the Life of Olena

Adoption is Ukraine is very unique. In this way I mean that there is one agency, within Ukraine of course, that is in charge of ALL adoptions. Agencies have no place in Country and are not allowed to operate there at all. The reason for this is simple, Black Market Baby selling. Back in the 90s, agencies would pay hospital staff to "supply" them with healthy babies. When a mother would come in and give birth she would often be told her baby did not survive. The truth being that the hospital was paid to give the baby to the agency who would turn sell it to hopeful parents from other countries. Some babies were even taken right from the mother's once they were home. Sad huh? I personally know a few adoptive parents who have found that this was the case with their adoptive children. Imagine being told that your child's birth parents have died, a true orphan. Then down the road a few years later, the truth is you adopted a kidnapped baby. A mother somewhere on the other

Yesterday Olena and I were working on Starfall for her reading lessons. The game she was playing was a picture of the kitchen, with letter blocks (similar to a cross word) and she had to match the correct words to the labeled items. So we start to go through it and she is doing just fine.... refrigerator , stove, oven, sink, table, and then the mysterious item - the microwave! When we got to the mystery microwave, she just sat there for a few moments staring at it. Me: Well Olena what is that? O: I don't know. Me: lets try to read the word. Sound it out. (My hopes were that she would start sounding it out and then item recognition would kick in. After working the word for a few minutes she was able to realize that is started with MICRO) Me: OK Olena think about it. micro....... O: Micro WHAT? Me: break it up, what does the second half say. (after a few more minutes we establish the second half says wave. but now I am slightly confused because yes she is figuring out the word,

To make a long story short my coworker came to work all excited over these adorable tutus she just bought for her girls online. She shows me this website of a very quaint little mom run baby boutique and she shows me these cute but rather basic tutus - however they were $40 each. OH MY! I couldn't believe it. Don't get me wrong, they were cute, but I would never in my right mind pay $40 for a tutu. So the Martha Stewart side of me kicked in, I went home and tackled the project myself....using over 90 yards of 6inch tulle I was able to make a darling tutu! Which I took to work and showed her. She LOVED it, and I told her I could sell them for $25 each....she ordered 4! and now I am in business. I have 10 orders that I am currently working on and I figured why not. It is easy for me to do, it doesn't take up too much of my time, and I can use the money I make to put towards the adoption. With that being said...if any of you lovely blogger friends are interested. I am taking o

Peasant soup is one of my favorite soups...just a mix of whatever you have left in the frig (of course within reason) I am sitting here thinking about what to write, and apparently what to have for dinner. I figured this post may be a little like peasant soup - a mix of whatever is floating around in this head of mine. One thing I noticed that I did not post about is that I did attend the National Home School Conference in Cincinnati Ohio. It was amazing. I attended the one in Lansing last summer but that was Michigan based, this one was HUGE!! My usual sidekick partner in crime/BFF/"adoptive" sister I never had, Rickie, joined me for the weekend. We had a great time and I got lots of good stuff. I really wanted to get the Math-U-See program last year but couldn't justify spending that much money for the beginning of Kindergarten when my husband wasn't working...so I put if off. This year, well lets just say my "reasoning" didn't really help much this ti

The title of this post is a question I have heard a lot lately. The funniest part of it, is that it always comes after the 45 second moment of silence that followed the fact I just told them that we are pursuing another adoption from Ukraine....of a HIV child. .................................. let me guess what you're thinking? Why would we want to do that? There are actually lots of reasons, but my main reason..... I prayed for it. I prayed for a larger family, another child....anyway He found fit; adoption, foster care, biological - hey I am open to suggestions. :) That is when information about HIV orphans started falling into my lap. Every new blog I found seemed to mention HIV children, a good friend directed me to a few sites with special needs children and I always found myself searching the database of HIV orphans. At first, I truthfully didn't give it a second consideration. Until one night while, again, praying for "answers" I fell asleep to the words of...