Some Recent Pictures...

We have been busy the last few weeks, hence me not posting much here. But I have some pictures of all that activity to share since I have not gotten them on the picture site yet.

Here are some pictures from Nikolas' first soccer game at the beginning of September. He is number 8 this year. He is one of the smallest on the team b/c he is with 5 and 6 yr old children playing actual games this season instead of just learning skills.





We got in one last trip to the pool the weekend after Labor Day, yes it was still somewhat warm enough down here to get in. The kids said it was chilly but it was in the high 80's outside so it felt okay to them I guess.



Just this past weekend we took the kids up to Spencer to the NC transportation museum. Thomas the Train was there so we saw him and did all the fun festivities. And we rode on the Caboose Train (up in the top section) the boys thought it was pretty cool.

This past weekend was Kerry's birthday also, here he is blowing out his candles on the cake I made him.

Update on how the kids are doing....

Today our Service Coordinator for the CDSA came out with a Speech Therapist to conduct an exit evaluation for Lainie. She passed with flying colors of course J She scored at 30 months on 4 categories and at a 36 month level for the other 2. Of course now I don’t remember which was which. But it does not really matter. She is EATING everything and pretty much anything I put in front of her now. This weekend alone she ate lettuce (she called it leaves), lasagna, bread, chocolate cake, pizza, raw broccoli, baby tomatoes dipped in ranch dressing, pork tenderloin, and her usual cereal bars, any type of crackers, fruit and chips. And her speech is great! She has really started to say full sentences in the last month on a regular basis and is pretty much a parrot repeating anything she hears you say. The ST that came today was impressed with her and just laughed at her silly antics. She handed Lainie a book and asked her to open it, so Lainie did and she then turned it around and held up like teachers do to show the pages (she had just seen her music teacher to this at music class when it was story time). She just thought that was precious. So the word is she has been released from the CDSA with flying colors as of today J We are still struggling with getting her to sleep thru the night. She continues to wake up even though she has been night weaned for almost 2 months!! I just go in and tell her to lay back down and she usually does. But I am tired of still having to get up once or twice a night to do that!! She still wants to nurse a couple of times a day so I am working on that. She is addicted I think and this is going to be a hard habit to break!! We have also started potty training but so far it is not going as well as I hoped. I tried the pull up method for a few days but it is not working so tomorrow we are going to try undies all day and see how she feels about being really wet. Ugh!! I will be so happy when this phase is over with!! I am refusing to buy another case of diapers for now though until we really work on this!!

Alex got his progress reports today from school and he is doing great! He got a 4 (which is the highest you can get meaning he is above grade level) for Reading and a 3 (meaning is at grade level) for writing and comprehension and Math. And he got an “S” (which is satisfactory and the highest grade) for everything else, meaning science, social studies, behavior, etc. He is getting 100% on pretty much all his class work and homework. His teacher sends home a list of spelling words each Monday. They have to choose from a list of different activities each day to work with the words. On Wednesday she gives a pretest of the words, if they get 100% on the test then they don’t have to do anymore spelling homework for the week or take the test on Friday. So far he has gotten out of his spelling homework for 2 weeks (since she started sending this home)!! I think the not having homework is his motivation. He has gotten a green stamp every day for behavior since school started as well. We are very proud of him. His reward for getting all green this month is to go shopping for new Halloween decorations (he favorite thing to do this time of year). He also has started piano lessons (we have had 3 so far) and he loves it. His teacher said he does very well and has some natural talent. Cub Scouts has also started back up so we are trying to get back into that routine as well. He is a busy boy this year!!

Side story…. This afternoon I was watching my neighbor Jody’s daughters (Sydney 9yr old and Marissa 5 yr old) after school until their father got off work. Well after homework time, Alex offered to give Sydney piano lessons. I was listening and he was teaching her using his books and pretty much repeating how his teacher taught him. It was so cute!! Just showed me that what she is telling him is actually staying in his head. J

Okay… guess I should add in the little man too while I am doing this… Nikolas is doing great at school too!! He seems to really enjoy Ms. Diane’s class. I have not had to drag him to school once. He gets up, eats, plays, gets dressed and gets in the car when I tell him too EVERY day!! He is excited every day to tell me what he learns. Last week was fire safety, so all week, I got an earful but I could tell he was soaking it all in. He is playing soccer again this fall and he does pretty well to keep up with those older boys. I put him in the 5/6 league (even though he is not 5 just yet) and he is holding his own. He still does not have the ball control that the older kids do but he is fast and tries hard.

So that is what is going on down here J Biggest thing was I wanted to let everyone know how well Lainie is doing now!!

Alex started Piano Lessons yesterday!!

He was so excited all afternoon after school before we left and has been excited over the past week just waiting. We arrived and Tracy his teacher is very nice. She lives in a neighborhood about 10 minutes from us, so not far at all. She has 2 piano's in her living room, a wall type and a grand piano. Alex was drawn to the big one of course and she told him that is the one she plays but students play on the other. She started with basics, posture, hand positions and showed him differences in the keys. We got 4 different lesson books and he will have homework each week. He showed her how he taught himself to play "Jolly Old St. Nick" just by ear when we were in VA. She thought that was pretty good and she said that he had great hand position for a first time student. If he sticks with this we will have a recital next spring so I hope he enjoys this. He has always loved music so I hope that this just creates a lasting hobby for him. Once he masters the piano he says he wants to take guitar lessons, so we will see.

Kerry is driving up to VA next week to pick up a piano that PawPaw found for Alex so we will very soon have one for him to practice on at home. And I am sure the younger two will want to play as well!!

Poor Piper!!

I took Piper down to Charlotte today to see Dr. Welsh. He has occasionally limped on one of rear legs here and there and on and off for years. Just when I would think he needed to be seen he would stop limping and start walking on it again. I always knew his legs were going to be an issue ever since he was a puppy and we found out that he had that birth defect in his rear legs.

Well as she was examining him today she had me feel his rear leg muscles. His right leg basically has no muscle, but his left leg is about 4x as thick. He has been compensating for years on that left leg and mostly uses that one to get around. We decided to take Xrays to look and his knee and she saw immediately what the issue was for him. He has severe arthritis in his knee and his knee cap is not where it should be. It was hard to see on the film but it looked like it had moved to the side and fused to his leg bones or something.

This dog amazes me, he has never really acting like he was in pain or discomfort other than the limping. She said he did not even flinch when they were examining him or taking the films.

She said we could take him to a Orth Dog Doctor but he is 9 yrs old, he has bad legs anyway and that whole knee/leg is really arthritic. So we are just going to treat him for pain management at this point. She did do some bloodwork but that had to be sent out. Hopefully there will be no surprises in that!!

Nikolas Begins PreK at Stepping Stones

This was an exciting week for Nikolas, he is now in the PreK class at his preschool and will be attending Mon-Fri from 9-1. Ms. Diane is his teacher and she is really great! They have seemed to really hit it off and he is very happy in his class. He has a few friends from Ms. Nancy's class last year and a few new friends have joined this class. The others he knew from playground play last year but they were in other classes.
He will be learning to write all his letters and number correctly, how to write his first and last name, he will be learning all the skills he will need to know before next year when it comes to Kindergarten assessment time. He is excited and I think he feels like this is almost like Kindergarten.

Yesterday she gave them their journals to look thru so they could see what sort of things they would soon start working on and she said that Nikolas looked up and told her "this page is hard" then he flipped to the next one and said, "and it just keeps getting harder!" LOL I told him that the harder the pages got it would just make him smarter and smarter. He seemed to like that.

This week has been "get to know you" week so next week they will really get started with their prewriting skills and her assessment of each child so she knows where their baseline knowledge starts.

I think this is going to be a great year for him!!

Finally the Mystery Illness is solved

Well I posted a few weeks ago about Alex not feeling well. I had taken him to the doctor and they tested him for strep but it was negative. He has complained on and off ever since about his tummy just not feeling right. He would be fine for a day or two and then start complaining again. Well this weekend he started with a fever along with a sore throat. I took him in today to the Urgent Care (AGAIN) and they tested him again for strep, this time it was VERY positive. So he has that along with tonsillitis. He is on a very high dose of meds for a week. Dr. wants him to stay home tomorrow just to make sure he is feeling much better. Finally we have a diagnosis and he can start to feel better! The dr. did say that the bacteria from his throat could have been breaking off and causing his upset tummy all this time. So hopefully now he is on his way to recovery!! I guess it just took his body a couple of weeks for the strep to really cause a problem.

Beach Pictures now available for your viewing

Click on the link to your left and enjoy!! There are also some new ones under July-Aug 2008 as well.

Alex's first trip to Urgent Care!!

Well we made it 7 1/2 yrs without a trip to Urgent Care or the ER so I guess that is good but that streak is now over. I get a call from the school nurse this afternoon that Alex has fallen in the restroom (slipped to be exact) and hit his chin and split it open. She feels it will need some stitches or tissue glue to close it up. So I round up Nik and Lainie, we go over and pick up Alex. He is lounging in the nurses office just waiting on me. He is happy and not crying, that was a good sign. The nurse he was mostly worried about missing Treasure Box time in his class since he earned a stamp for good behavior all week. LOL

So I drop Nik off at his friend Bryson's to play (Thanks again Michelle for taking him in at the last minute!!) and I head over to Urgent Care.

The doctor comes in and examines it and proclaims that it is not too bad and he feels he can close it up with Dermabond. Whoo! Thank goodness, no needles and no stitches!!So all and all, his first experience with an Emergency went very well and was not too traumatic for any of us!! Here are a few pictures of his boo boo!!

August 25th First Day of Second Grade for Alexander

After arriving home from the beach we one day to prepare for the big day!! After shoe shopping and making sure that we had all the needed school supplies, we were ready. Since we missed Open House while at the beach, I drove Alex to school and we searched out his classroom. He has a very nice teacher this year, I have heard good things about Mrs. Anderson and I hope that this year goes great for him. Last year had a few ups and downs and I am hoping this year will not repeat that. He has some friends in his class and he is excited about this class. Here are some pictures from the first day!!

Our Ocean Isle Beach Trip

We spent the week of August 18th to the 23rd at Ocean Isle Beach NC. We had a great vacation and a wonderful time. The kids loved being able to boogie board and play in the ocean and we loved that it was much safer for them to do that here. This beach was more level and easier for them to manage. Not that they did not get knocked over a time or two but they loved it. Even Lainie enjoyed the sand and water this year!! Kerry and boys built a few sand castles and forts and we even made a small pool on the last day.



We made a trip to Wilmington and Pepa, Kerry and the boys visted the USS North Carolina Battleship and with their own personal Battleship expect Kerry and the boys learned a lot. Mom and I did some sightseeing and shopping on the waterfront in Wilmington while they did the ship.



Another trip that was so much fun that we made once MawMaw and PawPaw joined us, was to take the ferry from Southport over to Fort Fisher. We went thru the Aquarium and visited the Fort. It was so much fun and we had a nice picnic lunch at the visitor center in between.

Kerry and I took the boys to play putt putt one afternoon and then for ice cream and they loved it!!

The other 150 or so pictures will hopefully be updated on to our photo website very soon!! I promise to work on it this weekend!! But hopefully you enjoyed these few while you wait :)