the Life of Olena

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...