Den meeting and sleep

Carson decided this year he wanted to try cub scouts. Last Friday, he had his first den meeting with the other tiger cubs. He seemed to like it and is excited to go to some of the events. Working everything into his schedule might be a challenge, but we will make it work the best we can. Here are a few pictures before he left for the meeting.


And here is Macie with Suzie. She had to get her picture taken too.
Can you tell that Macie is back in school and I have a little more time? Ellie is taking a good nap this morning. She slept very poorly last night. She was up at about 11:30. I knew she did not need to eat, so I fought her to get her back to sleep. It was certainly a battle, and I ended up swaddling her completely. (We had been letting her keeps her arms out since she can roll over now) I let her fall asleep with me and then put her back into her crib. She slept until about 6:30. Since I was still in her room, I heard her waking up and talking to her mobile. It took a little while before she started crying and wanted to eat. She went back to sleep and slept until about 9:30. She went back down for a nap at about 10:45. I guess she really still needs to be swaddled and the effort was worth it since she went 10 hours without eating. I guess we will continue to swaddle her for a while longer and try to get her back to sleeping straight through.

First day of 3's

Today is the day I have been waiting for since May! Preschool has started. Macie is in the 3 year old class with Ms. Janet and Ms. Niki. These are the teachers Carson had. They are in for a treat if they are expecting Macie to be anything like her brother. Just check out the pictures and you can see!Macie insisted on going through carpool the first day, so I did not get a picture with Ms. Janet. But, here is Ms. Niki getting Macie out of the car. I have to admit I was a little teary. I am exited for Macie to have something to do, and I am excited about this year. So, I was shocked. As a side note, this is the 4th year we have been at this school and it is the first time I have been able to drive through carpool and pull away. Every other year someone has had to be walked in to school.
This is Carson on his first day of 3's. You can also see Ms. Janet. The funny thing about these pictures is Carson can still wear these shorts. He has had them on several times this summer. I guess maybe it is time to get rid of them!

Bible Presentation

Yesterday at church they had a special presentation for first graders. They got a Bible from the church during Sunday school.

Notice in the picture above Carson's collar is messed up. Here Ms. Ann is fixing it for him to get a good picture with Ms. Brenda.
I really love the opportunities our church has for kids. We would love to find a church closer to home, but we just can't bring ourselves to leave what we have. We do miss out on some opportunities because of the distance. Basically we just want to move our church a few exits up on 400.

On another note, here is Ellie at a party Saturday night. She sure loves her hands!

Parenting

I don't know about the rest of you, but for me there are times when parenting is just plain hard. You want to do what is best for your kids. If you have more than one child it an be hard to do the best for all of them all the time.

At this point Carson is still fairly easy to parent. He is obedient for the most part and does not give too much attitude. Sometimes it is a fight to get him to turn off the Wii or read a book. At the same time, I have to makes decision about his education. We had a rough start to the year. We had to fight to get him into a different class. How do I really know which class is going to best for him? We also decided to have him tested for the gifted program. He is very bright, but is he gifted? Have we made the right choice to have him pulled from his class for 6-8 hours of testing? He wants to swim this year for a year round swim team. I want to allow him to do this, but I don't really want to have to take him all the time. And, if he starts at 6 will he burn out by the time he is 10? So even though he is fairly easy to parent, we face hard choices all the time. I am sure it will only get harder as he gets older.

Then there is Macie. She can be a handful. She wants things her way all the time (don't we all really). She wants to be in charge and tells you that often. If you say no, she thinks that means she has to figure out another way to get what she wants. She can use very mean words and tone with people. She requires a lot of energy and consistency. We will sometimes find something that works with her, but then we often fail to stick with it. It takes a lot of time and energy to get the behavior from her that we would like. Thankfully, she is usually fairly well behaved at school and in other group settings. I hope we are doing enough now to teach her that there are consequences to her choices. Hopefully she will outgrow some of the issues soon.

And finally there is Ellie. She is for the most part an easy baby. But, she is a baby. She can not tell me when something is wrong. She is at the age, when we should start to get her on a good schedule. For the life of me, I can not come up with something that is going to work with the rest of the family. Right now, she is taking one good nap a day (usually) but it is unpredictable. Often it is about 5:30 or 6 and she needs another nap. That really seems to late to be napping, but I don't want to put her to bed for the night. But, she is miserable if she does not get some rest. It seems like what would be best for her would only be possible if I eliminated all the other activities from our lives which would not be best for everyone else.

On top of all that, I am a little selfish. I want to go to the gym regularly. I want to have 10 minutes to take a shower every day. I want to have our house somewhat clean. I want to get a decent night sleep so I am a little more patient with my kids. I want to be able to enjoy this time in their lives. They are all growing so fast. Before I know it they will be grown and I will be wishing for these days. Hopefully when that day comes, I will look at my grown children and realize that we have done a good job. We have 3 healthy well adjusted kids who are living a Godly life and impacting others. In the mean time, we will keep pressing on and do the best we can day to day.

Stats and testing

Ellie had her 4 month check up today. We are off a little because of scheduling and then dates falling on Saturday. She is growing just fine. There was nothing of great concern. She does not poop as often as most babies, but she is happy. She does look like she is working on a couple of teeth, but it could be another couple months before they break through the gums. I think she is happy today because I gave her Tylenol after her shots. She is still long and lean.
Height: 25 1/2 inches 90-95% (81st)
Weight: 12 pounds 8 ounces 25-50% (15th)
Head: 40 1/2 cm 25-50 % (22nd)

The black percentiles came from the doctors charts. The orange ones I found on line. You would think they would be the same!

Carson is suppose to start testing for gifted this week. If you think about it say a quick prayer that he does okay with the testing. We would love for him to qualify, but mostly I just want him to be okay with the process!

4 months

I can hardly believe Ellie is already 4 months old. This is such a sweet age. She is rolling over from her back to her stomach all the time now. Occasionally she will make it back over to her back.
She pushes her self up while on her tummy and moves around by pushing on her feet. I don't think I am going to keep her still for as long as I would like! She has discovered she likes to play in the Exersaucer. She chews on anything she can get up to her mouth. I will not be surprised if she is the earliest of the three to get teeth.

She is still in size 2 diapers, but she has our grown almost all 0-3 month clothes. We go to the doctor on the 23rd, so we will see how much she has grown. She is still a good sleeper. She goes to bed between 8:30 and 9 and will usually sleep until about 6. She eats and goes back to sleep until about 8. She naps several times during the day, but we do not have a regular schedule. I am working towards it, but I am not going to really work on it until we get back from the beach. I think I am going to wait until then to start her on solids too. We have been trying to get her to drink some Pedialyte because she has had some difficulty pooping. If we can get it into her it works great.

She really is just the sweetest baby. She loves to watch what is going on around her. She grins all the time and just goes along with our crazy life.

This and That

Just a few updates today.

Carson is starting in a new class this morning. We got a call yesterday that they were going to move him today. Jeff went with him to move all of his supplies to his new classroom. Carson was a little upset about leaving his teacher and new friend Enrique, but we think it will be a good move. I will be anxious to hear this afternoon how it went for him.

Ellie has had a rough week. She has been waking up in the middle of the night. While I know this is a normal for a 4 month old, she has been sleeping 8 or 9 hours for a long time. She does seem to have gas when she wakes up, but I don't know if that is what is doing it. She rolled over from her back to her stomach on Thursday. She has not done it again, but she is moving around a lot.

Macie is just Macie! She started a little gymnastics class yesterday and loved it. I have her signed up for a class from September to January, but I am hesitant about it. I will probably have to give up MOPS if I keep her in it. We have three more weeks until she goes to school. We are both ready!

Back to school party

This past weekend, we had a end of summer party in our cul-de-sac. We rented a giant water slide and cooked out. We have great neighbors who are fun to be around. It stormed for a few minutes as we were getting set up, but then the rain and thunder cleared. We ended up having a great and hot night.

Ellie wishing she could just be inside the air conditioned house!

Macie coming down to Baily.
Carson at the bottom
It was a great fun way to spend the last Saturday before school started.

Carson's first couple of days have gone well. We have both been tired from getting up and going rather then sitting around for a few hours. He was in tears over silly things this morning, but I am hoping it is just being tired from getting up early. I meet with his teacher tomorrow. Keep praying for wisdom as we look in to what is best for Carson.

First Day of the First grade

UPDATE: He says the first day went well. When I asked him if there were any pretty girls, he said there is one blond! Of course he could not remember what he did other than the play ground with a few friends.

The school year has officially begun. Carson, Jeff and I were up bright and early to get him on the bus. Here is the morning in pictures.

Carson's favorite breakfast...bacon and scrambled eggs

I try to take a picture every year on the front porch. It is fun to see his head move up the door.
Jeff had to go to work, so he drove beside Carson down to the bus stop.
Walking down the street to the bus stop. Our house is a ways from the stop, so we have a hike.
All the kids at our stop. It will only get bigger over the next couple of years. We have a lot of younger kids.
Loading the bus...

Jeff and I are a bit anxious about this year. Carson has the one first grade teacher we have heard bad things about. It is not what his Kindergarten teacher recommended. We tried on Friday to get him moved, but the administration would not budge. We were told to give it a few weeks and maybe they would do something if we did not feel better about it. One of the big issues with that is Carson will not talk to us about what is happening. Plus, what teacher isn't going to be on their "best behavior" the first couple weeks of school? And, I don't know how well Carson will deal with being moved after the first few weeks.

I am asking all of you a favor. Please pray for this situation this year. Especially this first couple of weeks as we try to either get him moved or know that he is going to be okay. Also, please pray that he is just protected in a situation that I have heard can be very harsh. If you would leave a comment that you will pray we would love that too! (We have been very careful not to let Carson know our concerns, so he can make his own decision.)