the Life of Olena

Adoption is Ukraine is very unique. In this way I mean that there is one agency, within Ukraine of course, that is in charge of ALL adoptions. Agencies have no place in Country and are not allowed to operate there at all. The reason for this is simple, Black Market Baby selling. Back in the 90s, agencies would pay hospital staff to "supply" them with healthy babies. When a mother would come in and give birth she would often be told her baby did not survive. The truth being that the hospital was paid to give the baby to the agency who would turn sell it to hopeful parents from other countries. Some babies were even taken right from the mother's once they were home. Sad huh? I personally know a few adoptive parents who have found that this was the case with their adoptive children. Imagine being told that your child's birth parents have died, a true orphan. Then down the road a few years later, the truth is you adopted a kidnapped baby. A mother somewhere on the other ...

Yesterday Olena and I were working on Starfall for her reading lessons. The game she was playing was a picture of the kitchen, with letter blocks (similar to a cross word) and she had to match the correct words to the labeled items. So we start to go through it and she is doing just fine.... refrigerator , stove, oven, sink, table, and then the mysterious item - the microwave! When we got to the mystery microwave, she just sat there for a few moments staring at it. Me: Well Olena what is that? O: I don't know. Me: lets try to read the word. Sound it out. (My hopes were that she would start sounding it out and then item recognition would kick in. After working the word for a few minutes she was able to realize that is started with MICRO) Me: OK Olena think about it. micro....... O: Micro WHAT? Me: break it up, what does the second half say. (after a few more minutes we establish the second half says wave. but now I am slightly confused because yes she is figuring out the word, ...

To make a long story short my coworker came to work all excited over these adorable tutus she just bought for her girls online. She shows me this website of a very quaint little mom run baby boutique and she shows me these cute but rather basic tutus - however they were $40 each. OH MY! I couldn't believe it. Don't get me wrong, they were cute, but I would never in my right mind pay $40 for a tutu. So the Martha Stewart side of me kicked in, I went home and tackled the project myself....using over 90 yards of 6inch tulle I was able to make a darling tutu! Which I took to work and showed her. She LOVED it, and I told her I could sell them for $25 each....she ordered 4! and now I am in business. I have 10 orders that I am currently working on and I figured why not. It is easy for me to do, it doesn't take up too much of my time, and I can use the money I make to put towards the adoption. With that being said...if any of you lovely blogger friends are interested. I am taking o...

Peasant soup is one of my favorite soups...just a mix of whatever you have left in the frig (of course within reason) I am sitting here thinking about what to write, and apparently what to have for dinner. I figured this post may be a little like peasant soup - a mix of whatever is floating around in this head of mine. One thing I noticed that I did not post about is that I did attend the National Home School Conference in Cincinnati Ohio. It was amazing. I attended the one in Lansing last summer but that was Michigan based, this one was HUGE!! My usual sidekick partner in crime/BFF/"adoptive" sister I never had, Rickie, joined me for the weekend. We had a great time and I got lots of good stuff. I really wanted to get the Math-U-See program last year but couldn't justify spending that much money for the beginning of Kindergarten when my husband wasn't working...so I put if off. This year, well lets just say my "reasoning" didn't really help much this ti...

The title of this post is a question I have heard a lot lately. The funniest part of it, is that it always comes after the 45 second moment of silence that followed the fact I just told them that we are pursuing another adoption from Ukraine....of a HIV child. .................................. let me guess what you're thinking? Why would we want to do that? There are actually lots of reasons, but my main reason..... I prayed for it. I prayed for a larger family, another child....anyway He found fit; adoption, foster care, biological - hey I am open to suggestions. :) That is when information about HIV orphans started falling into my lap. Every new blog I found seemed to mention HIV children, a good friend directed me to a few sites with special needs children and I always found myself searching the database of HIV orphans. At first, I truthfully didn't give it a second consideration. Until one night while, again, praying for "answers" I fell asleep to the words of......

So I am avid follower of the blog A Bowl Full of Lemons , and I love it. I have been dying to get my home as organized as hers so I finally tackled a few projects over the weekend. I have to admit there is nothing better than opening the door to such a clean and organized space, it brings such peace to the day :) Hall/Linen closet. I made sure I had 2 sets of sheets and pillow cases for each bed. Everything else, went to goodwill this morning. They all now perfectly fit in the big tote on the top. Before, every time you pulled something out an avalanche of linens would fall on your head. And often this was fixed by just shoving everything back up there. Make up and Meds are in the mesh baskets that pull right out of the frames so that I can look through it easily. The large tall tote holds stuff like shampoo, toothpaste, extra vitamins, and lotions. Lower shelf, as you can see it towels and wash clothes. I got the box from the grocery store and it holds my hand towels perfectly so...

She doesn't have many hanging clothes, so what few items she has are in my closet. Instead we use this space for toys. One, this avoids the extra space that a toy box requires, and of course it allows for a much more organized space. It also make it easier for me to go through all of the toys quickly every few weeks to rid the collection of any broken and/or unnecessary aquired junk!! thankfully I found time to clean her carpet and I have to say I am very impressed with myself. It turned out beautiful. I scrubbed all of the spots (marker, muddy foot prints - kids and dogs - and only God knows what else) with a baking soda paste, and then I used the carpet cleaning machine with a little bit of softner (for smell) and a little bit of soap! Looks great huh?! organization for the DVDs and other media. She is working hard huh? After I finally opened the door and let her after a full day of forbidding her entrance. She came in laid on the bed, covered up and said "aahh, it is grea...

A few advantages to this - 1. my floors get cleaned 2. the puppy gets his excerise 3. both are fully entertained for at least an hour!!

I am worn out and beat to the bone tonight but I do have lots to share and talk about so stay tuned this week and I will update as soon as I can. Enjoy a few pics.

Today we finally had some beautiful weather. It was in the mid 70s, a bit too cold to swim so since she was driving me crazy to put her suit on and play in the water, we decided to have some fun in the mud! Not sure what this is....Kung Fu Mud fighting I think :) She was thinking about what she wanted to do next. This is her look of satisfaction. water+dirt=one extremely happy 6 year old. I love the butt!

This was my solution to a daughter who was insisting all day that we needed to find a way to make a tree fort. A kid table set, a flat sheet and about 6 binder clips and you can build anything! She loved it, and at least it was out of my way unlike the usual big fort built right in the middle of my living room.

It has been so unseasonably cold, this is what us Michiganders have had to resort to...long johns and our bathing suits :) LOL. I told her it was still too cold to swim so she came out of her room with "just the right solution!" and those were her exact words. On a side note, my daughter has the strangest fashion sense.

Not too much to chime in about these days. The gloomies have been here for about the past week. Everyone is sick of cold weather and snow, Michigan is very unseasonably cold and we just want to be outside and have the windows open. We started a herb garden in the house a few weeks back and they were looking great. We had lots of little sprouts and decided to put them on the porch one sunny afternoon. Well, I forgot about them. The next morning when walking outside at 6am in the morning to go to work...there they sat...frozen as a popsicle. Darn it! I tried spraying them with water but they just wilted and never came back. I still had lots of seeds left so I spent some time over the weekend replanting everything. I have been doing a lot of soul searching these last few weeks. I have a strong urge for a makeover...not a physical one - though I could use it...but a spiritual one. I have been trying to view things in my life through different color lenses. Re-evaluating everything I do and...

Before. After! and I have to say I LOVE IT. now the room is even more fabulous because it is so well lite, bright, and refreshing.

I am way to tired for much more than pictures tonight. It was a bit of a better day and it was the first beautiful day of the year so we took advantage of it, cut school short and spent a few hours at the park. Then we hit Target to use a gift certificate for some new summer clothes and some shopping at the fruit market. My patience was even a bit more under control today - but it helped that Olena was as sweet as peach pie. On the way home she asked if she could ride her bicycle when we got home. I told her it was in the shed and that after I carried the groceries in I would go out and get it for her. She so sweetly replied, "that is nice of you mommy, I will be sure to use my patience and let you get your chores done before helping me." My heart swelled and I was gently reminded once again just how blessed I truly am.

This is what it looked like after only wiping it out. This weekend I plan to tackle those stains with a brillo pad. But for as bad as it was, this is amazing. Spray with water, sprinkle baking soda, spray with water again and leave overnight. In the morning I scraped it with a spacula and wiped it down with rag I forgot to take the before picture but here you can still see the nasty it is!

I have no idea why but I have completely lost all patience the last few days. Deep in the pit of my stomach there is this anxiety that is just eating away at me and the only thing it is good for is making me short fused. I don't have any particular stress going on and nothing to really worry about in my life but it is there, and I can't make it go away. Any tiny bit of arguing that my hubby gives me, just jabs at my side and makes me bite my tough to avoid speaking the very unGodly words I am thinking. I could share the long list of things that Olena is doing that is driving me out of mind this week, but for the sake of my good heart and fact that I am trying to draw in some kind of positive energy tonight, I will throw that list away. Something I will whine about is the fact that this little girl NEVER STOPS TALKING!!! I tried to vent to my mom yesterday in some hopes that she would understand and come up with some magic answer but instead, all I got where a few good l...

Olena has a big issue with getting her nails clipped. This has been a problem since bringing her home and though it has improved a bit in four years, it is still a 45 minute fight just to trim her fingers and toes. She has never been hurt - she just has a problem with it due to her sensory disorder - she is extremely over sensitive when it comes to her feet or hands. I am cutting her nails the other day.... O: do you have to cut the baby one too? M: Yes! O:NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO, not the baby one OK? M: I have to, it's really long O: NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO, its my dragon claw. M: I still have to cut it O: NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOO, just leave it ok! Leave them all. I can do it. M: how? you don't know how to use the clippers. O: like this! (as she attempts to put her toes in her mouth and act like she biting the nails off) M: that's just wrong....not to mention disgusting. I need to cut them. Please give me your foot. O: (as nervous as be) just wait a minute.....**big sigh**....(gr...