the Life of Olena

This is the book that Olena is in the process of writting and illustrating for her co-op class.  They have to tell a circular story such as the series by By Laura Joffe Numeroff With that being said, I introduce to you, (the begining of at least) If you give a Tiger a Tomato Written and Illustrated by Olena Warchol. To be continued...

My weekend was spent in Windsor Canada with Rickie - my best friend - helping her with some wedding chores.  We had to shop wedding boutiques crowed with lots of chatty women and we had to assemble and stuff wedding invites. Olena couldn't join us, due to the fact that busy mommy still hasn't made time to take her to the post office to get her passport renewed! it expired a few weeks ago, so now it is impossible for me to take her over the border!  It all worked out for the best.  She got to spend the day with her cousin playing, and Rickie's wicked bridezilla was not able to scare the pants off my kid.  Yes, my very best friend is a completely unruley bride-to-be.  She is sassy, demanding and not very nice.  But I sigh a breath of patience and try to remember that this is a woman who has been waiting about 14 years to get married.  I know it will never ruin our friendship, I don't think much of anything ever could, but it is enough to driv...

Jan 2007 - 2 year well visit. She was 19 lbs and 31 inches tall. Fast forward to last year.  Feb of 2011 - 6 year well visit. She was up to 29 lbs and 39.5 inches tall.  We steadly climbed up roughly 2 lbs and 2 inches every year. Now, Jan 2012 - 7 year well visit. She puts on her little hospital gown, stands to be measured for her height.....42 inches. Ok our usual 2 inches.  Then she stands on the scale... drumroll please.............................. 39.5 lbs.   10.5 lbs in 11 months.  I almost fell out of my chair.  I couldn't believe it.  I told the medical assistant her scale was wrong and she giggled.  I said "no seriously, according to the scale you are telling me my daughter gained more this year than in the last 4 years."  She just giggled again, wrote down the numbers on the paper, and started fishing back through the chart looking at last years numbers.  You could see her face start to get a look of concern and...

Not that I believe it, but my baby is already 7...and yes I can call her my baby because she still is! :) It is always hard for me to process just how old she is. The fact that she is so small and that I missed the first 2 years, always makes me feel 2 years behind. I told her we should have gone backwards from 6 and did 5 all over again because 5 just feels right. She did not necessarily agree with me on that. Hey, it was worth a shot. Her birthday was on Friday but Jason works afternoons and I didn't want him to miss out on anything so we waited until Saturday night and invited a few friends and family members over for a delicious cake and some ice cream. I figured after a couple of hours everyone would go home and we would have an early night...but boy was I wrong. It turned out to be a late night, with a house full of people, lots of laughs, and lots of fun. Olena didn't even go to bed until almost midnight....a first for her. The latest she has ever stayed up is 10:3...

My littlest equestrian! This is her last week sporting her new riding gear that she got for her birthday. She got the fleece lined and padded riding pants, the fleece riding coat, the helmet and face warmer, as well as a pair of leather riding gloves. She thinks she is so cool now! The horse she has been riding is named Kidd (see him here)   I tried to put his picture on the blog but it is secured.  Unfortunately the light has been awful since they have been riding in the indoor arena but once they get outside I will get some better pictures of her on the horse instead of the just modeling the clothes! :) Here is a little bio about Kidd... Registered Name: M&M Kidd Donated By: Ann Crawford Arrived At Banbury: June, 2008 Birthdate: April 20, 1991 Nickname: Kid-A-Roo Color: Bay Roan Breed: Appaloosa Height: 15.3 Hands Kidd has become an instant favorite. His demeanor is similar to that of a gentle giant. While he stands pretty tall, he is tolerant of any...

A few random pictures taken over the course of 2011 with my mom's camera. She let me borrow it until mine is fixed and when I downloaded the card I was able to get a few extra pictures that I didn't have before :)

I know it seems I already feel off the wagon by not posting all weekend, but you are wrong!! I have been writing down a few sentences everyday. I have just been so swamped I haven't had time to log onto the blog and type everything out.  We had an extremely busy weekend but it was filled with lots of good company and tons of laughing.  My sides are still aching because of it :) but right now I have dinner to cook, a little girl to get to bed, some reading to get done and some sleep to catch up on, so I promise tomorrow I will get everything posted and bring you up to date! Ta ta for now.

It is late, I have been up since 4:30 and I am whipped. My truck broke down...but thankfully it happened while I was at my parents house. So it now sits in their barn until Jason can get out there on Saturday to fix it. In the mean time I am driving mom's car.  Today was a simple day.  We had riding lessons which went really well.  Olena received some wonderful gifts from my parents and had all new riding gear today.  I will get some pictures up maybe over the weekend.  (my mom is letting me borrow her camera for a little while) Olena's 7th birthday is tomorrow! I cannot believe it.  I am sure I will have more emotions to share about that tomorrow night.  Lots to do still. 

Can You Guess What McDonald’s Food Item This Is? Say hello to mechanically separated chicken. It’s what all fast-food chicken is made – things like chicken nuggets and patties. Also, the processed frozen chicken in the stores is made from it. Basically, the entire chicken is smashed and pressed through a sieve — bones, eyes, guts, and all. it comes out looking like this. There’s more: because it’s crawling with bacteria, it will be washed with ammonia, soaked in it, actually. Then, because it tastes gross, it will be reflavored artificially. Then, because it is weirdly pink, it will be dyed with artificial color. But, hey, at least it tastes good, right?  And I love how everyone I show it to says, "hey don't show me that or I will never eat McDonalds again!"........REALLY!!!  Olena may be upset but I am not really sure I am too willing to give her a Happy Meal again any time soon.  Source: http:// docakilah.wordpress.com/ 2011/05/11/ can-you-gu...

This was sitting unnoticed in my draft box.  I read it today and had to chuckle because it was written quite awhile ago, back when I just started homeschooling.  I remember the day I wrote it, I was flustered because of comments from the family regarding our choice to homeschool.  I can laugh now, but I use to be a bit defensive .   I have been asked the question a few times...why do you home school Olena? And we definitely have family that feel that way.  With the way I seem to stress with juggling work and homeschooling it seems that it would be easier to send her to public school.  Believe me...the thought has crossed my mind a few times throughout this process.  The doubt only lasts seconds though because my reasons for homeschooling heavily outweigh any other choices I feel we have.   One thing I do find surprising is why everyone considers us (the homeschooling community as a whole)  "out of the norm".  P...

Today we had a fabulous day of school.  We studied horses.  Labelled parts of it's body, read about their senses and behaviors.  We also learned the proper names for their colors and markings.  Which I found pretty interesting myself. She goes to therapeutic equestrian classes at Banbury Cross and they have all of the horses pictures and a biography on their website so we then went there, and she had to distinguish what color each one was and what marks they had using the reference web page. She really enjoyed it, and I know tomorrow once we get to class she is going to be pretty geeked about sharing her new knowledge.  We also had a HUGE break through in math today.  As I have mentioned before addition and subtraction has been a bit of a struggle for us.  Today we went onto Starfall to do something a bit different and they added a new add/subtract game.  She was hooked and within a few minutes she caught on and was ad...

Today was start of Olena's second semester of co-op.  She has "We Love Books" and "Outdoor Survival" I am the teachers aid for W.L.B because it has over 23 first through third graders! Then, Ms Locke, in Outdoor class said she would probably need a hand when it comes to building shelters and the hands on activities too.  Guess that means the 2 hours of reading time that mommy was looking forward too, won't quite be in the schedule this semester.  It's ok, I like being there with her, and it gives me a chance to watch over her.  She is smart as a whip and truthfully I don't have too much trouble keeping her attention here at home.  She will easily work on a project for 30-40 minutes if it interest her enough.  But oh my...what a difference a classroom makes.  This girl is in complete lala land the entire 2 hours.  She is so busy looking at everyone else, copying what they do, and fiddling around in her seat.  And it is never without fail, she...

I read a story on line about a man who had a journal and devoted to writing at least one sentence everyday...something simple about anything that may have happened or how he was feeling.  He said he planned on making copies and giving them to his sons once they were adults.  I got to thinking what a wonderful idea.  We often go through our days not noticing or being grateful for even the simple moments in life.  And then they are gone...and we don't ever think about them or even remember them for that fact, ever again.  This blog is similar to my journal and I plan on having it around for Olena so I am going to make this idea one of my new daily tasks.  A few sentences everyday. With that being said... Today, my cousin Kevin (21 years old) babysat Olena for the first time ever and at his house.  I am so happy that she has him in her life.  Neither Jason or I have any brothers, so she doesn't get to experience th...

Olena was fussing the other day so I looked at her told her if kept crying I would call the "WAH-mbulance."  of course she thought that was hiliarous and stopped her fake crying.  It was nothing we have ever said around here before, it just came to me and we thought it was funny.  Fast forward to last night...she was reading a book to me before bed.  It was way past her bed time (due to guest being over for dinner) and I knew she was too emotional to deal with much but she was determined to read the book.  She was getting stuck on a few hard words...(exubuerent) and started to fuss again but would not let me help her or see the word.  I put my face in my hands in frustration because I just wanted her to get some sleep but I didn't want to unmind her efforts.  All of sudden I feel this little wet finger shoved in my ear and she belts out "what's wrong mommy??...should I call the WAH-mbulance?" Truthfully I don't know what was funnier...the wet ...

In Michigan mid-January should be a time of ice skating, sledding and shoveling.  But not this year. We have barely even seen a snowflake.  Instead of ice skating Olena has been roller skating up and down the street.  Lots of people complain about the snow, but I love it.  The smell, the twinkle, the crunching sound when you walk on it....I love it all!  I imagine that either we will have primarily a wet rainy winter OR we will get blasted with snow in Feb and it will stick around until June! That is something that could easily happen here.  Hopefully soon! We have had a pretty mellow few weeks.  My Kindle broke which I was really upset about.  I had just bought 3 new books, turned it on to download them and nothing.  The screen went all crazy on me.  When I called Kindle support they so kindly said "oh yeah that's a defect but your warranty ended last week".  I was so bummed.  I had just read the last paper book I have in the...

So here I sit, house is quiet, dark and warm.  Once again I find that I am lost in thought instead of working on the 1 million things on my TO DO list.  It is 2012 and I find the need to "renew"....but renew what? this has been something on my mind for several weeks now, and while I had strongly hoped that come January 1st it would hit me like a brick, and I would start living this renewed life with such joy and success....well, hhmmm...... here I sit still in deep thought.  Thoughts about what you ask? EVERYTHING! It is kind of hard to explain without sounding like a complete raging lunatic but I really feel like I don't know myself.  Somewhere along the line, I lost that person.  My life...a whole series of events made me who I am today, but yet this person is not really me, is it?  Don't get me wrong, I have a lovely life.  A fabulous husband who has walked this rocky road of marriage with me through good and bad.  I am blessed with the ...