the Life of Olena

We had a lovely Christmas, and according to Olena it was the "most awesome day ever!" She was so cute, and absolutely LOVED her gifts.  We set up a sensory heaven in our basement...aka: a trampoline and a huge ball pit!  and she thinks the ball pit is the coolest thing ever.  Sadly I don't have any pictures since my camera is still out of commission but as soon as it is in working order again, I will definitely put some up for you to see.  She also received the Leapster Explore from my parents, which is a child version of the IPad, she is starting to grow more fond of it everyday but she was a bit disappointed to find out that there was no app for Angry Birds.  Crazy girl.  We spent the morning together just the three of us, but the rest of the day was spent traveling around to see the parents.  Though it was a busy day, it was still wonderful.  This year was one of the first ones in a long time that I can remember that we didn't have any snow....

While I wish I could say that the night we decorated our tree was a beautiful peaceful night of carols and lots of love. But really it was more about 2 exhausted adults and 2 exhausted children, and lots of dropped broken bulbs. After a full day of hard work and play we finally got to the moment we had all been waiting for...tree decorating time. Well we were not quite prepared so it started off with Jason spending 45 minutes trying to fix lights just to realize we didn't have enough so at 8p on a Sunday he went on the hunt. He was gone way too long and the kids were practically falling asleep so I let them go ahead with the decorating, we had some cocoa, and then I put them to bed. It took them about 2 minutes to fall asleep so I then undecorated the tree. When J got home we strung the lights and redecorated until midnight! Thankfully both the kids were excited enough with the final outcome the next morning that they didn't even notice the changes I made :) This year w...

My dearest and bestest friend Rickie's Canadian wedding shower. I will have one for her, here in the States in April! This one was held by her fiance's family. Her and Dan will marry (finally after 12 years) on May 19th, 2012.

My grandmother is selling crochet sets; hat, scarf and wristlets. Color and style of your choice. Made to order. $28 per set!

I should be diligently wrapping Christmas presents while I have a few moments to spare but I thought I owed it to everyone to at least try and update once before the Holiday.  Things have been really busy so of course the blogging has taken the back burner.  A-Line (my job) is super busy and I have been working about 10 more hours a week than usual.  And while that doesn't seem like much, it definitely makes a difference to a homeschooling mom.  School has slowed down a bit.  She has been doing a lot of computer work and projects which she is thrilled about.  No writing or arithmetic is her idea of a great school day.  I am hoping to work on a lesson plan for the month of January between Xmas and New Year.  I want to spend the month working on her speech.  She hasn't made a lot of progress over the last 9 months or so and I see some regression in certain areas.  I also have noticed that more and more adults are having difficultly ...

I am back...at least for the moment.  I figured it was about time I take the extra 15 minutes to check in and try to keep things interesting.  However, it seems my life has lacked a lot of things interesting lately.  Being a working/"stay at home"/homeschooling mom has been quite the challenge for me lately and I basically just feel like I am constantly fighting a mental battle about where I should be, and what I should be doing.  When at work trying to get things done, I get caught up late and I feel "I need to be at home working on school".  Then when I get home I have things to finish I didn't do at that office, the phone is ringing constantly all through the evening, I have household stuff to take care of and oh yeah...that homeschooling thing too.  Did I mention we also have three co-op classes, and 1 field trip a week? Not complaining...just sharing my daily life.  I am grateful for my job.  Is it ideal? No.  But none-the-less ...

Thanks for being a blessing... First...I must say there are a whole bunch of 19 mamas who are just blown away by your outpouring of love, support, and generosity for the precious souls that still weigh heavy on our hearts. YOU have donated from your heart to give an orphan a Christmas blessing this year and oh how awesome it has been to see the Christmas goodies keep rolling in.... Many of you have donated cute toys... ...socks, underwear, gloves, hats, hair bows... ...and then there were the boxes... When the mamas of baby house 19 wanted to do something for the children we said goodbye to...we were praying that we would collect enough boxes to provide a gift to each of the 115 children that live behind the walls of baby house 19. NEVER would we have imagined that the Lord would use so many of His servants to spread the word and provide for His children. As I'm typing this post...we have collected 189 boxes with more still ...

You gotta love this pirate regardless of how mean she looks! We have been so unbelievably busy for the last 2 weeks but I promise to get on soon and post, hopefully later tonight.  I also wanted to get this picture posted for my parents - my amazing momma made her costume again this year.  We had a skating party on Wednesday so I tried to get a few pictures to show my mom and dad the sweet final product.  We have 3 more events which require costume so I am sure I will have no shortage of this Pirate at her best.  

I love to spend my Friday nights alone sitting in the computer room surfing the Internet reading blogs. Adoption, travel, home school and I especially love the country living style blogs.  One the new trends I have been seeing lately is the caulk board wall.  I am pleased to announce...I now have my very own caulk wall and I LOVE IT!! This was against my husbands better judgement, and my moms, my father-in-law, my friends - the list goes on but I persevered, stood my ground and did it.  I am so happy I did.  Jason now admits he is starting to like it and thinks it pretty cool he can write right on the wall. I think the little love notes that I have been leaving there for him at night could have something to do with his change of heart??  Sure, one day I'll out grow it and end up painting over it, but for now its all in good fun and looks fabulous.  It takes about 4 days to do, between the drying and conditioning....

She goes to bed looking like a shiney new penny, within an hour of being awake, she looks more like this!  As for school work, I thought that this was worthy of a photograph because it was the first day she actually enjoyed our handwriting lesson! It gets better every week!

A few weeks ago Olena and I spent the afternoon at a local nature center.  It was my first time here and I was very impressed.  I was however bummed that I didn't take more and/or better pictures so I hope to go back again soon.  They have 2 deer there name Sunshine and Serria.  Both are beautiful and very friendly, however one of them has a serious licking problem. HAHA.  Anytime I got within a few feet of the fench she would run over stick her head through and start licking my hands and arms.  Even when I tried to feed her, her first concern was to lick my hand before taking the offering.  Guess I am just too sweet! LOL! We were even able to spend a few hours inside of thier nature center showroom.   It was beautiful.  Fire place, cozy couchs, with tons of books.  Toys, lots of taxidermy animals and furs to touch...a sensory childs heaven.  They are usually only open on the weekends or during field trips but I calle...

 My mom found this Mantis at work and brought her home some time back in the early summer.  After Olena checked her out we released her into our garden.  We are very proud to say that she decided to stay and every day we got to see her at least once.  It was neat to watch her "move" from one part of the garden to the next over a course of a few weeks.  She started at the flower box on the far end from the porch, we would see her there hanging out on the Dahlias every day around 1:00p.  She stay there for a few weeks before she moved to the front of the porch and lived in some vine flowers we have there.  She would come out late afternoon and bask in the sun on the cement porch.  Then once fall hit and the mums bloomed she moved in there, and every day for hours she would sit right on top of the bush greeting us whenever we came or went :)  One afternoon I thought I better get a picture because this will be something neat for us to rememb...

I think about Olena's adoption often.  Not necessarily the fact that she is adopted but the experience, our time in Ukraine. Our time with her, our new friends and most heartbreakingly...all of the other kids.   I kept a journal during our time there, and to this day whenever I read my entries regarding the others, it brings tears to my eyes.   Looking at those 4 weeks from their eyes, it completely heart wrenching.  How awful it must be and feel to watch us leave, and leave them behind.  I have read that if every Christian would adopt just 1 orphan,  there wouldn't be any left in the world.  That is something amazing to think about. With that being said, my purpose of this post is to let you all know about Operation Christmas for Mykolayiv.  This is the baby house 19, Where Olena, (Lyra and Angelina) were adopted from.  Other families that have been blessed enough to find their children waiting for them there...

A young couple moves into a new neighborhood. The next morning while they are eating breakfast, The young woman sees her neighbor hanging the wash outside. "That laundry is not very clean", she said. "She doesn't know how to wash correctly. Perhaps she needs better laundry soap." Her husband looked on, but remained silent. Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, The young woman would make the same comments. About one month later, the woman was surprised to see a Nice clean wash on the line and said to her husband: "Look, she has learned how to wash correctly. I wonder who taught her this." The husband said, "I got up early this morning and Cleaned our windows." And so it is with life. What we see in our lives Depends on the purity of the window through which we look This was in my email the next morning after I boo-hooed in my last blog post! Believe it or not, the person ...

The mid-year or maybe mid-life crisis is upon me.  I have lost all physical and mental stability that I had.  I am tired, extremely unmotivated,  brain dead and emotional.  I have already had 2 mini melt downs about homeschooling - fearing my ability and decision.  Every time I try to read something I don't comprehend a darn word, it is like my brain is completely fogged over.  I also have a pity party going on in my head for myself.  I have not been necessarily depressed on the outside but the thoughts are constantly going and it seems like it never rests. I can tell I am on over drive because I have crazy off the wall very vivid dreams when this happens, and so far for the last 2 weeks this has been the case nearly every night After some thinking and praying last night I thought about this... if a person is not growing, then they are dying.  Growth is something I can honestly say has not h...

Tuesday (tomorrow) marks the start of a new begining for Jason and I.  We have decided to start the Nutrisystem Program in conjuction with juicing.  If you are not familiar with NS they mail you prepackaged astonaut food (not really but that is what it reminds me of) and with that you are suppose to eat lots of veggies and some fruit.  Instead of added that by eating it, we will juice instead! We set everything up yesterday and had a practice run......EEEWWWW is all I can say about that.  I did manage to get it down but from this point forward I vow to use a recipe instead of just guessing.  We had way too much cucumber and lemon, very bitter and I burped up cucumber all day long! This morning was carrot, apple and strawberry.... a much much better combination.  As for Olena, she loves it too.  She juiced her own cup of OJ this morning and drank some of what Jason made with the veggies.  I love that she is such a health food junkie!   ...

Well I wasn't fully prepared for the first day of school but all morning she kept asking me "can we do school today please!!", so I improvised and we worked with what we had.  Unfortunately I waited until the last minute to order a few of her books and they have not come yet so we worked on Math (math-u-see) along with some reading review from Starfall.   It took her a few times to catch onto the Lesson in math but after about an hour she started to get comfortable with it.  I figured we will work on that Lesson one more time this week before going to the next.  As for Startfall, she breezed right through.  I am making her start back at the beginning for review from last year because we have not spent a lot time practicing our reading this summer.  I was happy to see how well she jumped back in.  Last night we also started reading Jack London's White Fang.  She sat on her bed and looked through her picture books while I read ...

I am panicking a bit, not nearly as prepared as I would like to be but school is starting next week and I know that Olena will be thrilled.  I had full intentions of schooling through the summer but with work and my cousins son staying with us a few days a week, it just never worked out.   She loves doing school work and I know she has been a bit bummed we haven't done much lately.  Today she raided the school closet and pulled out all of the workbooks and sat in her room working on them.  Hopefully she maintains that enthusiasm throughout her life!!  I figured I would share what we will be working on this year. 1st grade! Science: Exploring Creation with Zoology. She is absolutely obsessed with animals so I figured this was hands down the number 1 choice. Math: Math U See Olena is a kinesthetic learner.  This means she learns better by using her hands and manipulative's.  This program does exactly that, by incorporating math blocks...

We stayed in a gorgeous 5 bedroom, 4 bath cabin called Norton's Creek Hideaway in Pigeon Forge. It was cozy, warm and  it was the perfect size for all 14 of us.   It sat on a pretty big piece of property and had a beautiful creek that ran right through the "front yard". There was a complete wrap around porch with a porch swing and several old rockers, which is where us adults spent lots of our time. The sounds of nature and the creek made for perfect relaxation and plenty of entertainment for the kids. I only wish we could have stayed longer.

To see it bigger, just click on the collage. 

After the Kissacks left on Sunday afternoon the Whites and us decided to go for a drive through Cades Cove.  It was a very pretty drive! Angelina and Olena  Olena was taking tons of pictures with my old camera...she took this one of the Whites!

These are not very good pictures, sorry.  Playing down in the creek.  She had a fabulous time hanging out with the boys too.  She followed them around all weekend trying to do everything they do!   She fell a few times trying to keep up with them but she was a trooper, jumped right back up and kept on going.