my little girl

It's been ten whole days since I've sat at my computer.  Well, except for one day last week when I was forced to pay bills, but that doesn't count.  Life is just flying by, I can barely keep up.  The holiday, family time, house building, excruciating heat...all combined to keep me from having any quiet, peaceful, climate controlled time to myself for over a week.  But I have time now...maybe even more than a minute...and I'm taking full advantage of the opportunity.

This time, it's an opportunity to show off my little girl.  Who is growing up so fast.  Who brings me so much joy and so much exasperation, sometimes at the same time.  Who is independent, feisty, sweet, funny, smart, and sometimes mean.

She'll be a big sister soon.  It's hard to believe when she is still such a baby herself.  I know it will be the best thing to happen in her little world, even though I'm sure she won't agree at first.  We talk about "baby sister" in my tummy all the time.  She pats my tummy, gives it hugs and kisses, and plays with my belly button (which is a little weird).  Sometimes when I ask her where her baby sister is, she pats her own tummy, then laughs because she knows she's just being silly.  And even through all the talking about baby sister in my tummy and coming out to play, I know she has absolutely no clue what is about to happen.  No clue at all.  It will be an interesting adjustment time for us all.

She's trying her best to talk more.  Her vocabulary gets bigger everyday, although it still sounds like gibberish to the untrained ear.  Even to my trained ear, I often find myself looking at her with a blank stare wondering, "What on earth do you want?" when she thinks she's clearly stated her needs.

Her birthday is over a month away, but the "terrible two's" have been alive and well in our house for months now.  Despite her age, she is two in every way, complete with tantrums, defiance, and a giant attitude.  She tests my limits multiple times per day and thinks it's hilarious when I get angry.  When she glares at me (which happens often on bad days), I can't help but see a little mirror image of the angry face I must be making back at her.

Nearly every night, just as we have since she was born, we snuggle in the brown rocking chair.  She drinks her sippy of milk, and I sing a few songs in a voice that only she can appreciate.  Then, I am able push aside all my frustrations from the day, smell her clean hair, and stroke her soft skin.  My lap is getting smaller by the day, and depending on how baby sister is positioned at the time, rocking is easier some nights than others.  But the past few nights, I've really be cherishing our quiet time together in the dark, knowing that our moments together like that won't be as frequent once sister arrives.

You'd never tell it from these pictures, but she's a big ham...always looking for some attention and a laugh from her audience.  Her personality grows everyday.  Such a big personality in a tiny, little package means there is rarely a dull moment in her presence.

She made me a mama, although she prefers to just call me "mom," or more accurately, "Mom!"  Yes, most often, my name is being called loudly, but she is part Silva and frankly, everything a Silva says is spoken loudly, so I'm sure she can't help it.  She challenges me daily to be the mom she needs me to be, and I really try my best, hoping that I'm doing enough, that I'm patient enough, that I have it in me to take care of two fragile little beings when one is sometimes enough to make me crazy.

And if you can't tell, I'm totally smitten with her, and so is her dad, and her grandparents, and her aunties, and well, pretty much everyone she meets.  You just can't help it.

you capture {water}

You know Summer has officially arrived when bedtime gets just a little bit later each night and every outdoor activity involves some form of water play.  Since it has finally been heating up around here, we've spent many hours in the wading pool, one trip to a "real" grown-up size pool, and countless evenings playing with water in buckets.  I'm almost certain she just prefers the buckets.  Of course, for more creative water photos, I could have taken pictures of the rain we had on Tuesday, but I wasn't exactly sure how to capture my disbelief that we were having rain at the end of June.  And it wasn't your typical warm Summer rain.  It was cool rain, feeling more like March than almost July, and the storm dropped more than an inch.  I'm pretty sure we're still in California, but with weather like that, I can't really be sure.  In other weather related news, we are expected to heat up to 105* this weekend, so the prospect of future water photos seems very promising at this point.

If we do, in fact, heat up to 105* as predicted, our water activities will no doubt involve water in its coldest, most refreshing form...ICE.  And LOTS of it.

For more water-inspired photos, visit You Capture.

more animal adventures with baby kitties

I may have mentioned a few times about Laci's love for animals...like here, and here, and here.  Oh, and here, and here, and here.  I even highlighted her extreme love for kitties here.  Well, just in case I haven't made myself clear enough, I'm doing it again:

Laci LOVES animals, especially kitties.  To call her Elmira would be an understatement.

Stray kitty mama from last Summer has struck again.  We were not successful in taming last summer's  litter, and even less successful in taming mama, so we didn't gain any kitties, mama didn't get fixed, and she had another litter about seven weeks ago.  This time, she thoroughly proved her inadequacy as a mother by building a nest in a honeysuckle bush, about four feet off the ground, and giving birth between Spring rainstorms.  At first, it seemed like a safe and sheltered place for the litter, but within a week, the litter of five had dwindled to two, as the rest were victims of their lofty home.  The two survivors lived in their dark, leafy nest for about four weeks, during which time we would temporarily capture them, pet them, and let them see the light of day.

At four weeks, it was just too sad to see two little kittens stuck in the dark in a bushy nest where they didn't even have room to play.  So, we (mostly my mom) took it upon ourselves to become surrogate kitty mama's.  We removed the kittens from mama's care, brought them inside, and supplemented with bottle feeding (again mostly my mom) for a few weeks.  As of today, they are no longer bottle fed, and are the sweetest, cuddly kitties, who are only just learning to run when they see Laci coming their way.  If they want to survive to cat adulthood, I recommend they learn to run from her faster, because sometimes (well, most of the time) her love for the kitties leads to near strangling of the kitties.

Meet Dolly & Dora

***

Sometimes kitties need to go to school...according to a toddler with a Fisher Price Finger People schoolhouse.

Why else would they fit to perfectly inside the building?

If the kitty should try to escape after being securely enclosed...

...the toddler will be ready to put her back in her place.

It was at this point that I had to stop taking pictures because the kitty's head was stuck squarely in the doorway, and the toddler was trying her hardest to pull her back inside.  In this case, photographic opportunity was sacrificed in order to avoid decapitating the kitty.

Oh yeah, I can see the resemblance!

a big surprise

So, mom probably isn't going to be thrilled about being plastered at the top of the blog again, or Aunty Jenny for that matter, but, if they are lucky, and I'm able to sit at the computer as long as I'd like, this post won't be at the top for long.

Why are they up there?

Because Aunty Jenny pulled off the surprise of the year with a special no-kids visit for my mom's birthday weekend.  Kristina, Beth, and I were in cahoots with Aunt Jen for a month about this visit with strict instructions to 1) not tell my mom about it and 2) ensure that she didn't make any other plans for this weekend.  Not the easiest thing to do, but we did it!  And my mom was totally surprised, to the point of speechlessness.  Speechlessness is very, very, very rare for this family and actually caused us some concern.  For a second, we thought that mom's silence was a sign of a bad idea...turns out, she was too excited to even scream.  Aunt Jen made up for it by screaming extra when she came in the front door.  Aunt Jen is always good for a happy scream, and some hand clapping, and even jumping if necessary.

My mom prides herself on always knowing what is going on with her little "chicks" as she calls us.  She was almost offended that we kept such a big secret from her, and was completely astounded that we were able to keep the secret so long.  Then, Kristina & Myles surprised her with a new microwave, which we've also known about for several weeks, and we proved again that we can still pull the wool over her eyes once in a while.

~ Little Maverick ... getting bigger ~

It was a fantastic weekend for all of us.  We ate, drank, and were merry...the usual for us.  I even managed to drag Ryan away from the house long enough to enjoy a BBQ.  I took tons of pictures of Laci, some of the family, and none of myself.  And the best part is, Aunt Jen will be back up this weekend with the whole family to celebrate the 4th.  I really do love Summertime.

~ it's hard to believe it was cool enough for a blanket ~

~ of course, some of us had a more difficult time with our blankets ~

happy birthday Mom

Today is my mom's birthday.  She doesn't really like being the center of attention.  In fact, she doesn't like it at all.  So, she probably really doesn't like having an extra large picture of her pasted at the top of my blog this morning.  Too bad!  Because today is her day to celebrate life, and my day to celebrate having her in my life.  At least she isn't alone in the picture.  We can just tell her everyone is so engrossed in looking at my beautiful baby that they didn't even notice her there.  HA!

Seriously, my mom is awesome and I can't imagine life without her.  Can you tell how much I love my mom?  No really, I do.  And I feel lucky in being able to say this because I know of people who don't get along with their mom, who have a terrible mom, who don't have a mom at all, and I actually hurt for these people because life without a mom must be really hard.

I'm hoping for amazing things for my mom this year.  She has retired from her "day job," in order to focus more fully on her family, her dreams, and her health.  She doesn't like to talk about her health, but I'm just going to put this out here...her hands don't work very well.  Carpal tunnel, which can be helped, and arthritis, which can't be helped much, keep her from doing many of the things she so loves to do.  It makes me sad to see her struggle, and to see how much she tries to deny and hide it.  But her dreams, they are only just beginning.  My mom is a dreamer, I get some of that from her, but my sensible side takes over too often and the fear of failure keeps me from dreaming too big.  I strive to be more like her.  She dreams of a farm, the kind that has a produce stand, and teaches canning classes, and might even have a pumpkin patch in the Fall. It might happen, it might not, but she is focusing on it, and it makes her happy, and I can't think of a better way for her to spend her time.  As for family, I can't remember a time in my life when my mom hasn't put her family ahead of everything else.  Laci and I are so thankful for a safe haven we can now visit daily when the discomforts of living in a shop/trailer get to be too much.  I'm sure in a couple of months when #2 arrives, we'll be even more grateful.

At this point, I'm sure my mom (who reads this blog regularly) is trying to hide under a rock or something.  I guess I could always delete this post if it turns out to be too much.  But as much as my mom hates to be the center of attention, she also loves to see her daughters doing what they love...in my case, blogging.  So, she will graciously allow me to ramble on at her expense so that I can exercise my writing muscles, and she will anxiously await my next post so that she can move down from the top of the blog.

I love you mom, and Happy Birthday.