Thank you for the response. I had visited that page before but clearly I didn't read it all the way through. Looking at it today with some fresh eyes i noticed at the bottom of the page it says:
"When the site is operating in native mode, client authentication using the PKI certificates takes the place of approval, and the approval status is not used. However, if the site reverts to mixed mode, clients must be re-approved as if they are new clients."
I'm using certificates and that is why the approval button is grayed out.
thank you