Someone is 9 Today!

Hard to believe that today is Grace's 9th birthday!  She's been sick the past few days but was able to go back to school today.  I'm going to meet her for lunch so we can have cupcakes with her class.  After school, we're going to go out for tacos before she has Pom.  Then she'll have more cupcakes before coming home to open presents!  Happy Birthday Grace!!

Vegas Trip

This past weekend, Marianna and I finally took our birthday trip to Vegas.  This was to celebrate our 21st and 40th birthdays - and was also a gift I promised her a few years ago.

We only had two full days to take in all that's great about Vegas.  We visited Madame Tussaud's wax museum, the Venetian, walked the strip, visited Caesar's and the Bellagio plus enjoyed our hotel the MGM Grand.  While in the Studio City wing of the hotel, we were able to preview and give feedback on a new tv show.  And of course we enjoyed fabulous food, drinks and gaming.  It was a shame it had to end but we did have a great time!

This picture was taken at the atrium of the Bellagio - they had a fabulous display of fall flowers and it was the perfect place to capture us.

Report Card Time

Third grade is the start of real grades in school and Grace just received her first report card of the year.  While there were a few changes from her mid-term report we're happy to report that Grace made the A-B Honor Roll with 2 As (Science and Social Studies) and 2 Bs (Math and Language Arts).  She also had perfect attendance for the first quarter but that won't happen next quarter since she was sick two days last week.  She did however make it back to school in time for the assembly to recognize students on the honor roll.  She received a certificate along with a bag of goodies.  We're proud of her and hope she keeps up the good work!

Halloween

While our family and friends up North have to wait a few more days before they can don their costumes and collect candy - things were on the normal schedule in these parts.  This year after spending weeks telling us he was going to be a dinosaur, Adam opted to be Ironman; while Grace, who is into mystical things and creates, chose Astrid from How to Train your Dragon.

They went out with David around 6:00 and circled the neighborhood.  In Adam's words "we rang the bell and it said ding dong, then the peoples gave us candy and we said thank you and happy halloween".  When they came home around 7:30 both kids helped me hand out the rest of our candy before calling it a night at 8:00.  That's the one thing I love about our neighborhood, we all seem to be on the same schedule when it comes to these activities as most people were out from 6-8.

September Wrap Up

We started the month with a trip to NJ for Labor Day weekend.  The kids had a blast visiting with their cousins and hanging out.  Once we got back we rolled right into our normal routine.

Adam is doing great.  He spends his days with our sitter Tanya but three days each week he goes to pre-school in the afternoon.  He's been doing well and we are hoping that we can get him back into a full day pre-school setting by his fourth birthday so he will have time to prepare for kindergarten.  Other than that he loves dinosaurs, trucks and driving his sister crazy.

Grace is a busy girl.  Of course there's school but she also continues to study karate and is taking Pom this year which is cheering with dance.  Her first quarter progress report came home yesterday and she is doing well.  Her current grades are reading 94 (A), math 97 (A), science 91 (B) and social studies 93 (A).  Hopefully she will keep her grades up for when her report card comes home the end of October.

This past weekend we took a trip to the beach with some friends to celebrate my last weekend in my 30s.  There were four couples plus six kids.  We stayed at Ocean Lakes campground in Surfside Beach which is on the south side of Myrtle Beach.  Now don't think I've gone crazy or anything - we didn't camp, they have houses there to rent and we had a 7 bedroom place that was a short walk to the beach.  The weather was perfect and we were able to hang out on the beach and at the pool.  Of course things got a little exciting on Saturday when someone caught a 3 ft shark but that didn't deter us from our beach fun.

That's about all for now.  We'll see what October brings with Fall Festival and Halloween.

DNC Update

I know a lot of you were excited when I shared the news that David & I were going to be attending the President's speech on Thursday evening in Charlotte.  A friend of mine from Coker is head of the Kansas Democratic Party and had offered us tickets and we jumped at the chance to witness history.  Regardless of political affiliation, this was an opportunity that we couldn't pass up.

Unfortunately, Mother Nature is rearing her ugly side in the area this week and as a precaution, the event is being moved into the Time Warner Cable arena which holds far less people than the stadium.  As a result, the tickets that my friend had to share are now voided.  So we will be watching from home.

But there is some fun news to share about the DNC - the group of third graders that opened the event yesterday with the Pledge of Allegiance was from Grace's school.  It wasn't her class but several of her friends took part.

Maybe we'll get to experience a political convention another time.

Back to School

Today is Grace's first day of third grade - can you believe it?  We did our traditional walk to school and took the obligatory photos.  This is going to be a big year for Grace - letter grades, more homework, a wider variety of subjects in the classroom - and I think she's pretty excited.

This is her leaving the house!

This is her teacher - Ms. Hunter

Last Days of Summer

We are a few short days from getting back into the grind and even though we pretty much operate on the same schedule regardless of the time of year, I am looking forward to getting back to the school routine.

Let's start with Grace.  She will be a third grader this year - can you believe it?  Tomorrow is open house and we'll get to see who her teacher is and which friends will be in her class.  Tonight is her first pom class.  She is very excited to try something new.  When someone asked her what pom was she replied "It's cheerleading with dance".  I think she's excited.  And not to be forgotten, karate is still her top activity.  She tested for her blue belt last night.  It feels like she is breezing through the belts, but she knows her stuff!

Adam's visit to the developmental pediatrician went well earlier this month.  He pretty much told us that Adam is an active three-year-old who needs firm limits.  Well you know who gets part of the blame on that.  But he did say that the school calling us when he was acting out, didn't help matters so we need to reprogram him a bit and our sitter Tanya has been doing a fine job of that.

Because we want to get him back into a full-time program, we have elected to put him in a part time pre-school to get him back on track.  So he will still spend time at home with Tanya but on Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons he will go to pre-school.  Hopefully he'll grow out of this phase soon.

For those of you in NJ - look out, we are heading north for Labor Day weekend.  This will be time for the extended family to enjoy the kids and for me to enjoy family and friends!!

Our Beach Trip

Last week we made our annual trek to Myrtle Beach for sun & fun.  This year we decided to extend our stay to four full days and we're glad we did since we got a little rain.

Our first stop as usual was the Dinosaur Mini-Golf course.  We played our 18 holes and got to spend time with Uncle Sam.

The next few days were all about the beach and the pool.  Surprisingly Adam is not a big fan of the ocean - he only wanted to play in the waterpark and on the slide.  Grace on the other hand was jumping waves and digging in the sand.  She's got a little bit of her great grandmother in her!

We had a good time.  The next few weeks will be all about getting Grace ready for 3rd grade.  Sunday is our annual girls day out where we shop for school supplies and clothes and take some time to be together before we dive into our hectic schedule of school, homework, karate and pom.

The Latest Excitement with Adam

I'm sitting at work today, minding my business when I get a text from our sitter along with a missed call and message.  Adam hurt his arm.  I call her back and hear him screaming in the background.  I give her the usual instructions for his injuries - get boo boo Buzz (his toy story ice pack) and have him rest.

She kept me up to speed via text for a little while and then David said he would run home at lunch and check on him.  After he stopped in, he called and said that Adam wouldn't move his arm.  So I finished up at work and ran home to take him to Urgent Care to see if he maybe sprained his elbow or something.

We got there and thankfully it was empty.  After filling out the paperwork with Adam glued to my side, we went to the back.  The nurse checked his height (3ft 5in) and weight (39.5 lbs) and got his vitals.  The doctor came in and asked what happened - he was swinging his arms with the sitter and turned awkward resulting in the hurt arm.  He touched his arm in a few places and suspected there was a radial separation.

We went back for x-rays of both Adam and Momo.  Boy did Adam scream when he moved his hurt arm.  After three x-rays of his bad arm, a chat with the doctor and three x-rays of the good arm, the doctor determined it was radial head subluxation which is more commonly known as nursemaid's elbow. 

After the diagnosis, he had to fix it by popping it back into place.  The first time, it didn't quite work and that was obvious when Adam still held his right arm close to his body.  The second time, the doctor did a quick pull and pop and it was fixed.  Within no time, Adam was swatting at his 'hand balloon" that the nurse gave him and was allowed to go home.  What seemed like an eternity, took a little more than an hour.

To reward him for being a good patient, we took him to sweet frog for frozen yogurt.  Now he's playing with his cars and enjoying his favorite movie!  I'm sure this won't be the first Urgent Care visit for an injury with Adam, but it sure was stressful.

Summer Update

I can't believe it's July already.  Before you know it, we will be packing up the book bag and sending Grace to third grade.

Speaking of Grace, she had a great year.  She successfully completed the second grade and is excited about going back to school in August.  This will be a big year as she will starting receiving "real" grades and taking those pesky standardized tests.  She continues to do well in karate and recently received her purple belt.  You don't want to mess with her.  She has also been participating in Pom class this summer at the dance studio.  She has mentioned cheerleading before and we thought this would be a good introduction.  Plus it will help her decide what class she wants to take come fall.

Adam on the other hand is struggling.  We thought that the move to a new daycare would be the change he needed to get to the root of his behavior struggles.  He had a few off days here and there but we thought he was doing great.  In fact we commented that he was like a different child.  That all changed last week when we were called to pick him up from school immediately.

He was having a tantrum and was kicking his teacher.  We had previously discussed with the school taking him to see his pediatrician to see if there was more to his behavior and had made an appointment for early July.  Well I called and moved it up to that day and we visited with his pediatrician.  We discussed what was going on and that it only seemed to happen at school though there was no trigger for him to become irrational but then again he's three.

Needless to say the doctor suggested we take him to see a developmental pediatrician to see if there is more to his behavior.  After calling the school to update them we were told, over the phone, that he could not come back because the teachers feared for their safety and the safety of the kids in the class.  This was a shock and disappointment to us as we had been taking the steps they had asked us to and never once did they indicate that being removed from the program would happen while we were making an effort.

So that left us stuck.  Thank God for great friends as they helped out while we looked for an option for Adam.  After sending out a facebook plea, a friend of mine gave us the name of a nanny.  We met her, we liked her and we started working with her this week.  In the mean time, we are working on the paperwork that we need to complete before seeing the other doctor.  We are also starting to make serious changes to his (and the rest of our) diets by removing a good bit of the processed foods.  Hopefully that will be a start as we do not want to put him on medication.

It's been a crazy start to the summer here in NC.  Just keep us in your thoughts as we work through the treacherous threes.  We've had friends tell us that once their child turned four it was like a switch and we hope that is the case.  But for the next 6 months we will hope that it's just the fact that he's an active, three year old boy.

Brad Paisley Concert

Tuesday night HMS celebrated our 200th win with a private Brad Paisley concert.  It was a fun event and even though I'm not a big country music fan, I did get to meet him and his wife - Kimberly Williams Paisley from the Father of the Bride remakes in the 90s.  Here's a couple of pictures from the event.

First Communion

This past weekend Grace made her first communion.  We were happy to have a nice group of family and friends there to share her special day.  She was very excited.  Not only was she receiving communion for the first time but she got to participate in the ceremony by taking the gifts to the altar.  Here are a few pictures from the day.  Unfortunately my computer is down at home so I can only share the pictures from my phone.  But you can visit the church website to look at the ones taken at church. Go to www.sainttherese.net select the ecommunity tab and go to photo albums then choose 9:00 communion.  Grace is in several photos on page 2 and 3.

Positivity!

Last Friday we had a conference with Adam's teacher and the director of his preschool.  It was an opportunity for us to learn first hand what is really going on with him at school.

As we somewhat suspected, Adam likes to do his own thing.  He does not care for people to be in his space however it's ok for him to be in someone else's.  Of course we are still trying to understand what has triggered this behavior but for now we are taking a new approach with him - POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT.

This approach is so he hears the right things rather than the bad stuff.  So instead of saying "Adam don't run" we say "Adam walking feet"; or rather than tell him "don't hit" we say "soft touches".  It was also suggested that we not punish him for things that happen at school; we leave that for his teacher to do and we deal with the stuff at home.  Of course we don't have these issues at home so that's a moot point.

Well yesterday was the first day of this approach and he had a good day.  He got two stickers for following directions and cleaning up and he got to enjoy the whole soccer practice.  Now I'm not going to shoot off fireworks and strike up the band after one day, but I will try to focus on the positive a little longer.

The "Kingpin" of Preschool

So we now have a little more insight into Adam's behavior at school, it's all about the girls!  Remember what they told us girls when we were little, the boys only pick on the girls they like.  Well apparently my son likes them all.  You see the spitting - which is really raspberries- the hair-pulling and the shoving is only done to the girls. 

This all became clear to me the other day when I got yet another note in Adam's cubbie.  So I asked his afternoon teacher about it to find out what they do when he behaves in this manner.  She told me they remove him from the situation by walking him away and telling him what he is doing is wrong.  I can live with that course of action.

So the next day, this same teacher said she paid a little more attention to Adam to really see what's going on and that's how I learned about the girls.  She said that he chases them and does the aforementioned things and all the while the girls are saying "Oh Adam Buckelew, stop that" but they keep running to him.  AND they take care of him.

What do I mean by that - according to his teacher, they clean up his toys, they share snacks with him, they help him with his shoes and jacket.  So it seems that he is of the 1950's mentality that the women take care of the men which is more obvious when you ask him why he does these things and he says "Because I want to".  Guess I need to work on that!

Mr. Nocturnal

Have you met this character?  The one who stalks the depths of the night; lurking on the streets or in alleyways.  Or in this case - his sister's bedroom!

We have discovered that at times, Adam is nocturnal - meaning he's up at the wee hours of the night.  Now how long this has been going on is unknown to us but recently we learned of his antics.

David awoke around two in the morning to see the light on in Grace's bedroom.  "That's odd," he thought and got out of bed to check it out.  Thinking she woke up and turned on the light to read and then fell back to sleep, he walked down the hall to turn it off.  To his surprise, there sat Adam, playing with her toys while she slept.  Adam's response when David walked up to him, "Hi Daddy". 

David rounded him up and brought him to our room to go back to sleep.  Of course, that's not new, he's been creeping down the hall into our bed off and on for the past few weeks.  And he's equally good at that because neither of us know he's there until the morning when we wake up to a small foot or hand in an odd place.

We hope this is just a phase that he will grow out of.

What's Been Happening These Past Two Weeks

Adam, Adam, Adam - that's all I can say.  He is 180 degrees different than Grace was at this age.  Where she was sweet and caring, he's calculating and devious - at 3!  Two weeks ago he pulled a chunk of hair out of a little girl's head and then last week he spit at his teacher - an action that resulted in him being sent home for the day!  He really tries our patience sometimes.  We've had numerous talks with him to explain what is right and wrong and hope that it will sink in one of these days.  In fact every morning we recite the same thing - pee in the potty not in our pants; if we have to spit, spit in the potty; don't spit at people; don't pull hair; don't hit friends and be nice to everybody!

Grace on the other hand is doing wonderful.  She scored a perfect 100 on her Spellabration test and raised $150 for her school.  She's scored a perfect score on her spelling test each week since the start of the school year and tonight she scored a perfect score on her karate test and will advance to her camo belt - yeah I know when did they add that one?

All in all they are both good kids, we just have to work on a few things here and there!

Oh and if you haven't heard - I'm a Mary Kay consultant so if you or anyone you know needs some products send them my way www.marykay.com/hbuckelew

Grace's First Reconciliation

Last night, Grace checked off a major item in her First Communion preparation by participating in her first reconciliation.  The kids met in the church where the Faith Formation (that's what they call it here) Director began with a prayer, a reading and a lesson.  The nervous kids listened intently hoping for some clue as to what lie ahead for them.  It was at that point that he illustrated to them what they will feel like after they confess their sins.  He pulled out a box wrapped in dingy, torn newspaper.  He told them this is what your heart looks like when you sin.  But through the act of reconciliation you cleanse your heart and it feels like a shiny gift from God.  It was at that point that he pulled out a box wrapped in silver, heart paper.  The kids were amazed and excited to know that they were going to feel shiny and new after they talked to the priest.

With that the children were dismissed to get in line with one of the four priests,  As expected, the line for Fr. Don, the priest who helps out with Faith Formation, was extremely long.  Of course that is who Grace wanted to see but I encouraged her to visit another priest, using the best tactic I had in my arsenal, because it would be faster!  So we went over to the line for our pastor, Fr. Vince.  After all of 20 minutes it was her turn.

We walked up to him where I introduced her and left her to do her thing.  I looked back at her a couple of times and she seemed to be fine.  She was nodding and listening.  And then I saw her do the sign of the cross so I knew it was over.  She came to me and told me she was done.  I asked what he penance was and she said "he didn't give me one".  Yeah right!  I told her to hit her knees and say a prayer.

After she was done, she got to put a bow on the shiny. box.  That was a little extra thing that the Faith Formation leaders told them to do after their penance as a thank you to God for cleansing them.  Now just 15 more weeks until First Communion.

School News and More

The other day Grace brought home her second quarter report card.  Once again she scored all S marks in her areas of evaluation.  She also has maintained perfect attendance for the first half of the school year.  Her teacher wrote the she continues to do well and has told me a few times when I have stopped by that Grace is a pleasure to have in class.  Guess sometimes the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!!  She also continues to do well in karate and tumbling and is looking forward to testing for her next belt.

Adam on the other hand can be a handful at times.  He had his three year check up last week.  Of course that was the moment that he chose to shine up his halo.  He sat still, he answered questions - no ridiculous outbursts or fits of excessive energy.  In any case, he's growing well and is ALL boy.  We did however receive word from school that he had to be removed from music class for kicking the instruments.  So how do we combat the aggressiveness - we sign him up for soccer!  Yes I told him what he did was wrong and while he does enjoy the music, his punishment is to not participate in the next session.  Hopefully soccer will tire him out!

Adam's Birthday Party

Of course we had a party for Adam's 3rd birthday.  It was a Cars themed party - complete with our own little version of Radiator Springs.  We invited a few kids from his class to color, pull the pinata strings and freeze dance.  They had a ball and it was the perfect size group for a 3rd birthday (although one kid refused to be in the picture)! 

Happy 3rd Birthday Adam!

Hard to believe it but Adam is 3!  It's been a low key day.  He went to school and shared cupcakes with his friends for afternoon snack.  Then tonight he decided that he wanted to get his hair cut instead of having a special treat for dinner.  After that, we came home and ate.  Once Grace got home from karate we opened his presents and had more cupcakes.  His party is Saturday and he is super excited!!