A few of my favorites!

It's been tough!

Olena riding Shadow

This is Brandy

I just love this picture, not sure why. It just seems so simple.

My little farm girl!

Just as the title states....it has been tough. These past few weeks my little darling has officially made her transition into the terrible twos :( We are back to throwing tantrums when we don't get our way. It is nowhere near as bad as when we come home, but nonetheless they happen. It is somewhat comical to watch because she dramatically runs and lunges forward throwing herself onto the floor. The second she hits the floor she jumps back up and does it again in another direction - oh and with no regard to what is in the way. She has met several pieces of furniture up close and personal the past two weeks. I have also resorting to sending her to bed when she is bad or out of hand. We were using the corner but the new fits have including slamming her head on the wall while in the corner. Today she caught the corner of the door jam and ended up with a big egg on her head so the safest place for her to be is in the bed. I don't let her get off the bed and she has to lay there until her mood changes.

We have also put the potty training on hold. There is no training involved anymore. She knows what to do and when to do it, she just doesn't want to. She did great for about two weeks, then she just started going down hill. It got to the point where she didn't even try to go, she would just pee her pants and wait until we noticed. I am not going to waste money on pull ups either because she does the same exact thing. I even tried the cool touch and those just irritated her because they were cold, so she would just take it off and run around naked. I figured she obviously is not ready so we will just wait.

We have had many good days though and have been very busy. We went to my aunt and uncle's house, and went horse back riding. Olena did great. She wasn't scared one bit, and rode the horse like it was something she has done her whole life. It was crazy. She got right on, grabbed the saddle, and away she went. My aunt was very proud of her horse...I felt bad because she was so nervous having Olena up there. It was hot and the flies were biting the horse so he was a little jumpy. And as you will see in the pictures, this horse Shadow, was pretty big. We also went to the Cherry Festival and seen some beautiful chalk drawings. It reminded me of Mary Poppins. Many of these artist were high school students too, unbelievable. Then this past Sunday we had a ladies day and me, Olena and my mom spent the day at the beach. My little fish had a blast. She has no fear of the water, which is pretty scary. But she is trying to make herself swim so I would say next summer she will have the hang of it. No life preservers or floaties were allowed so she would walk out (of course I stayed right next to her) all the way until the water was at her mouth and she was on her very tippy toes. Then she would just "run" back and forth in the water, kicking and lifting herself out of the water and laughing her butt off. It was so funny! Another thing she loves about the beach is trashing the sand castles...even the ones that we didn't make. I felt so bad because all these little kids were working so diligently on their masterpieces and then here comes Olena. She would stake out the shore....find a victim....take off and just run right through the middle....then the run of victory -she would make a full circle around back to our chairs, hide out for a minute and just laugh!!! and yes, you could see the horns :) It kills me just how smart and clever she truly is. I know she is just laughing inside about how clueless we all are. She plays us for fools, I just know it :O)

Anyhow, enjoy the pics and I will update in a few weeks. We have a lot of plans coming up and we are getting ready to do some painting in the house, so things will be busy.

I have gotten a few comments and emails about her hair being so blond...in reality, yes it has lighten quite a bit but you can tell that it is 'sun bleached' ! I am sure that it will darken back up this fall. But the main reason it looks so light is because her skin has gotten so dark. I edit and brighten the photos, but to see her in person you can really see the change. We were talking to Gene about it and he said that B.M. has 'gypsy/Romanian' decent so that is why she is starting to show the 'olive' completion.

my little twerp was actually able to pattle this boat all around the pool. It was little a pattle boat but instead of using your feet, it has handles to use your arms. It took her some time to realize that she needed to use both arms at the same time instead of one at a time. She loved it.

All Yogi'ed out....she has on her Yogi tee shirt and camping hat.

The cooler was in the back of the truck and it sits high. We were too lazy to climb back there to get the drinks out so when we needed something we just lifted Olena over the side and had her get it!! Hey isn't that why we all have kids??? :)))

More pictures to come...

We just returned from another weekend of camping and Little Miss Olena was beside herself in joy! Actually me and daddy cheated a little and only camped one night, she spent Friday/Saturday with my parents, then Saturday/Sunday Jason and I joined the party. Overall she had a great time. It was Jellystone Camp Ground so she got to meet Yogi Bear and BooBoo which was probably the "best moment of her life" (at least up until this point) she thought that they were hysterical and she talked about them all weekend!!! She had lunch with Yogi and he sat on Dadu's (gpa) lap, of course that was funny!!!! Then she went on a wagon ride and Yogi kept getting off at camp sites and stealing their food and picnic baskets, this brought the girl to her knees in laughter especially when Yogi started to chase Dadu around the tree to get his sandwich. After dinner we got to boogie with Yogi at the dance party, and to top off the night we went on a glow stick walk with BooBoo! OMG!! can't you just feel the excitement! LOL! this extremely excited little girl was even talking about BooBoo in her sleep on Saturday night....good lord what will Disney World bring??? I did get a few pictures so I will post in a day or too, at this moment I am feeling too lazy to walk upstairs and get my camera.

I want to share some exciting news about another "Forever Family" the Abella Family have adopted 3 beautiful children from Ukraine and they will be home soon!!!! Keep them coming :) I don't want to give much more info than that for privacy reasons, but please know that there are still children there waiting for thier mommy's and daddy's! It is so great knowing that this is 3 more lives that will forever be changed for the better!! God Bless them and all of the others who are touched by these precious children.

I've been tagged...

Tonya (Kissack blog) tagged me! Just great :) Now I am supposed to say 4 new things I've experienced in the last 4 years and 4 new things I hope to experience in the next 4 years. This is actually making me kinda nervous....let me think a minute

o.k. my experiences are ~ I have become a mommy (to the cutest little girl on the planet).

I travelled to Europe.

I fell in love with my husband all over again when he became a daddy (ooohhh isn't that sweet?).

and finally and most important I started to believe in the power of God! I don't want to say that I "found" God, because He was there all along, I just wasn't listening.

Things I would like to experience ~ moving into a bigger home so that we can expand our family.

I hope one day to feel satisfied and proud of my parenting and know that I truly did my best and gave it 110%

To adopt again or give birth (doesn't matter, as long as one or the other happens within the next 4 years)!

Take a "family" vacation with just the three of us - I would LOVE to go to Alaska!

Well there you have it!! Now you all know me just a little bit better.


There is one problem now though, I am not sure if there are any "rules" to this game. If I need to tag another "blogger", I'm screwed...because besides Tonya and the White's (who don't blog much) I don't know of anyone else who has a blog. So if you see your name, I guess you can just send out an email and carry on the game :)

Jennifer * Jodilynn B. * Uncle John * Kaitlyn

Lazy days of summer...

Sorry for the lack of written posts but I honestly don't have much to say about anything interesting. We have been enjoying the warm days and doing the bare minimum. The house could really use a good dusting, and I can only imagine what is growing in my toilet bowl, but I figure what the heck, Olena will only be 2 once, I might as well enjoy her :) **sounds like a good excuse anyway?!?! **

I hurt my back last Friday and spent this past weekend doing nothing but sitting in the recliner. I never felt so much pain in my life!! It hurt to move, it hurt to be still, it was ridiculous. Today has been the best day so far - I am moving around with a dull achy pain verses the sharp stabbing pain :)

We are also working on potty training. We started about a week and a half ago. It is going well but I was really expecting it to be easier. She only has about 1 accident every other day, but she won't go by herself. She waits for us to "remind" her or make her go, and when she does we have to help with the removing of the pants and getting her on the potty. She won't use the potty chair so we got one of the those insert able seats with a stool next to the toilet but she is just so darn small it is a lot of work for her. She wears a pull up at night and if we are leaving the house, but in panties the rest of the time. She is too comfortable in the pull up and will just let it flow. With panties on, she can feel it and will come running to me when she realizes what happened. Which usually results in a pee trail across my house and an empty bladder by the time we make it to the potty, while tearing off clothes and trying to maneuver the toilet seat. I took for granted the fact that she was potty trained in the orphanage so I figured it would be a piece of cake, but I failed to remember how strict they were with the potty schedule, and they remained sitting there until they went.

She goes to nina and dadu's house on Thursdays and Fridays. (Nina was Nana - my mom - but one day she just starting calling her Nina?? and Dadu is my dad. When we introduced him as her daduska - grandpa in Russian - she started calling him dadu.) It gives us a break to get a few things done and have some alone time, and my mom takes her to a gymnastics class on Thursday night. We had her in daycare 3 days a week but I quickly changed my mind about that and took her out after 3 weeks. I am sure that there are plenty of good day care centers out there but I am just too neurotic to have them care for my daughter. She now stays home and my best friend cares for her. They have a "preschool" schedule that they follow, and she is much happier when I come home :)

She is now talking is sentences most of the time. Though she needs reminding every once in awhile. She has a habit of being impatient and starts to whine and babble...which of course drives me crazy! So we are working on this. If any of you read the Kissack blog, Tonya recommends Raising Godly Tomatoes. A guide to raising your children to be obedient. I ready the entire website, and we are currently trying to follow the recommendations. We need a little more work because unfortunately it requires you to have 100% control over your children which is impossible for us because we do both work. I have a better advantage at that I only miss out on 4 hours of her day, but that is 4 hours that I loose. She understands the consequence that come with her actions, because the second she misbehaves she either stomps herself to the corner or grabs her tush and sits down and starts to say "no cry mommy - good girl mommy" . I am strong and I don't let it pass without correction regardless of the fact that she is so darn cute. The biggest problem is the fact that she knows it is wrong, but she is determined to try and get her way! so we spend a lot of time trying to correct one thing, over and over, and over again.

I was positive she could count yet I haven't heard her do it alone, unprompted. That is until today, she counted all the way to 10 without hesitation. I was very proud, yet crazy out of my mind because she is sooo smart, but also stubborn beyond belief. She does it when she wants and how she wants - period the end. The ABCs too, she hears them 900 times a day, but yet she will NOT repeat a single letter. What do you do??

practicing cartwheels...

She's a natural

Detroit Fireworks....from Canada!

oh boy!! cotton candy :)

o.k. I am guilty. I tried to keep her awake by loading her with sugar.

It worked too, she stayed wired right up until the point we put her in her car seat to go home. It was lights out immediately! The sugar hangover caused quite a crabby little girl the next day, so I don't recommend this method :(

Detroit skyline

We decided to take Olena to see her first fireworks display at the Detroit Target Fireworks Display. She was in complete awe and did great! she did spend the majority of the grand finale hanging from my neck, but she had a wonderful time. I have to admit we cheated though, and watched them from the Canadian side. My best friend lives in Windsor so we had dinner with them, then sat Riverside with a great view. On a positive note, we got to watch the show against the Detroit skyline, not a view we normally get.

Fun playing outside!

she got up from our bug hunting mission and walked away very unpleased with me. She just looked at me sighed, said "no bug mommy" She had this very serious look on her face. She then stomped away. Look at her little fists....and notice the tough guy walk!!

Eating cookies and taking pictures with daddy!

Who can't love this face?!!

Having lots of fun!!

I LOVE this smile:) it just melts my heart.

Here she is making bug antennas for me! this is what started the bug hunt!

So where are these bugs mommy??

Pictures with the rest of the clan!

I had the camera outside taking pictures while we played. She told me "pictures and puppies mommy" so we had each dog sit while they posed together. As you can tell, they were less than pleased :)

Mugsy, our youngest, is 4.

100 lbs and obviously upset with having to take the picture. Note the tongue sticking out and Olena giving him a lecture (and pointing her figure at him) about how he must "stay muggy"

Laney, the "middle" child, is 5 and as you can tell, Olena does not particularly appeal to her. She is often very annoyed by the ear tugging, eye poking and horse back riding.....great, now picture taking!!!

Luther is the old man of the house, he is 6. He loves her to death though by his expression you would think otherwise :) He is very protective, and follows her all around the house. I am assuming it is because of his undying love for her, but it might have something to due with the fact he usually gets "rewarded" for following her because she often shares her snacks. Or at least leaves them within his reach.

Lord hear my prayer....

On a good note, we had our first family camping trip this past weekend and we had a great time. On the other hand...we are now suffering the consequences of what happens when an adopted toddler has too much fun for 3 days in a row and is completely off schedule. Can you say DEMON?? She has been completely obnoxious and extremely whiny - which I have a real hard time dealing with. I know that toddlers are going to be hard work but give me a break!!! is it really necessary to do nothing but whine for 2 days straight?? I kid you not, everything that has come out of this child's mouth today since the very second she got out of bed had been in the form of whining or crying! ALL DAY!!!!!! I am at wits end, in case you can't tell. I know I will laugh about this later but right now, I am not very happy!
Back to the camping. We had a fabulous time. She was very excited about the idea of camping, though I know she really had no idea what is was, she talked about it and asked me a million times on Thursday if we were "going camping?" it was really cute. then she would precede to tell me "lake.....beach.....camping......bikes.....fishies.....o.k. mommy??" The whole week before I was telling her about the different things we were going to see when we went camping. At least now I know she really does listen to me :) She never did stay up long enough at night to enjoy the bonfire or smores, but she had tons of fun none the less. We spent about 5 hours at the beach on Lake Michigan. She LOVED the sand and spent a majority of the time rolling in it! We rode banana bikes, she got to drive around on her new little tykes 4 wheeler, and she played around the cabin and caught bugs. As you will see in the pictures she had a great time getting dirty too!
We came home Sunday and obviously the excitement of the weekend really wore on her because she hasn't been sleeping good. The past couple nights she has had night terrors, and she is beyond tired. So crabby has been the mood in this household for the past couple of days. All I can do now is just pray for the patience!!

As I sit here typing this I feel that someone has heard my prayers because Olena is walking around the basement pushing her baby around in the stroller and she is getting very upset....see this baby coos and crys, and right now, it is crying!!! and will not stop :) and she hates this!! so I am listening to her run around the basement with this baby screaming "stop baby.....stop baby....."

pay backs are a bitch!! LOL!!!!

AAHHH the beach!!!

she loved the beach and the sand, but swimming was a no no, the water was really cold so she was NOT happy with us when we took her in!!

Isn't camping fun???

Note the saying on the shirt....." I do all my own stunts"

That couldn't be truer!

sporting her new pink cowboy boots....yeeehaw!

As promised!

Things have been crazy busy over the past few weeks so I apologize for the lack of posts, but a least I was able to keep the pictures going :O)
A few weeks ago we had a "baby shower" with Jason's side of the family. It turned out great! She had a great time with her little cousin, whom she had just met and she was really social with the adults. She got a bunch of new summer clothes, some outdoor toys and of course more and more toys!! This kid has her own toy shop over here. What happened to "not spoiling the baby?"



She is starting to talk in sentences and is doing really well with her pronunciations. She still refuses to say her ABCs or count but I am determined that she knows both. There is NO possible way that one child can hear something so many times and NOT know it by now. If she can memorize the songs on Annie after watching it 10 times, I know that she can count and say her ABCs. She got this leap frog toy from the shower, and it sings the ABCs, she hits that button at least 100 times a day!

No luck with growing lately. Though she is much taller and is now about 3 inches taller than when we got home, she is not gaining weight. She is perfectly healthy and doesn't show any symptoms of mal nutrition so we're not going to worry about it. She eats really well and loves just about everything we give her! Just a good metabolism is guess - lucky girl! The bad part is now for the summer all of her 12 months clothes are falling off so I had to resort to going to Target and buying some new shorts in 9 months so that she can run without her shorts ending up around her ankles! I even went to the thrift store to buy her some cotton elastic shorts to play outside in and I bought a pair of 3 month and several 6 months, they all fit her like a glove!

This past Monday was her first day at "school", and she LOVES it. There is a great day care center near my work and it is really structured. She is in a class of 12 other 2 -2 1/2 year olds. They have a lesson plan each day and follow the same schedule we do at home so it is great. She is going there 2 days a week for about 6 hours. I felt so bad when I dropped her off on Monday because I was so worried she would think that I was leaving her at another 'desky dom' (aka orphanage) she told Jason the other day "NO desky daddy" - it broke my heart. I dropped her off at 9 am and lasted until 11 before calling. The teacher said she was doing great. When I got there at 3:30 to pick her up she was so mad because she didn't want to leave. I ended up staying for about 30 minutes while she played on the play ground with the other children. She was definitely in her comfort zone!

Behavior at home has been going good too. We have been working on a few things, and they are slow coming but we are making progress. She likes to play games when we call her to come to us, so we are practicing to come the first time she is called. She hears us and does not ignore us but she "teases". Laughs and giggles with delight at the thought that she is being mischievous. Little turd. The fact that she is so darn cute, doesn't help. She also grunts a lot instead of talking to us or answering our questions, this drives me nuts!!! So we are working on "using our words" We have established a schedule for the day and we have done our best to stick to it and it really makes a huge difference in her behavior. She knows what to expect throughout the day and I think that really gives her a piece of mind. She has a hard time when she is over stimulated, so we try to keep things simple and stay on schedule. The naughty chair is also working well. I will admit I was never a fan of the naughty chair but she really HATES it, so it works well. She sits there until she stops crying and can compose herself properly. It usually takes about 1-2 minutes. We are trying to get her to understand saying "sorry" is necessary when she does something wrong or she is mean, but she down right refuses to say it. I have no idea why? she just grunts! Guess that is sorry in Lana language.

She will be starting gymnastics in a few weeks. This will be perfect for her. She loves to climb and swings from everything, and she is really strong. I am sure that she will be a natural. I would really like to get her in ballet too, she constantly walks and runs on her tip toes. Besides she will look so darn cute in a tutu!

Well looks like my time is up, Jason is being a nerd and is sitting here waiting for HIS computer time. I will update in a few weeks.

I have noticed that there is a big flux of families traveling in the upcoming weeks, so please keep them and all of those beautiful children in your prayers. Granted we are going on with our lives, but we cannot forget those we left behind. They are all still there waiting for thier mommy and daddy. Take care everyone, and good luck to all of the families waiting to travel.

check back tomorrow.

I promise that by tomorrow I will update with a new post. I have lots to share but the hubby is sitting here patiently awaiting his time on the computer. These pictures take so long to download. Sorry

some things will never change!!!

At least the choice of headwear has improved! :)

Yup, she can still scream in disagreement!

why is it necessary to stick out your appendages while mommy takes pictures?

what a difference 6 months make...

6 months later.

Posing in her favorite airplane PJs.

This picture was taken on 12/1/06, the day after court. These three little girls didn't know it, but their lives were about to completely change.

Angelina White, Olena and Lyra Kissack.

Looking at everyones blog, you can really see what a difference there is just in these last 6 months. It is amazing!!!

YUMMY!! ice cream sandwich!

She actually wanted me to take pictures this time! What a change from the screaming toddler on the porch huh? She is such a ham!