Peace out. This is my farewell. This will be my last post on this blog. People keep bugging me about merging my two blogs and so I will give into peer pressure and merge. If you ever care to follow our life story or see what is happening with the adoption of our son you can go to www.littlesilvestriboy.blogspot.com
Peace .

8 more things...

FINE. I will post again, but not because I am inspired or have anything interesting to write about! Unfortunatly for some of you who read my other blog, I have been tagged again (twice) so I must respond and think of 8 more interesting things about myself...this is not easy folks, I am not the most interesting person in the world and I have already done 8 so... Here we go:
Actualy I just decided that this will be 8 animal related things, just to make it interesting. (or un-interesting)
Here we go:
1) My dream job (aside from being a mother) is to work at the Zoo. Seriously, I want to either work with the elephants or the seals. and I'm not talkin' about scooping poop, I'm talkin' like, I will train them and they will love me and we will do shows together and perhaps make a movie together.
2) A bird pooped on my hand today. Not just on my hand. On my finger. Not just on my finger. On my ring finger. Not just on my ring finger. On my ring. And it smooshed into the prongs and now I need to clean it with an old toothbrush or something. Gross.
3) One time I saw a little tiny Malteese dog on the sidewalk with his jaw dislocated wide open and his muddy tongue was dragging on the sidewalk beside him. It was the saddest thing I'd ever seen so I bent down to scoop him up and care for him, but as I tried to pick him up his jaw amazingly re-located itself and he started barking and screeching and chasing me! I ran for my life and he kept on chasing- teeth barred and looking for lunch. It was the scariest thing ever...to this day I consider him to be the wisest of all animals- he was like the venus fly trap, waiting for inocent pray to come along and then...snap!!

Ok I am done with the animal theme.

4) I have never broken any bones or ever had any major injuries- not even stitches. I had never even had a bloody nose until a year or 2 ago- I called Eric and was frantic because I didn't know what to do- do you plug? do you shove T.P up there? Do you pinch and tilt??
5) I was homeschooled from 3rd grade until I graduated from high school and I loved it. I will homeschool our kiddos too.
6) I have Matthew 5, 6 and 7 memorized. Look it up people- it's alot!
7) I have lots of freckles and I do not feel like they are cute freckles..they're just freckles. If they all merged into one, I would be more tan than all yall!
8) When I was a kid, I not only sold lemonade and kool-aide to make a little cash, I sold Dixie cups full of yogurt, pumpkin seeds, stuffed animals, bananas...really it was just whatever I could find around the house.
The end.
I am considering shutting this blog down and merging it with our adoption blog...because I think all the same people read them both anyway...what do you think? Should I take the leap or stick it out?
Also, let me know if you are reading this. I need to know who all is out there cause I know that some people don't comment. If you read this- just say hello, just once. Today. Please.

Sisters, sisters...

I have a blogger buddy who has just adopted this precious little girl, Tsebay, from Ethiopia. (As in the picture at the top of the page) Is she not the biggest cutie pie that you have ever seen?? Her new mamma, Maria (who is also using Gladney, our adoption agency) went a few months ago to pick her up in Ethiopia and while she was there Tsebay's birth mom came to meet her and begged her to also take her other daughter, Kozit, who is 2 years old. (In the picture above with Tsebay) Maria obviously couldn't just take Kozit home with her right then so as soon as she got back to the states she began the paperwork to adopt that precious girl. While Maria is happy to be home with Tsebay, there is a sadness lingering as she thinks of Kozit waiting at the orphanage to be reunited with her sister. As you can imagine it is very expensive to adopt one child...let alone two, so Maria and a few of her friends have come up with a plan to raise the money to keep these sisters together forever...they are attempting to raise $10,000 of the cost and get the other $10,000 from grants- but here is how you can help:

A minimum donation of $50.00 will get your name in a raffle.
Here is what you can win:
-round trip tickets for two to Maui
-a lei greeting at the airport
-10 day accommodations in a cottage on the North Shore of Maui
-10 day car rental
-2 nights out at beautiful Maui restaurants
****The cash out option will be: $3000****

Their goal is to get 275 tickets sold so please pass this along to anyone interested in winning a trip or even more importantly, helping to bring Kozit home to her little sister! Here is the email if you are interested in helping, katemcentee@comcast.net. Just let her know how many tickets you would like to purchase and she will send them to you!
Thanks guys!!
Tara

Everything is bigger in OKC...

A few weeks ago I decided to take Charles to the Oklahoma City Zoo. We went early in the morning while it was nice and cool and the place was nearly empty, just a few moms and babies wandering around. It was so nice and peacefull and quiet, we were having a great time! Then as we strolled along we came upon an exhibit that was just trees so we stopped to read the sign and see what was in there and if we could find it. As I began reading I realized there were Cicada Killer nests in those trees...(hmmm, whats a Cicada Killer?)...also known as Giant Red Wasps...(what the...??) Within a few seconds we are surrounded by hundreds of crazy giant red wasps, so I start freaking out- swatting and shaking and running as fast as Charles' stroller will allow! I'm sure I was a lovely sight- doing the running boogy dance. But what the crap?! What kind of Zoo thinks it would be a great idea to have a wasp exhibit and hives- out in the open for all the world to be stung?! Well, we didn't get stung, but I will forever wonder who fabulous idea that was...us Oklahomans, we are duh smardest ever.

me, the dork...

I love to be a hostess! I love to have people over to our home and make it super duper clean and cook a good meal. I love having dinner parties...I just love having people over. Then, I read the blog of a friend of a friend and she just might take the cake on the queen of all hostess'...it makes me look like a big ole dork. Here is a clip from how she likes to treat her out of town guests...no joke.

i wash the linens for the extra comfy and soft guest bed in a little lemon verbena linen water,and put a big bouquet of flowers in a vase on the antique highboy dresser next to the bed.and a smaller bouquet in the bathroom next to the sink.
i empty out two dresser drawers and fill half of the closet with empty hangers.i pull out the extra fluffy, white towels that are reserved for guests only.
i have unopened toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, listerine and even a little thing of q-tips in case you forget yours.
i bake chocolate chip cookies or a cake.
i order your favorite dvds or books i think you might like.
i try to find out what your favorite foods or meals are and i grocery shop and plan accordingly.
i go over my tried and true list of tourist attractions and seattle must-sees that i think you would enjoy, including restaurants and cafes that are unique to seattle.
if i take you out to eat, it's almost always my treat, unless you physically restrain me from giving the waiter my credit card.
i almost always make my waffles one morning.
another morning i might make my apple puffed pancake.
this time i made a yummy pot pie on a night we just wanted to stay in and relax.
when you leave for a walk or to grab something at the grocery store, i sneak into your room and bathroom and freshen your flowers and polish the mirror and countertop.

Ummmm....when should i come over??
This is for real folks!! She is not saying how she would like to be when company is over- this is what she really does! I may be wrong, but i am pretty sure that that is God's 2007 version of the Proverbs 31 woman!

This is the beautiful cake that Eric made me for my birthday...chocolate with barvarian cream filling...from scratch! Read it and weap ladies. (p.s. don't you like Eric's latest hair-do, the hawk? I think it suits him and he looks hot)

This is the poor little cake after we had at it...mmm.....

This is "the group". They are our nearest and dearest friends that we do everything with. We celebrated 3 bday's that night, ate delicious food, drank delicious drinks and had a fabulous time. Love you guys! (actualy, my "delicious food" was a french dip sandwhich that was a little meaty tasting and my "delicious drink" was just Dr. Pepper...but still) Happy birthday to me.

jambalya...

you better watch this...http://www.2cme.cc/real/index.asp?video=9694

Violet Silvestri photoshoot, take1...

the camera loves you baby...

give me happy...

thats a little too happy...


oh yeah, sexy baby, hold it...

give me angry, youre an agry girl...


and thats a wrap.

Gardening 101...

we grew this! a few months ago eric and i decided that it would be fun to plant a garden in the back yard. so we bought seeds and soil and eric built raised garden boxes and made a little fenced in area so Violet (the dog) wouldnt eat the fruits of our labor. it was really great at first, watching them sprout and grow...then we used miracle grow and it was fun to watch them grow at lightening speed and take over the whole fenced area. now it is not so much fun because the tomatoes are taller than me and are so heavy and thick that they have fallen over and are laying on top of the peppers-so who even knows what those poor little peppers look like! the cucumbers got ginormous and have sent out all these stringy runners into the tomatoes, jalopenos and peppers and so they have made one big taneled mess! did i mention that we stopped watering the garden because it was so ugly and messy? but amidst the mess of an unwatered garden grew these beautifly large delicious cucumbers! we are so excited but need to find a whooole lot of recipes that include cucumbers. does anyone know why cucumbers are spiny? there are lots of little pokey stickers on them and i know the ones at the grocery store dont have them so i am kind of wondering if we picked them too early or what?

Rest In Peace...

Marci Carmen Silvestri died on July 12, 2007. Marci is survived by her mother and father, Eric and Tara Silvestri of Oklahoma City, OK and 12 estranged children in various unknown locations. Marci was known by many and loved by most. Although often mistaken for a mouse, she was indeed a Teddy bear Hamster with blackish redish eyes and blond wavy hair. Although Marci fought in no earthly wars she did fight in a battle for her life only to go home to her maker after 3 short years. Services in Marci's honor will be held at the home of Eric and Tara Silvestri in the backyard near the pond at 7:30 July 13, 2007. It will be a closed shoe box event as her family would like to remember her as she was in life. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Eric and Tara's bank account.

dear dear marci...

we have a hampster. her name is marci carmen. we got her a few years ago, when we couldnt have baby and we lived in an apartment and we couldnt have a dog...so we got a hampster! we loved her and played with her all the time and fed her applesauce with a spoon. (ya, you read me right) she even had babies one day! she must have been impregnated at the pet store because like, 3 days after we bought her we came home to a cage full of about 12 bubblegum looking baby hampsters! we had to raise them for a while until they were big enough to go live at the pet store...but it was fun have 13 hampsters for a few months! marci has always been lively and vivacious...always trying to eat her way out of her cage, sitting on top of her water bottle and diving off, hanging on the top of the cage...(this may sound like she was suicidal, but she wasnt, she had a great life) anyhoo, the other day we came in the room to find her wobbling around and falling over and running into things! we got scared for her and looked on line to see if there was any info on what could be wrong with her...our little girl had a stroke! and now it turns out that after her stroke she never regained her eyesight and she is blind! her eyes crust over sometimes and she can barely walk and it is the saddest thing ive ever seen! i dont know what to do with her...i want to put her out of her pain and misery, but i dont want to kill her. i love her! if you regularly pray for other hampsters, send one up for marci carmen tonight.

who want to see the cutest little thing ever??! this is Shiloh, jenn and filipes baby girl! she still lives in guatamala in an orphanage but should be coming home sometime around november...about the same time as her cousin Malak! this picture cracks me up everytime i see it...her hair is like 3 times the size of her precious little face!!

things that make you go hmmm...

i think this puts things into perspective...the things we think of as inconvenient and troublesome are really so insignificant...i only wish i knew what exactly to do about it. watch...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFZz6ICzpjI&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fheartinafrica%2Eblogspot%2Ecom%2Findex%2Ehtml

i realized that i need to show you all the clothes and things we have bought for Malak! (by the way that will be our sons name) yes, he will be a little rocker and the coolest kid around- my philosophy is that a few cute clothes can make any average child irresistable. (although this will be no averge kid!!) I know that we may have gone a little overboard with the buying of clothes, but this an accumulation over the last few months and this is just a reflection of the love and excitement we have in our hearts! speaking of- we are getting very close to being completley done with our paperwork! that is a huge deal in this adoption process, i cant wait for the time when we are just waiting to hear word and see pictures of our babe!
the little red and yellow shoes were mine when i was munchkin...aaaaw!
the picture of my wrist is a bracelet that eric suprised me with- it obviously says, "malak" and he made it for me in this cute little boutique when we were on vacation last week...sweetie pie.
i love that guy.

cutie patootie

i will post a real blog later, but who wants to see the most precious thing ever?! go here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zBxt_w8_zQ&eurl=

i am a rockstar...

fine. i will post. but for some reason i dont feel like it. am i in blogger depression?? i still read everyone elses posts and enjoy them, but the blogging spark that used to gleam in my eye has all but disapeared and i dont know if i can get it back...
i will tell you of a recent trip we took to tucson, az. (i would rather talk about my adoption process but there is absolutley nothing going on with that, so it would make for a lousy post)

this past thursday we left for arizona to go to erics cousins wedding. eric is mexican. (well, hes half mexi/half italian) his familia is mexican. those guys throw quite a wedding party! or shall i say fiesta?
for the rehearsal dinner they had rented out a mexican restaurant/outdoor bar hacienda type thingy. (i dont know what hacienda means, but it seemed like a hacienda) we all dressed fabulously...if i do say so. we were up to out eyeballs in guacamole, tamales, tortillas, and chilli rellanos, not to mention the open bar....oh the open bar...heres what i had: a margarita, a daquiri, a mojito, a shot of some wierd thing, a cherry amaretto sour and of course a dr. pepper...now, you may be thinking, "tara, you are a drunkard" but i must let it be known that i only kept drinking cause it wasnt doing its job! i wasnt trying to get drunk, but i little tipsy may have made the night more fun....nope. all that and i went home clean as a whistle. i suppose it was the lord, he can do such things.
anyhoo, that was a night of fun. the next day was the wedding. it was a fabulous affair and again we dressed fabulously. after the ceremony there was cocktail hour with an lobster tail, shrimp and of course an open bar. we visited, we ate, we drank. (i drank 7 up)
then we moved inside for a 5 course meal. i had chateau breon (a delicously tender steak with a port wine sauce) and eric had a rack of lamb...he loved it but it made me gag. too gamey. ugh.
there were 4 different bands at the reception but the hit of them all was the mariachi band. they were fun and we danced the night away. did i mention there was another open bar?? the bar was so open that we all got these rediculously pricey cigars...if they want to give it to us for free, were going to take em, right?! (but i didnt smoke or drink all night)
this fiesta lasted from 6:00 until 12:00....long night.
the next morning there was an after wedding brunch at a huge gorgeous resort. they served things like filet mingon, lobster, caviar, huge lavish deserts, and basicly everything you could ever want to eat. (i didnt not eat those wierd things for breakfast, i had belgian waffles with fresh berries and fruit and a mimosa)
theeeen, there was an after the brunch party. we ate we drank we ate more. then we left and flew home to boring old oklahoma. who wants to come home to oklahoma when you can party like a rockstar for free in arizona??!!

stayin alive...

this cutie pie is a friend of a friend of a friends son, who they adopted from ethiopia a last month- hes got the best moves ive ever seen from a 3 year old! dont be jealous that my sweet little baby will be just like him! i like to watch the other little guy in the background too...ok. i couldnt get the video thing to work so youll have to go to the link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFznR8jgDGU&eurl= (turn up your sound)

babies babies babies....

now heres a little story all about how my life got flipped turned upsidedown....

back in the day i wanted to do mission work in africa. that is the reason i went to AIM. but the africa field closed because it was too dangerous. so i went to portugal (or porty as i like to call it) and kinda forgot about africa for a while. then last year we had a team from Invisible Children come to our church and do their presentation and it tugged at my little heartstrings, so we bought way too many t shirts and dvds and bracelets to help support those children in africa. anyway, it rekindled something in me and so i talked to eric (or er as i like to call him) about my desire to maybe go to africa one day...he was super supportive and said ok, but it wasnt really his passion or anything. then a few weeks ago he told me that the holy spirit has been leading and telling him that we need to go to africa! we have been really trying to listen to the spirit and when we hear him speaking to us- listening and obeying. he has been revealing himself to us over and over again and it all leads us in the direction of africa so we were excited and scared and wondering what this is going to look like- how it would pan out and what exactly god had in store for us. will be missionaries there? will we just go for a short while and see if thats what He wants for us? then somehow we came to the conclusion that we need to adopt a baby from Ethiopia! we have prayed and prayed and talked and talked about it and we feel like the lord is asking us to rescue a child from poverty or death or worse. and it is just an extra bonus that we finaly get to have a baby of our own! God is so faithful and it is exciting to know that this baby is from him! we covet your prayers as we begin this long process!

merry christmas to all! it has only been one month since i last posted so i should probably catch you up on my life. i am still 26 years old and although i am often mistaken for a 17 year old, i am not. marme and kdub came to OKC for christmas...it was a relaxing joyous time filled with laughter and tears, except there were no tears. it really was so wonderful to have them here, i love being taken care of by my mommy, she is my precious. i also love when they pay for everything... i also love that they are completley happy just hanging out and watching movies and stuff, even though i felt like i needed to entertain them...i guess a little song and dance would have been nice.
violet (my puppy) recently lost her virginity. she is fixed so no babies were concieved, but she was playing in the yard with her best friend (and cousin!) bruno and he took a piece of my baby girl that we can never retrieve...i dont look at her the same anymore...knowing that she is tainted, and by her cousin nonethless! sick.
lets see, what else is going on in my world...
i have the flu today and were having a big ice storm here...eric got sent home from work and so weve just been laying in bed, watching movies (the illusionist and lady in the water) and napping. its been so cozy and relaxing! i like when eric serves me sprite with a drop of fresh orange juice in it, i like to call it "the sick girls spritzer". does anyone remember when we had that big ice/snow storm in the winter of '04? we shared a big beautiful townhouse with jess and ryan and we all were trapped in the house for days and days...i think jess and i were feeling crafty and we each croche'd 4 or 5 scarves. i still have one of them and its not a pretty sight. we tried to sled down the giant hill outside the house but everywhere in the city was sold out of sleds...so we went to joes crabshack for lunch...but eric and i dont like seafood, so we got little salads...remember how the ice was so thick on our cars that we had to hit it with a hammer?
i think that you all should know that i havent cooked a meal in like a month. except for when the parents were here we cooked a few times, other than that i think weve eaten out for dinner every night for a good solid month...odly enough i dont think ive put on any pounds...wierd. maybe its because were not eating at fast food, cause that would just be gross....im talking, on the border, panera bread, pie wie, moes, mazios pizza you know, the good stuff. mmm.
i want to propose a dare.
i dare all you people who read this blog but NEVER comment...to comment today. just today, so we know youre out there...ive heard rumors of secret readers and we want to take this time to acknowledge you. you dont have to say anything profound (i obviously, didnt put a ton of thought into this post) just note saying, "im here".