Fall in Michigan

We discovered a beautiful walking trail a few miles from our home. It was such a perfect fall day this past Sunday, we decided to spend the morning walking through the woods. It was gorgeous and very relaxing. It was about 3 miles and she walked the entire way without too much complaining. Towards the very end, mommy did get stuck carrying her on my shoulders.

can you say DIVA!

She looks like a movie star!

Daddy and Olena

sunday afternoon play time is always fun.

She was fasinated by these Christmas statues, but she kept her distance. She made sure that there was a safety space between her and all non living creatures :)

Trying to get just one "good" posed picture of her is impossible. I try to get her sitting in the garden and I get a picture that looks like she is pooping on a rock.

Mommy and Olena

Aunt Rickie (aka Toot-ta) and Olena

Olena after a tough day of play!

A day of fun.

This guy was just trying to scratch his butt on the shelf that was hanging on the wall, then here comes Miss Olena.

Her and the cockatoo seemed to understand each other just find. Don't ask me what they were saying but they carried on a full blown conversation -

She was trying to talk some sense into this goat.

She kept telling him..."goat. stay. Lana ride....o.k.?? just stay.

Over the weekend we went to Windsor to hang out at Aunt Rickies house. We stayed the night and then went to Calasanti's on Saturday morning. They have a small petting zoo, which Olena loved! (She tried to ride the goats on several occasions - poor animals) and we got to see some scarey Halloween decorations. I was laughing to hard to take pictures of those priceless memories, but lets just say mommy observed Olena and Aunt Rickie running in the other direction on several occasions.

Waiting patiently...

She goes to gymnastics on Wednesday morning. This is her waiting "impatiently" last Wednesday. She was very annoyed that we were taking so long.

Getting ready for Halloween

I decided to let her practice cleaning a pumpkin on a small one we got at the fair. She loved it, and dived right in! she even loves the seeds that we baked.

This is her scarey face....she is scaring for candy!

Birth Family Search!

FYI: Gene, our translator, has some spare time over the next few months so if you are interested in completing a birth family search - he is available. He will travel anywhere in Ukraine, and his costs are very reasonable. He completed one for us back in the Spring and we were extremly happy with the results.

Email me if you are interested in his services and I will share his contact information with you.

I know that this is long over due, sorry. I honestly just don't feel like I have anything exciting to write about so I don't bother. I just don't want to bore anyone. But, it seems that Mrs. Tonya Kissack has an issue with the fact that I have not updated so I figured it was time :) (wink wink)

BTW, have any of you logged onto the Kissack and/or White's blog? OMG these girls are so beautiful. I am not being bias but I really think that "our" orphanage has some of the best babies in Ukraine. I was reading Tonya's post about Lyra not having any memory of her days there, and the same is true for Olena. We have played the video recording several times and I show her pictures and it doesn't even phase her. It is as if it never happened. I wasn't really worried, but I did find it strange that she wouldn't show some sign of remembering. Thanks Tonya for sharing, now at least I have an understanding of why!

Olena too shows absolutely no sign of institutionalized behavior. She is a perfect typical 2 year old girl. I had to laugh about Lyra's screaming issue because we too have this problem and I am honestly thankful that we are not the only ones suffering :) It is so awful. Loud, piercing and for some reason it always catches me off guard. She is so quick about it!! This morning I got it twice, once when I told her it was time to brush her teeth and again when I put her in the corner for doing it the first time - just great huh?!

She is smart as a whip. We were doing some Halloween crafts last night and I made a ghost and wrote the word BOO next to it. She picked up the picture, pointed to it and said "look mommy....BOO!" now yes, it was a very simple word, but I was so excited!! she will not even attempt to sing her ABCs, in fact the best I have ever gotten out of her, is literally ABC and that's it. Yet she can identity several letters of the alphabet. I stenciled nursery rhymes on her wall - back when I had nothing to do but wait for her to come home - and she will go up to the wall, point to a letter and say it! she manages to amaze me more and more every day.

She has no attachement problems. She is fully attached to Jason and I as well as my parents and her "toota" (her Aunt Rickie) and she is cautious of strangers. Besides the virus that all three of us had upon coming home, she hasn't been sick since. She got impetio back in the spring but I think that came from the daycare that I had her for a couple of weeks.

She has "school" for about 2 hours a day. We are currently working on 'pencil control' as I call it - I have her tracing letters and shapes. I bought her a dry erase book that has all of the letters and shapes are done in dotted lines so she can trace over them. She knows all shapes and all of her colors. She knows all of the numbers 1-10, but just like her ABCs she won't actually count! She now can sing "where is thumbkin", "hokey pokey", "I love you (Barney song)", and of course Patty Cake....oh and Baby it's Cold Outside by Dean Martin, which is one of her favorites - thanks to Dadu (gpa)

I have been thinking a lot about our trip lately, maybe because our 1 year "anniversary" is coming but I really miss Ukraine. I miss the kids from the groupa, the caregivers, the ladies selling sunflower seeds, the walk we took to the orphanage every day....it is just all so close to my heart. I can't imagine "having" children any other way :) I wish more than anything we could do it again, but I don't know if that is something that will repeat itself. I am very fond of Ukraine and our trip was perfect, but I don't have that feeling "pulling" me back there again. This adoption was something that was destined for me my whole life, I was born into this world to be this little girls mother, I just know it. I remember being 9 years old, playing with my Barbies, and having them adopt from "Russia" (and it was always a little girl. No boys for me!!) I know that part of me has been fulfilled, now I am just waiting for my next call of duty. We talk about it quite a bit and I definitely want at least 4 kids but right now is not the time. I have a few health issues that I must overcome and some personal goals that I need to achieve, so I know that we will wait for at least another year. The time will come. I am still clueless as to whether it be having home grown or adoption again but I know I will get the answer I need.

A few weeks back, we went to the Michigan/Ukrainian Angels Reunion. We had a great time. It was nice to see everyone again and see how much the kids have grown. Olena was great and was very well behaved - but then again she was getting a lot of attention and there never seems to be a problem when everyone is paying attention to Miss Olena :)

For someone who didn't have much to say, this sure is a long post! We have a big Halloween Party at my parents house this weekend so I will be sure to take lots of pictures and post next week. You will die, when you see how tall she is. Still no weight but she is growing like a bean. As of last week she was 34 inches tall and 24lbs and size 6 shoe! When we got home she was 19lbs and 28inches tall.

Sorry for babbling! stay tuned next week for new pics.

Mommy's definition of Beautiful!

Anxiously waiting for daddy to come home!

her and teddy taking their naps!

Don't get me wrong, my daughter is ALWAYS beautiful to me!! even when she is a complete brat...but this is the 'beautiful' that I love best!

Olena's definition of beautiful!

Today I really wanted to get the perfect picture of her in this little dress. It kills me how cute it is, I just want to eat her up :) Jason was calling her PeggySue all day, he said it looks like she walked right out of the 50s! Anyhow, whenever I pulled my camera out to try and snap a picture, she gave me this "pose" and said "Buful baby momma!". Good grief....

BTW, this dress is 24 months! and I bought her a pair of 24 month pjs and they fit her great! She is growing like a bean. Some stuff is still big but I would say this fall she should fit comfortably in an 18 months! The sweater I got on clearance in Canada for 1.99 :) at the Children's Place.

Pat-a-cake

FINALLY I have gotten one of my videos to post. I have been trying this for weeks.
Anyhow, I hope you enjoy. She is hard to understand in this video because this was about the tenth time she had me tape her....she kept saying "again momma....again" The first time she did it, it was perfect and clear throughout the whole song, but I cannot get it too post, too long I think?! AARRGG! anyhow I think this one is just as great (and cuter), it even shows a bit of her stuttering :)
In case you are lost in translation....
*pat a cake, pat a cake bakers man
*roooolllll it, pat it, ma ma ma ma ma mark a "B"
*put it, me and momma.
Seems she missed a few notes :)

She thinks she is sssoooo cool when she wear these boots!

This started out as washing dishes, and turned into making bubble beards!

Olena in her new BIG girl bed!

Life is tough being 2!

What my beautiful daughter looks like after a hard days play outside :)

Regarding Kissack Post

Tonya was talking about things that related to Lyra's adoption and asked for other parents' stories. Here are a few of mine.

• I had a dream in August of 2006 that Jay and I were camping with the family. I had a toddler in my arms with dark, very short hair, huge dark eyes and pudgy cheeks. She kept telling me that she was 2. My aunt also walked into our tent and she was pregnant, which really surprised me, and surprised the whole family. I called my grandma that morning and told her about the dream. I personally kept visualizing a blond hair blue eyed, 3 or 4 year old when I thought about our future daughter. Also nobody was expecting this particular aunt to get pregnant or have any more kids. Well while in Ukraine, we found our dark haired dark eyed 2 year old, and found out my aunt, the same one, was 2 months pregnant. Surprise!
• We have a friend who is clairvoyant. While at a bbq one night we were talking about the adoption and she told me that my future daughter was currently 9 months old. This was on the night of October 31, 2005. (Olena's bday is 1/20/2005) I laughed at her because at this time I was expecting to travel by December/January 2005- this was before the big shut down. I knew that my awaiting child would not be any younger than 15 months. If it was October and I would be travelling in a few months, than there is NO WAY my daughter is only 9 months old. Who would have thought at that time it would be well over a year before I actually did get to travel. And what do you know...Olena was exactly 9 months old in October of 2005.
• I starting keeping a journal when we began our adoption. On January 18, 2005 I wrote my "daughter" a letter. Expressed my excitement and how happy I was to be coming for her. We were in the process of waiting for the agency to send us the final home study. It is hard to imagine she hadn't even been born yet.
• We started the adoption process in May of 2004. That would be around the time that Olena's birth mother finds out she is pregnant.
• January 20, 2006 (Olena's first birthday) I received the "letter" via snail mail from the NAC that we will be considered for an appointment in 2006. Jason and I discuss backing out of the process because of the shut down.

I am sure that there are more but it doesn't matter, we were obviously meant for each other. There is no doubt in my mind. My dreams and heart have always been set on adopting a girl from Eastern Europe. It is like I always knew. The second Jason and I started talking family, I was determined to get this adoption completed. It is hard to explain and it is sort of Corny, but my heart has always been pulled in that direction. No matter how many times I considered backing out and no matter how mad I got, I knew that I would NEVER really quit. And now, even though I would love nothing more than to return, that pull is gone. I feel a great connection, but I truly think that chapter is closed. I am still waiting for the next "calling" but right now, it is time to focus on me and my health and then we'll see where our hearts lead us.

End of summer is here!

I have a lot to do yet tonight, but I thought I would check in and bring you up to date. Here are a few things that have happened lately...

We went to Northern Michigan and visited my great aunt and uncle who had not met Olena yet. We had a very restful and peaceful time. It was the refresher we needed. She was very well behaved and loved the idea that pretty much every waking moment of her days were spent outside.

I cut my hair off short, and I LOVE it. I had it short back when Jason and I started dating but I have let it grow out since then. I cut it on a whim and couldn't be happier. It is much easier and it is much prettier. I curl it in the morning, which only takes a few minutes, run my fingers through it and I am done. The best part is that it stays that way all day :) I love long hair but all I was doing was wearing it in a pony tail every day and I couldn't stand leaving it down.

Potty training was tried again and failed :( I am not getting frustrated because I can see that she is just not ready, but I am tired of paying for diapers. She just has no interest and has accidents all day long, and it doesn't phase her. I am getting pretty tired of cleaning up pee pee on my furniture. The pull ups feel just like diapers to her, she doesn't even flinch with the cold touch ones - and I can't find rubber pants small enough for her that actually hold the fluid in! It always runs out the legs. We'll try again in a few weeks.

Fall is around the corner! My favorite time of the year. And I am very excited about Olena experiencing Halloween. We have so many great orchards here in Michigan, my parents have a huge Halloween party which is always a lot of fun for the kids, we will be going to Huckleberry Railroad in Flint, and of course the fun of making her costume - well, my mom making the costume. She made everyone one of mine growing up and now she will continue the tradition and make Olena's. She is going to be a fairy - with a Halloween twist!! I am so excited!!! She loves wearing her wings around the house and loves the little fairy stickers that I put on the wall by her school desk so it seemed like the best idea. She is going to look so cool.

Not much progress in her learning since the last post. The pronunciation of her words is greatly improving however she has developed a pretty prominent stutter. It came out of no where. One day she started it and it was happening a lot. We had a feeling it was being done on purpose so we just ignored it. When it continued the next day, we started paying attention and would ask her to slow down when she was having trouble. It has now been about a week , and it is pretty frequent. You can even see her trying to "push" the word out. If you have ever seen the movie Paulie, about the talking parrot...her speech and actions are exactly like the little girl who stuttered. (No, Olena has never seen it.) I am assuming that her little mind is working a lot faster than her mouth can keep up. So I will wait it out. Strangely enough, I myself stuttered when I was a toddler, I out grew it before going into kindergarden and I am fine now. I will admit, every once in a while I will catch myself doing it. Seems she has "inherited" this from me! If anyone has any specific ideas as to what I can do to help her deal with it better please let me know.

That just about covers everything. I posted a few pictures below. Enjoy!

Is she Polish? or Ukrainian? In this outfit, I'm begining to wonder?

Can you at least crack a smile for me? Not a single one out of about 25 pictures would she smile for me. I was trying to capture the moment....she is 'wearing' her first set of side ponytails. Her hair is just long enough.

Doing school work praticing letters. This table is the best thing in the world. A family friend gave it to me, it was her girl's table. The top was marked up so I used chalk board paint - now she has a place to color for fun and to practice writing letters and drawing shapes. It is great when we are doing school work.

Hangin out in Canada, A!

We spent the day at my best friend, Rickie's house in Canada. Granted Rickie sees Olena all week (she is her nanny) Rickie loves to have her over for a visit. They live on a 'bush' so their house and yard are infested with every kind of imaginable bug...which drives me absolutely crazy. Hornets, spiders, crickets, crickets and more crickets, frogs, grass hoppers, beetles galore...it is paradise for the local birds....and my daughter, the bug freak. Uncle Dan was cutting the grass and standing on their deck looking down, it looked like a bug city. There were bugs up the waazoo crawling in the grass, eeewwwwhhh! Olena couldn't stop laughing. So Toycha (aka Rickie) got the bug jar and they went hunting. The big catch of the day was Hopper the grass hopper. This bug was a mutant I swear! This was by no means a normal size bug! When we let him loose on the deck Olena kept poking it in the butt to make it jump! Now that was funny :)

Ladies day at the zoo!

Olena, my mom and I took a day over the weekend and went to the zoo. It was great for just the three of us to spend some time together but it was a last minute decision and it was hot as hell! We sweated our butts off and hardly none of the animals were out because of the heat! O'well, but all in all we had some good quality time together. In a few weeks, once things began to cool down, perhaps we will return, but this time with daddy! She really liked the butterfly house. She was completely amazed about seeing them flying all around. **she has a strange fondness of flying objects?** I tried to get a few good pics but a hot and cranky toddler doesn't usually like to cooperate with mommy and the camera.

Olena protesting another picture in the butterfly house.
mommy and Olena watching the 1 seal that was actually swimming in the Artic aquarium.

She LOVED the huge water fountain that they have there. We had to stand there and watch it for about 10 minutes. She was probably hoping I would tell her we could go swimming.

FYI: this post refers to a video - but that video is not here. I have been trying all night to download it and I finally thought I got it but I was wrong. A 30 second video clip has been attempting to download for over 9 hours now so I am thinking that I am doing something wrong! I will try again later today! Sorry guys.

The wind is finally back in our sails, and we are trudging forward. It has been an AWFUL and very stressful 2 weeks. My little Angel has returned and she is cute as ever, as you can see from the new video!! Olena has had a few (couple dozen) crabby and bad girl days...they were everyday....every waking minute....and I was at the end of my rope. Nothing changed in the way we were doing things or even what we were doing. She just woke up being a whinny, impatient, tantrum throwing, naughty little girl and she stayed that way for a few weeks. Then late last week she woke up the old Olena and we have been fine ever since?? kids can really test your sanity.
I guess this is too be expected, not just from a typical toddler but an adopted toddler as well. Perhaps she just really needed to put us to the test to see if we were really sticking around?? Maybe she was grieving?? more so lately she has taken an interest in the Ukraine pictures and she never really cared before. She was actually speaking fluent Russian to the lady at my dad's work who was trying to communicate with her using Polish?!? who knows her reason, but she was God awful!! Please forgive me for saying that but it is the honest to goodness truth! Nothing mad her happy, she threw fits constantly, no type of punishment was working in fact every time we punished it made things worse and last even longer....we were tough though we didn't give in. But that is what made it even harder because we were dealing with 30-45 minute tantrums, one right after the other! It really starts to test your strength as husband and wife too! Now that it is over, we have very much enjoyed our daughter and have spent a lot of time together lately just having fun.
Lots of work has been going on too. We got the living room painted, finally. I am disappointed in our decision to use semi-gloss because our house is old, and the walls are not in the greatest shape. The semi-gloss shows a lot of flaws. Not sure why we did it anyways...we know this, and we have painted in our house several times and every time we have used eggshell. I think that the both of us were just so emotionally and mentally drained that we just didn't care. We painted at night, so we didn't even realize the stupid thing we did until the next morning. Oh well, I told Jason I would just hide all the bad parts with pictures :)
We also installed 4 new windows - and they look beautiful. We will continue to buy a few at a time when we get the extra money until the whole house is done! We did both the windows in Olena's room and now we can open them from the top, which is nice. No more little fingers pushing holes through my screens!!
Olena is doing great in all areas, expect the potty training still. We haven't even tried again because she gets so mad when we ask.
Here are some of the things she knows ; all colors, all basic shapes, she will not sing the ABCs but she is starting to identify letters...she knows A-E without help. She can count and recognize numbers 1-10, she will hold up her fingers and show you the corresponding numbers, she can name all 100 words in her picture dictionary, she talks in sentences but it is choppy, like "mommy, may I, cookie please", she is lacking the verbs but she tries to get out as much as she can and she will repeat herself correctly if I ask. She will name and locate all parts of her body...head, hair, eye, chin, cheek, lips, ears, neck, shoulders, elbow, wrist, fingers, belly, back, butt, legs, knees, ankles, thighs, toes, heals, and finally finger/toe nails! she is one smart cookie. She knows the sign language for all of the things in a home such as table, chair, refrigerator, bowl, cup, bed, etc., and apparently from the video she knows all of the dance moves to High School Musical!! Sorry for the gloating but this is her "baby's first year" diary, so this will all be important to her one day, I'm sure.

News in Ukraine: looks like everyone will be waiting a little longer before coming home with the new little ones. The Ukrainian Government has issued a 10 days wait for the child's passport. This adds another 10 days in addition to the 10 days you have to wait to get your court decree. Unfortunately you need to get the court decree to apply for the passport :(
I know it is so easy to criticize the system, but the rules are the rules, and to be honest, I would just bite the bullet and deal with it. This little girl, by all means, is worth another 10 day wait. Yes it is just another way for them to make money off of adoptive parents, but that is the cost of international adoption and it is a "fee" you are going to pay regardless of where you go in this world. At some point, of every one's journey, you will line the pockets of someone who is only in it for the money, and you will encounter a rule/law that you will not agree with. But so what?? If you have chosen to adopt you are already showing strength, you are one of the one's who got over the negative aspects of adoption and moved on to receiving one of the greatest gifts that life can give, the chance to care for a child that someone else couldn't - and a chance to teach them to love! To any new perspective parents, don't let this change your mind, and don't let it discourage you. There are too many perfect children out there waiting for a family. We waited 2.5 years. I was neurotic, depressed, and thought that I would NEVER get to Ukraine, but I look back now and it was all just a small moment in time, for a life time of happiness. IT IS ALL WORTH IT!! TRUST ME!

My beautiful baby!

I wanted to get a few "natural' pictures of her just being Olena! Teddy is really hers. One of her best friends in fact. Jason and I bought him 1 week before we left for Ukriane, with the intentions of taking it with us, but we forgot. But since the second we came home, he is has always been by her side! He even occasionally misbehaves and Olena puts him in the corner - it is really cute to watch!

Anyhow, I thought I would share the pictures, they turned out so good. I was really happy. I got the one of her and teddy looking at each other in sepia tone and I am going to put it on my newly painted living room wall.