Well the title says it all. We have been very busy around here and I haven't had much computer time at all. Now I am sitting here with my list of things to do and I am frantically speeding my way through everything because is is quarter after 6 and we still have to eat dinner, clean up, go for a family bike ride, and have some reading time so a busy night still lies ahead.
Lets see what can I bring you up to date with....since my last post we have tackle a few of the home renovations projects. One being our deck. We have small deck off the back of our house and the railing need to be replaced badly. To save money we opted for an aluminum railing. Which we were going to buy at Lowes - but while tackling another project - we discovered we could replace the deck railing and only spend about 5 bucks. We had an aluminum pool deck that we were going to scrap but it seems that the railing on the pool deck, fit our porch deck perfectly. Jason did a great job and putting it all together. I will post some pictures later.
I also managed to go through a majority of our stored belongings and put them in my best friends garage sale, which happened this past weekend. However, I have feeling I could still get rid of a bunch of stuff so I might just have one of my own in a few weeks.
I am getting ready to wash down all of the walls in the house this week. That is my big chore this week, among major dusting, but I tackled that yesterday. BTW ladies, air compressors can be a great blessing when it comes to dusting. I took all of my lamp shades, wreaths, floral arrangements, and nic-nacs outside and used J's compressor to blow everything off. It worked like a charm and made my job much easier and cut the time in half :)
I have recently increased my hours at work, which is good and bad....good because we need the money but I really feel guilty for losing that time with Olena. Work is a bit happier though because they have been patiently been waiting for me to pick up more hours. bless them for waiting so long and respecting my decision to work part time.
As for Olena, things are getting better. We have had a few rough weeks. She has started pre- school about 6 weeks ago and she now goes 3 days a week. M-W for now. She hated it at first, threw huge tantrums when I dropped her off and she was abusing the teachers...yes I said abusing. She would smack, pull hair, scratch, pretty much anything to get away from them. I managed to get a handle on that, (after taking her to the car a few mornings), then it slowly got better and she starting going willingly and was happy to be there. When she came home in the afternoon it was a different story, she would be rotten. I should say ROTTEN!!!! bad as hell! there is just no other way to explain it. She picked up nasty habits, she started saying NO to everything, she was sassy all of the time and started spitting, not to mention that she would not go potty (poop) at all. I am not sure if it was because she was mad at me, or the fact that she could control it but she would go 4-5 days without going. We would find her in her room squeezing her little butt together, she would scream when we made her sit on the potty, and she wouldn't even push the pee out for fear she would let the poop out! Finally over the weekend, I loaded her up with mineral oil, with the hopes that she wouldn't be able to control it and I was right, within a day or two she was thoroughly "emptied" and boy was that a day with a lot of bathroom time. Sunday was the first time she had went in 7 days! She is now doing a better. We had a good weekend, and today she has been great. She seems to be back to her old self. She is not one for change. I am sure it has a lot to do with being institutionalize, but change really is hard on her (and me too!!!) But I think we are finally in the grove. She knows what is expected of her for the day, and we are managing through it with little issue. Pray for us, that it stays that way.
As for her progress, she is doing amazing. She is starting to spell small words, she is tracing her letters and numbers like a champ and her sentences are getting better everyday. She is also starting to speak her mind, which is so awesome to experience. She blows me away sometimes. On Saturday she told me..."mommy, I love if you paint Lana's nails green like pickles." Where that came from, I have no idea but I thought it was so cute, I ended up buying a very light green opal nail polish and painted her toe nails. She loved it!!! Well I gotta get dinner done and Olena is growing very inpatient at the fact that I keep telling her "give me 5 more minutes"....
I will do my best to post again soon, and with pictures.
Lets see what can I bring you up to date with....since my last post we have tackle a few of the home renovations projects. One being our deck. We have small deck off the back of our house and the railing need to be replaced badly. To save money we opted for an aluminum railing. Which we were going to buy at Lowes - but while tackling another project - we discovered we could replace the deck railing and only spend about 5 bucks. We had an aluminum pool deck that we were going to scrap but it seems that the railing on the pool deck, fit our porch deck perfectly. Jason did a great job and putting it all together. I will post some pictures later.
I also managed to go through a majority of our stored belongings and put them in my best friends garage sale, which happened this past weekend. However, I have feeling I could still get rid of a bunch of stuff so I might just have one of my own in a few weeks.
I am getting ready to wash down all of the walls in the house this week. That is my big chore this week, among major dusting, but I tackled that yesterday. BTW ladies, air compressors can be a great blessing when it comes to dusting. I took all of my lamp shades, wreaths, floral arrangements, and nic-nacs outside and used J's compressor to blow everything off. It worked like a charm and made my job much easier and cut the time in half :)
I have recently increased my hours at work, which is good and bad....good because we need the money but I really feel guilty for losing that time with Olena. Work is a bit happier though because they have been patiently been waiting for me to pick up more hours. bless them for waiting so long and respecting my decision to work part time.
As for Olena, things are getting better. We have had a few rough weeks. She has started pre- school about 6 weeks ago and she now goes 3 days a week. M-W for now. She hated it at first, threw huge tantrums when I dropped her off and she was abusing the teachers...yes I said abusing. She would smack, pull hair, scratch, pretty much anything to get away from them. I managed to get a handle on that, (after taking her to the car a few mornings), then it slowly got better and she starting going willingly and was happy to be there. When she came home in the afternoon it was a different story, she would be rotten. I should say ROTTEN!!!! bad as hell! there is just no other way to explain it. She picked up nasty habits, she started saying NO to everything, she was sassy all of the time and started spitting, not to mention that she would not go potty (poop) at all. I am not sure if it was because she was mad at me, or the fact that she could control it but she would go 4-5 days without going. We would find her in her room squeezing her little butt together, she would scream when we made her sit on the potty, and she wouldn't even push the pee out for fear she would let the poop out! Finally over the weekend, I loaded her up with mineral oil, with the hopes that she wouldn't be able to control it and I was right, within a day or two she was thoroughly "emptied" and boy was that a day with a lot of bathroom time. Sunday was the first time she had went in 7 days! She is now doing a better. We had a good weekend, and today she has been great. She seems to be back to her old self. She is not one for change. I am sure it has a lot to do with being institutionalize, but change really is hard on her (and me too!!!) But I think we are finally in the grove. She knows what is expected of her for the day, and we are managing through it with little issue. Pray for us, that it stays that way.
As for her progress, she is doing amazing. She is starting to spell small words, she is tracing her letters and numbers like a champ and her sentences are getting better everyday. She is also starting to speak her mind, which is so awesome to experience. She blows me away sometimes. On Saturday she told me..."mommy, I love if you paint Lana's nails green like pickles." Where that came from, I have no idea but I thought it was so cute, I ended up buying a very light green opal nail polish and painted her toe nails. She loved it!!! Well I gotta get dinner done and Olena is growing very inpatient at the fact that I keep telling her "give me 5 more minutes"....
I will do my best to post again soon, and with pictures.
Comments
I don't have any tips for teaching her to ride a bike except just wait until she's ready. The average age for bike riding is NOT three so you have plenty of time. She'll pick it up when she's interested.
That's great that she's spelling! Lyra can recognize her name and the boys names on paper, and she writes O's on everything, but she won't spell and she's just getting to where she'll count to 7 by herself. If she was my first child, I'd be worried, but she has the blessing of being number 5 and by now I know that they all learn to do everything in their own time so I am in no hurry.
Your deck looks great! And that's awesome that you got it all done for 5 bucks! It's nice to have a handy hubby, isn't it:).