the Life of Olena

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...