the Life of Olena

As I watch the coverage of the fate of the U.S. auto industry, one alarming andfrustrating fact hits me right between the eyes. The fate of our nation'seconomic survival is in the hands of some congressmen who are completely out oftouch and act without knowledge of an industry that affects almost every personin our nation. The same lack of knowledge is shared with many journalists whomare irresponsible when influencing the opinion of millions of viewers. Sen. Rich ard Shelby of Alabama has doomed the industry, calling it a dinosaur. No Mr. Shelby, you are the dinosaur, with ideas stuck in the '70s, '80sand '90s. You and the uninformed journalist and senators that hold ontomyths that are not relevant in today's world. When you say that the Big Three build vehicles nobody wants to buy, you musthave overlooked that GM outsold Toyota by about 1.2 million vehicles in the U.S.and Ford outsold Honda by 850,000 and Nissan by 1.2 million in the U.S. GM wasthe world's N...

MOTHERS Real Mothers don't eat quiche; they don't have time to make it. Real Mothers know that their kitchen utensils are probably in the sandbox. Real Mothers often have sticky floors, filthy ovens and happy kids. Real Mothers know that dried play dough doesn't come out of carpets. Real Mothers don't want to know what the vacuum just sucked up. Real Mothers sometimes ask 'Why me?' and get their answer when a little voice says, 'Because I love you best.' Real Mothers know that a child's growth is not measured by height or years or grade...It is marked by the progression of Mommy to Mom to Mother... The Images of Mother 4 YEARS OF AGE - My Mommy can do anything! 8 YEARS OF AGE - My Mom knows a lot! A whole lot! 12 YEARS OF AGE - My Mother doesn't really know quite everything. 14 YEARS OF AGE - Naturally, Mother doesn't know that, either. 16 YEARS OF AGE - Mother? She'...

We're back, and feeling pretty good. We had some time to evaluate the situation, and we are pretty confident now. For the time being we are taking advantage of him being home, and we're getting ready for the Holiday. He now refers to himself as Mr. Mom and I have to admit he is doing a darn good job. I haven't had to clean the house or cook dinner once this week :) I have been able to come home and tackle wrapping presents, baking, shopping etc. It has made for a very stress free Holiday. Very nice! The other members of the family are not quite as calm though. Olena and all of our four legged friends have sensed the change and are not too happy about it. They are all acting crazy!!! not to mention our parents too (oops did I say that out loud?...I love you mom!) but we know all we can do is hold it together, pray, and move forward. On to better things. We took O to see Santa the other day. She is obsessed. She absolutely LOVES Santa Claus. When she got up there to finally s...

The last few days have been a tough road for us, and a lot of saddness. Jason, after 16 years with Motion Industries, was let go. Released from his job because of nothing more than the crappy economy and the big 3 crisis. Being that he is the head of the household and our insurance carrier I am sure you can imagine the panic that we are currently facing. Being a part of Detroit at this point in time is not a promising future. Please pray for us! I know we are one of millions of families who are in the same crisis but you never think it's going to be your family. I will post more next week but I wanted to let everyone know we are here and afloat, barely, but we building strength to move forward.

Things around here are busy as always. I read Tonya's recent post a little bit ago and it seems she too had the cleaning "bug". It was long over due in this house, so my mom came over 2 weekends ago and we kicked butt. We started early in the morning, kicked out Jason and Olena and went to town. To answer your question Tonya, we always start in the bedrooms, work our way through all of them, on to the living room and bathroom and the kitchen is always the last....and unfortunately always the worse because by the time you are done with the other rooms your mess of junk ends up in the kitchen! We moved furniture, scrubbed the walls, baseboards, drapery...if it was in this house - it was cleaned. And your right, it makes you feel so good. Well at least until either the hubby, kids or animals trashes something :) We busted butt and we were both exhausted by the time it was all done and over. We even put the plastic on our windows to help keep it a bit warmer. For you southern...

I hope everyone was able to celebrate Thanksgiving with the ones they love! We had a great night with my parents and Jason's dad. A BEAUTIFUL and very tasty dinner, and we just relaxed. Good news is that I will not need to cook for a week we have so much left over! yummy :) Now we are being really lazy, watching Charlie Browns Thanksgiving and Jeff Durham (who we absolutely love) and I finished my Christmas cards! I am really in the Christmas mood this year so I will spend this week cluttering our house with decorations galore. I know I will hate myself come January when I have to take it all down, but Olena is really into Christmas this year so I want to make it as memorable as possible. Tomorrow I am off to Canada to spend the day with Rickie for her 30th birthday...hehehehe she is finally there. She has been making smarty comments to me about being old because I was 30. Now its her turn :) this is the Turkey shirt I made her for Thanksgiving to wear to school. I think is it so c...

Hard to believe but 15th marked the 2 year anniversary of us meeting Olena. I remember last year feeling like we just stepped off the plane. Well this year is different...I feel like it was so long ago. I now think I can't believe it has ONLY been 2 years! November 15, 2007 November 15, 2008 November 15, 2006

We've been busy, cleaning up still...(yes I know, how on earth can I still be cleaning this measly 1000 sq ft house...I have no clue) about 98% of the reorganizing is done. All I really have left is our play room in the basement and that is pretty much it. My wonderful and amazing momma will be over this weekend to help me with the dirty part, actually cleaning. She works my butt off when she comes over. We wash walls, floors on our hands and knees, clean the carpets, fan, and every nook and cranny. And trust me, my mom leaves no furniture unturned. I love it when she comes over because my house looks so absolutely beautiful when she leaves. I don't know what it is but my dad and I have always said she has this magic touch, it is "Kelly Clean". Olena is going to spend the day with her Grampy (J's dad) and that will give us the ability to focus on the task at hand. I will be completely dead the world by Saturday night...but it will be well worth it. I got ...

I can't help but to think she is the cutest little girl ever. If you listen closely you can hear that she still has a bit a of Russian accent. Row row row yer buut ! she is so out of breath because by the time I thought to grab the camera she had already been doing this for about 15 minutes. this was her way to avoid having to go to bed :) she is just so darn cute.

Aiden finally arrived last night around 10:15pm. and that poor girl pushed for 2 hours and delivered a huge baby at 10lb 8oz! That's a Thanksgiving Turkey! All I gotta say to the rest of you Mommy's with buns in the oven.....good luck with that! I'm not gonna comment to much about Obama. Of course I am happy he won but on the other hand I have heard enough politics for the day, as a matter of fact for a couple of days, weeks, and maybe even months. I say "just get to work and show us this change you keep talking about." That's all I want to hear about at this point. I personally could care less that he is the first Biracial President, or how he won! All I care about is seeing something better than what we have had for the last 8 years.

Thought I would take a moment to chime in a few things I know I never post anything political but I figure tonight was an exception especially when I just received the news of Michigan's results. Hooray, Obama wins Michigan with 17 electoral votes. Michigan hasn't voted Republican since 1988 so it's not a big surprise but still exciting. As it's obvious now, I am a Obama supporter!......Oh my, just received an update that he took Ohio too! WOOWHO, Ohio was considered a must win State for McCain. But onto something a little less controversial, a good family friend is bringing her lovely little bundle of joy into the world sometime tonight. The poor thing has been in labor since yesterday morning and she's been dilated to 8 with no progression since 11:30 last night. She is younger than me, at 23. Growing up and even now I have always felt "mothering" to her, or as if she was my little sister and seeing her tonight was such an amazing experience. She was be...

Here are a few pictures from tonights fun Halloween adventures. We all had a great time treat-or-treating and Olena LOVED being Dorthy for the night. The weather couldn't have been better at about 55 degrees. Considering the last few nights have been in the low 40s, it was a pleasant and welcomed change for the night. We spent the evening with my cousins and thier families, as well and Jason and my mom. It was a lot of fun! As expected, my mom did an amazing job sewing Olena's and Ethan's costumes. I loved it as a kid knowing I had an original costume at Halloween and it was always a lot of fun going to the fabric shop to look through the costume books. I feel good knowing Olena will get to experience it too. Tons of people complimented us on how great she and Ethan looked! OHLALA...the infamous ruby slippers.

1 more of the many things we did this week...baked mini apple pies. She loves this new apron and hat. I bought them togther at the dollar store and since then she has been wearing it everyday. I think I am going to try and make a pattern so that I can sew her a few more with some cute material for xmas!

Daddy's cool pumpkin. Olena said it was the Great Pumpkin! and he was going to bring her TOOYYEEESSSS! Cute even when cleaning a gross pumpkin guts. Just another day. Olena as little red riding hood! at the Halloween party. Pirate (Dad), Vampire Lady (mom), Grandma (me), Little Red Riding Hood (O), Wolf (Jason), Wicked witch (Rickie) and Masked Mexican Man (Dan)

We are still here, very busy though. Lots of family activities and still cleaning up around the house. I finished our bedroom over the weekend. We took out a dresser, and overhauled my closet. I completed Olena's room tonight. I was able to get rid of 4 garbage bags of stuff. I went through all of the art supplies, condensed and trashed what wasn't good anymore. I threw away about 15 coloring books that were pretty much done with. Went through all the crayons and markers, and restocked. She has a habit of being a nicknac collector and has somehow ended up with millions of little tiny toys all over the place. This drives me nuts. Got rid of most of it and what I did keep went into plastic shoe boxes which I plan to label tonight so she can start to practice her reading! Anyhow after going through all of the art supplies, I tackled the games - reorganized them, put stuff into little zip locks, and reboxed a few. I also managed to empty and remove the toy box from her room which I...

Well the Halloween party was a good time, and it was great weather. I unfortunately have no pics from the night of, thanks to the fact that I couldn't find my camera anywhere...that is until the next morning of course. Where was it? in my purse!!! Good grief! So as soon as I can get either Rickie or my mom to email some I will post them. Everyones costumes turned out great! and it was a lot of fun despite some the tasks it took to get there. Olena was Little Red Riding Hood and might I say, she looked absolutely cute as a button! I was Grandma. I put my hair in about 40 sponge rollers (you know those ones your mom use to put in your head and make you sleep in!) well, I wet my hair, put them in the morning and took them out later that evening, I didn't comb through it - just left it curly and sprayed it silver. It looked great - everyone was telling me that my wig look awesome :) Jason was the wolf and instead of buying a mask we decided to opt for trying the "glue on metho...

This is what the rest of the family did while we worked hard on the floor.

The fire truck tire at the Harvest Hayday. Olena and Ethan lots of hard work to make our floor look beautiful! still working hard!!

One of my good friends and employee, a Pharmacist in West Virgina sends me spiritual email every morning. Today I came in to this one, now keep in mind he knew nothing of our recent decision of "cleaning our lives and minds". Guess this was a little email from God letting us know were headed in the right direction. Then the people of Judah said, “The work crews are worn out, and there is too much rubble. We can’t continue to rebuild the wall.” Nehemiah 4:10 (GWT) *** *** *** *** Discouragement is curable. Whenever I get discouraged, I head straight to Nehemiah. This great leader of ancient Israel understood there were four reasons for discouragement. First, you get fatigued. You simply get tired as the laborers did in Nehemiah 4:10. We’re human beings and we wear out. You cannot burn the candle at both ends. So if you’re discouraged, it may be you don’t have to change anything. You just need a vacation! Sometimes the most spiritual thing you can do is go to bed. Second, you ...

Well in case the home school post doesn't interest you, let me tell you a little about our past few days. We completed our floor in the living room and I must admit, it is gorgeous and very cozy. Not to mention that I have been able to move the furniture around and make some good changes. We took the TV out, figured it is not really needed, and WOW! what a great change. It has given us lots more room and it is now so peaceful and relaxing. Jason took apart our old entertainment center and made me a beautiful book case! He did a wonderful job, so Olena had somewhere to put her books and I had some space from my photo obsession :) The biggest accomplishment was the fact that Jason and I have hit this point in our lives were we feel "simple" is best. We have spent years worrying about our careers, our finances, our family. We come home stressed, we bicker, we would sometimes live separate lives in our own home. He would be doing one thing, I would be doing ano...

It seems that my last post has made quite a stir...from those whom I expected , I have received much support and others lots of the same questions.Why do you want to do that? and OMG how will she socialize?? As if I just told them I was sending her away to a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This is something that my husband and I have put a lot of thought and discussion into. No, I am not saying that every child should be Home schooled and maybe Home school isn't what is right for all children, but for mine I think it will be. We know our daughter, we know what she is capable of and we know how to best help her achieve that. No teacher is going to take the time to fully understand this girl the way we do. Putting her in a public school will equal nothing but a disaster. She will be automatically labeled, as hyper, ADD/ADHD, "she needs medication, she's a busy body and doesn't pay attention", blah blah blah. Loads of homework even though...

After several weeks of thinking, and praying for "answers" I believe that I am going to Homeschool Olena . This has been something that I have always felt in my heart but never thought I could make it a reality. I have thought about it so much and every time I look for a different road, I just get lead right back to Homeschooling. I have some preparation to do to get myself and our family ready - but once that is settled I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work. Unfortunately we are not in a situation that allows me to be a stay at home mom, (though it is something that Jason and I have always wanted) but I am lucky enough to have a healthcare education so I am going to get myself set up to work 2 days a week/ 12 hour shifts. I work 5 days a week/5 hours a day now, so hourly I will still be working part time. Another bonus is taking this type of position will also increase my hourly pay dramatically which always is a big help. While working only 2 days, I co...

Lana is doing great. Friday was our last day for OT, and though I will miss Theresa greatly, it is nice to be done for awhile. She completed the peabody testing again on Monday and she has advanced from the 19th percentile (28 months) to the 50th percentile (43 months) in her fine motor skills, which is fabulous. I have to admit that parenting a toddler has been much more of a challenge than I ever expected. She is brilliant, (and in fact it wouldn't surprise me in the least bit if further down the road we discover that she is "gifted") but it is almost as if she is too smart for her own good. And she plays "dumb" a lot, which frustrates the heck out of me. Even though she knows something, she insists on being disobedient and making me repeat myself ten million times. We can go a week and she can be punished 10 times a day for the same thing every single day, but the bottom line is if she wants to do, she is going to. And if she doesn't want to, she ...

While at work today we had an interesting conversation at the lunch table. Everyone was discussing the new season line up on TV, all the new shows and what everyone was watching. I just sat back and listened while they marched through the days of the week and discussed the "it" show for each night. We don't really watch TV which I honestly thought that was somewhat normal but boy was I wrong!! One of my coworkers looks at me and asks "so what do you and J watch?" Well on Mondays we do watch Prison Break, we are both suckers for it but other than that the Today Show in the morning while I am getting ready and maybe the 10 or 11 o'clock news depending on how tired we are but that is pretty much it. You should have seen the look on everyone face. You would have sworn I was a martian from mars that just landed at their lunch table. "what about sports, doesn't J watch football on the weekend?" NO " Nascar ?" NO "what sports th...

On Sunday my FIL took us to the city fair. Olena was so excited. Though she couldn't ride all the kids rides (still 2 inches too short) she was able to ride a few and still had a really good time. However, I must comment on the ridiculous prices for the fairs now a days. Each ticket was $1 and the average kiddie ride took 3-4 tickets. How on earth do they expect a decent size family to enjoy the day??? what has this world come to??? I guess I can finally say, "back when I was kid, we had to walk to the fair up hill both ways, and the tickets were only 25 cents each." :) Here's a few pics of the day! Playing in the City water scape. Daddy, Olena and Grampy!

As expected we have been busy, but things are going great despite a few sickly people in the house. Olena picked up something because she was suffering with terrible congestion and stuffy nose, and me...well, remember the slightly swollen eye? That got worse. A LOT worse. Ended up going to the urgent care and the found a scratch on my eye lid that got infected so I ended up on 3 antibiotics, 2 for my eye and 1 oral. Then because I am so lucky I managed to acquire all of the lovey side effects to the antibiotics. I am finally getting back in the "saddle" and now playing catch up around here. We spent 2 days in Windsor with Rickie and had a good time. We went for a 4 mile hike through their nature trail. There were a ton of bugs which Olena wasn't too fond of, but we managed. And then the next day we had a little picnic by the river. Played on the play ground, and fed the birds. Olena chased them more than she fed them, but we all had fun none the less. It was relaxing and ...