that instead of flushing, I toss in the washer and it has been amazingly easy! (that is a pic of the insert below)

I place the insert into the G cover and then put it on Malak and velcro it shut like a regular disposable diaper. The only difference is that they fasten in the back- which I like because they are away from babies reach...I love nothing better than when babies open up their own diaper and find treasures inside! Eeks.

Since I decided that you guys didn't think I am weird enough, I also decided to also use cloth wipes. Are you barfing right now? In the end it ended up being way easier because I just cut 8X8 squares of flannel and sewed them so that they are double layered. I just toss them in the diaper pail with the diapers so it is no extra work. It would actualy have been more work if I would have done disposable wipes because I would have had to buy another diaper pail or garbage can just for the little wipes and that didn't seem to make much sense. I also find that the wipes are so thick, I never need to use more than one, so it really doesn't add more to the wash. Once a week I make a wipe solution that consists of water, aloe vera and tea tree oil. It only takes me about 11 seconds to make that and dump it on a tuperware full of wipes. (below is a pic of the wipes)

And to top off my granola dorkiness...I started making Malak's baby food. I am just doing it durring one of his naps, maybe once a week or so and so far I am loving that as well. It makes me feel great to know that I am only putting whole, natural foods in my sweet baby. This week we made a batch of peas, green beans, sweet potatos, carrots, squash and pumpkin. I just do it all in one day and throw them in the freezer. Mal seems to like it just as well as the jared baby food, so I am going to go with it. Don't they look bright and lovely?? Yes, I think they do. :)

"Do I have something on my face?"

As a disclaimer: I realize that I am the minority here. I realize that most of you probably think I am crazy, but I hope we can still be friends. Do you still like me?? I hope I can still be cool and hang out with the cool kids...

**This may be a down side to using cloth diapers- A few days ago I was changing a very dirty diaper and to get it out of the way I set it on the floor for a minute. In that brief minute, my sweet and every hungry dog Violet came and ate the entire poop log out of the diaper. She not only ate the log she licked the whole thing clean. Clean as a whistle. I almost threw up and now I am scared of her and her poop breath. What do you do with a dog that has the taste for human poop??!

Ethiopia day 1...

2008-06-22T19:38:00.000-07:00

This is the daily journal I wrote while we were in Ethiopia...so it is kind of rough, but it is just all what we did and felt as it happened. Sorry it has taken a mere 3 weeks to get this out. Oops.

We made it to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! The flight here was grueling…almost 11 hours in layovers, 36 hours of flying, no sleep for the first 24 hours and lost luggage along the way, but alas we touched down in Addis and it was all over! We arrived on Sunday morning, May 25, and met Travis, our in country rep and Tefasse our driver and they took us out for lunch at a café called Kaldi’s. It looks exactly like Starbucks, right down to the logo and they mimic a lot of the items that are in our beloved American Starbucks. They made us delicious macciato’s and fresh squeezed orange juice. They were both the best we’ve ever had! Then, we were off to the supermarket to buy a few items- mainly bottled water, since the tap water here would make us sick. (side note: ummm, yeah, or maybe we would get sick even if we didn't drink the water. :)Travis and Tefasse took us to the Ayat House- where we will be staying for the rest of our time here. This is the front yard- so beautuful! On the way to the house we saw so many beautiful, sad and interesting things…donkeys wandering all over the place, cows and goats hanging out in the cemetery, with vultures flying low over it as well. Eeks! There are just so many people wandering around the streets. Many of them are selling things, anything from pieces of broken glass to large sticks to build fences with. The poverty is quite overwhelming, but the people seem to be so happy with their lives. It is beautiful.
We arrived to the Ayat House around noon and we went to our room to shower and brush our teeth (unfortunately, we forgot our toothbrush) while Travis went across the street to go get Malak from the Gladney Foster Center for us! It was the fastest shower of our lives as we were a little too excited and wanted to go see our son for the first time! I'm so excited. And I just can't hide it. I'm about to lose control and I think I like it. Woohoo.When we finished we went down to the living room and waited…it felt like forever and finally we heard the front gate open and Travis called out, wondering if anyone around here was looking for a baby. J He walked in the room carrying a precious little boy who was dressed in his favorite pink shirt with poofy sleeves and a butterfly on it and jeans. He is so handsome! (even when wearing girls clothes) As soon as I saw him a started to cry and then he handed him to me and I cried more. Eric and I ooed and aahed over him for quite some time, just taking in everything about him.His skin is so much darker than we could tell from pictures, his hair is very short and wavy except for one side has a patch that is a little longer and curly, his skin is literally as smooth as anything you can imagine, it is heavenly! He has two teeth on the bottom! And he likes to bite his mom and dad’s fingers…hard! He is a drooly mess, all the time. Travis told us that he is always content just laying there, and that he is the most even tempered guy he’s ever met…but now we have seen all of the other sides to Malak that others may have not seen yet. He seems to be comfortable with us and we can make him laugh easily.
We were finally alone in the house and we had the rest of the day with nothing to do but play with our son. It was amazing to just sit with him and play with him, find his ticklish spots and just stare at this boy that we have been longing to hold for so long! We are completely smitten by him! As we got to know him more he started relaxing and letting go- he would lay on the bed with daddy and just scream at the top of his lungs, he made himself laugh so hard, he just kept on going! Then he would coo and talk and then yell some more, it was so hilarious (even he thought so) that we were cracking up. My cheeks hurt from laughing so much.
He went down for a nap and so did mom and dad who were wiped from traveling for three days, but it only lasted about 45 minutes. He was so happy when he woke up so it was hard to be annoyed at the lack of sleep. We then gave him his first bath (with us) in the bathroom sink, we tried to let him sit in it but he would only lay in it with his legs crossed, it was funny to see him lounging in the tub.

Pool time!

2008-06-14T10:58:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. I have become the horrible blogger that I loathed...before I had a child. Now I have a son who is always happy and yet quite needy at the same time...so instead of checking my list of 30 or so blogs multiple times each day, I have resorted to cuddling and playing with a sweet baby boy who will laugh out loud when I simply smile at him. Seriously, every single time and it cracks me up.
When we got Mal he had the beginings of his two bottom teeth. Now they are much more prominent and he has got a nack for somehow getting your finger in his mouth and biting the crap out of it all in a swift movement. It is a gift. An extremely painful gift. His top two teeth are on their way as well- he has two big bubbles on his gums where the little suckers are trying to pop out, it looks like it must hurt so bad, but he is a trooper and doesn't seem to be bothered to badly by them. As if teething weren't enough, Malak also has 2 ear infections that the doctor can't seem to get rid of. Boo! We are on new meds now and are hoping this will do the trick. Does this sound like a pity party?? It wasn't supposed to sound like that- this is just what is happening in our oh-so exciting new found life! So I say all of that to say that this kid is da bomb!! He is so laid back and he greets everyone he meets with a huge smile. It is quite fulfilling to all the new friends and family that have been waiting to meet this boy!
We went to the pool for the first time with Silas and Amy Bottomly and of course, it was glorious. Malak had so much fun meeting and playing with his first EBF (Ethiopian Best Friend, of course) I am sure they are pretty much best friends already. The boys were a little unsure of the water at first but got the hang of it and had a great time. Warning: Silas Bottomly is a splasher. We tried to tell him that no one likes a splasher...but he splashed nonetheless. :) Malak really just lounged in his floaty boat and smiled at me the whole time. Those two were rediculously cute in their little swim suits. The boys decided it was nap time and took a nice cool nap in the shade while the mama's got to lay out in the sun for few minutes. And this mama needs some sun. Let me tell you, I am ghostly these days and that needs to change. Ok. I am ghostly most of the time, but it was high time for a little bronzing.
Side note: I got waaaay more than a light bronzing. I am a freakin lobster. I got heat stroke. I am hideous. So glad I got that sun.

So I feel like we are adjusting to life with a child and I think Malak is geting used to this whole family and lots of attention thing. We seem to have a routine down and it feels good to feel like a normal little family! Malak is a great sleeper and is taking 2, 2 hour naps a day and then sleeps durring the night from 8-about 6:30 with two bottles durring the night. It is working pretty well for all 3 of us. Actualy, it is working great for me because my divine husband decided that he would be the one to get up with Mal durring the night. OK! So, he has really become a wonderful dad often, gong above and beyond what I ever expected of him. It is so fun to see how much he loves our sweet boy and how he takes care of him!
I think we have decided that I am going to stay home with Malak! I was going to continue nannying and bring Malak with me, but now it looks like I may be able to stay home with him and I am SO excited about that!! Money will be tighter, obviously, but it is so worth it for me and I feel like it will be great for Mal too. I know that we all have our "thing" and I have just always wanted to be a stay at home mom- so I am super excited about that!

2008-06-08T20:23:00.001-07:00

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The boys...

2008-06-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

We're back! Ok. We have been back for days (since Monday night) but we have also been on our death beds. Hence the lack of blogging. Last Thursday while in Ethiopia, Eric and I somehow got sick at the exact same time. I mean, we actually ran to the bathroom at the same moment. (too much information??) And ever since we have been running to the bathroom every 20 minutes or so. Imagine us, a couple who have been parents for only 3 days tossing the poor sweet baby (who is up ALL night that night screeeaming) back and forth as we switch off running to the pot. It goes on and on like this for a few days in Ethiopia, all the while we are so sick that we can't eat, so we are weak and freaking starving, but just can't eat or it gets so much worse! So we ended up coming home a few days early. Malak did AMAZING on the 30 hour plane ride home. He was an angel. Seriously, Eric and I were bigger cry babies than he was. :) As son as we got home we were greeted by lots and lots of friends and family at the airport and it was so wonderful to see our family Finlay get to hold our son!! We went to the doctor right away and got lots of meds for whatever bugs we had brought home with us and also found out that I had lost 10lbs and Eric lost 15lbs! It was pretty much the most miserable diet ever! We may have been as sick as dogs when we got home, but dangit, we looked good! :)
My parents have been in town and have been taking care of us and Malak as we recover. It has been a lifesaver!! Eric's family has been helping out tremendously as well, it is all such a huge blessing. Today we are starting to feel better and have started functioning again.
I will blog again tomorrow with more info, but I thought you all might want to to know why we have been MIA.
All barfing and diareah aside, Ethiopia was amazing and beautiful and we loved every minute of our trip!!!

We made it! and we have him!!

2008-05-27T11:19:00.001-07:00

Hi! I am so sorry it has taken this long to post! But when they said the internet is bad...they weren't kidding. We arrived here on Sunday morning and were able to get Malak right away! That was a nice suprise because we thought we might have to wait until Monday. He is pretty much the best baby ever and we are completely smitten by him! I have so many funny stories to tell but as I said the internet is really limited so I will have to wait until we get home to go into detail. Just know that we are loving every second with this kid, he has us laughing ALL the time and seems to like us too. :) It is so unreal that this is our life now...life with a child...sleepless nights...we woke up to Malak ready for a bottle the other night and Eric said, (about our son, mind you), "Is she awake? Is she hungry?" I was like, "ummm, you mean "he", our son is a boy" all he had to say was, "well! If he would let me sleep, I might remember a little more!" :)
We are staying at the Ayat house and it is lovely! As we were walking to a great little restaurant for breakfast we passed the street where the Gladney foster centers are and a few of the nanny's saw us and recognized Mal and called us over. They swooped him up and played with him and were all SOO excited to see him again. The kid is like a rockstar there! You could tell how loved all the children are and he was pretty happy to see them as well. He instantly layed his head on their shoulders, it was precious and they seemed to eat it up. They gave us the full impromtu tour and so we got to see and meet so many of your babies- every single one was amazing and precious, we are going back to see them some more and we will be taking pics. Side note: Our camera charger has somehow been left the Oklahoma and the battery just ran out but we are scouring this ginourmous city looking for a charger. We will prevail!
Ok. I will attempt to post again soon!

One hour closer to Malak...

2008-05-23T18:28:00.001-07:00

We have made it to Houston, TX. One whole hour away from OKC! It has been long and arduous but I think we might be able to make it a little further. :) We have quite a few hours to kill here so we just made a very wise financial decision and spent $40 to download the entire 4th season of One Tree Hill onto our Ipod. We have 3 hours until we board our next flight, 10 hours to fly to London and then another 9 hours to get to Addis...so I think 21 episodes will be just about right. I know, we are aparently highschoolers, who watch and LOVE One Tree Hill. But I blame Amy Bottomly and Christie Sturzenbecker for making us fall in love with it. They made us. And if they jumped off a bridge, I would too. :)
I have found the most glorious snack ever. Pre-shelled pistacios. They are God's gift to me. A whole giant container filled with green, pre-shelled, salty goodness, it makes me happy as I sit here and wait to board the plane.
Every once in a while, it has really hit me that we are about to meet our son! Seriously, most of the time it still just feels unreal and far-off, but a few times today it has hit me and I get all giddy and excited! Like right now, this would be one of those moments. Eeeeeks, I am so excited!! I was telling Eric earlier...I wonder if he is squishy. I hope he is squishy. Not just chubby or big, but actualy soft and squishy...he looks like he might be. I also wonder what his little voice sounds like...is it deepish or is it high and squeeky...is he crawling? Or even sitting? Does he have any teeth yet? I don't know these things yet but in a few short hours I will!! And be sure, I will let you know the answers to these impending questions! As I'm sure you all are just dyyying to know.
Ok. Time to watch some One Tree Hill.

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We're off!

2008-05-23T11:13:00.001-07:00

All our bags are packed we're ready to go...we will leave for the airport in about an hour and I feel like there are a million little things that we are forgeting....I can't think of them now, so oh well! My brain has turned to mush from all of the packing and repacking and condensing and repacking.
I am going to TRY to post some pics and blog while we are in Ethiopia, but I hear that there all LOTS of scheduled power outages these days, due to the draught over there, so keep your expectations low and when I actualy can do it- it will be a glorious suprise! I am going to try my hardest though, because I want the blog to be a document of our journey to our sweet son and Ethiopia, and I know if I don't write it all down as it happens, it may never happen and I will forget so much.
So, pray that our flights are uneventful and go by quickly and we can go meet Malak soon!!!!!! My heart is fluttery just thinking of it!!
Love to you all!

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Little Silvestri Boy

Happy 2 yr family-versary!

Our story...

Easter and hair...

The pit...

Chalk it up, punk.

Random things...

Bestill my heart...

Dreadlocks...

News!

Zuppa Tuscana...

It's official...

Malak Kidus Silvestri.

How we roll...

Family pictures!

ANSWERS!

Random happenings...

When I made out with Bono...

Naturally natural....

A man-boy...

One month later...

The end is near...

I had a birthday.

Confessions of an almost 29 year old mom...

Locked out...

Camping!

HAPPY FAMILY DAY!!!

My first time...

BLOG UNION 2008 VIDEO...

Amharic?

Gladney friends!!

An unfortunate photoshoot....

18 months...

Mailman and milestones....

From Ashes To Africa and more...

And...we've got a walker!

re-cap...

Tasty treat...

We too, LOVE this.

6 months ago today...

Round 3??

Spagetti and round 2!

VOTE FOR MALAK!!

Haloween 2008

New family pics and pumpkins....

Tiggity tagged...***EDITED***

Camping...

Heavy hearts...

Happy birthday sweet boy!

Zoo and Fall....

The latest...

Cuffs 101...

FINALY

And here are the rest...

First family pics!

Madness.

Freaky...

An ode to Malak and mommy...cause were in love...

Random stuff...

Ethiopia part 2...

*EDITED* Gdiapers-revisited and baby food...

Ethiopia day 1...

Pool time!

The boys...

We made it! and we have him!!

One hour closer to Malak...

We're off!

Tiggity tagged...EDITED

EDITED Gdiapers-revisited and baby food...