New Playpen

Deacon figured out how to climb in and out of the laundry basket yesterday, he was in and out of it all day long, kept him out of my hair and entertained. And he was very cute. He got so into the laundry he was "helping me" fold it later. He's not a very good folder, better unfolder.

I'm a new Mom!

Oh my Goodness! Deacon is my third baby, you would think by now I have experienced almost everything baby related, right! Wrong! This kid makes me feel like he's my first baby! Seems like every time I turn around he is doing something that throws me for a loop. I've been paranoid for the past week and a half about that darn freaky fever then day before yesterday this weird rash showed up all over his body, I mean face, legs, arms, his entire back and front. So, I automatically think chicken pox. I looked through all the books I have and the rash did not match chicken pox at all, he didn't have a fever, wasn't acting uncomfortable, he was sleeping and eating fine. So, I called a nurse hotline and they said it's probably a follow-up rash, it's totally common (like 1/3 of all kids will get it at some point) and no big deal! Then, yesterday Deacon and I were hangin out in the living room and I noticed he was chewing on something so I fished it out of his mouth and at first I couldnt figure out what it was, looked like a altoid. I haven't had any altoids in my house recently so I investigated further, turned out to be the acetominaphen pill I had set on the table when I went to get a glass of water during Deacons nap and aparently forgot about! Thank goodness I figured that one out! That one made me feel like a horrible mom. Geez! Can we have one more scare, Please! And to top it off Ben's dog, Turbo, is having some kind of kidney issue and we think he might be getting ready to die. O.K. so we have had kind of a rough couple of weeks, let's hope that the rest of September is a little better for us! It's not all bad, just when I was thinking that I needed to hit a few resale shops and find Deacon some more 12 month & up clothes cuz he's already growing out of the 6-12 month stuff Ben's wonderful cousin, Rachel, sent ben home with 2 HUGE bags of clothes for Deacon that are somehow just the right size for him! I looked through all the stuff and there are 18 pair of shoes!!!! I think I'm set for a little bit. Now I need to find some more clothes for ME! I dropped about 25 pounds unintentionally in the past 3 months and even my smallest jeans are huge on me. If you have anything you want to get rid of let me know! :) And pray that my baby stops scaring the crap out of me!

Not so Cool Coolidge

The hot baby finally fell asleep just in time for someone to wake him up and poke at him a little more.

Wow, what a weekend! Not to mention the week last week! We have definately had our share of drama! Last Wednesday we had a storm (I guess technically it was a "microburst") and within the first 5 minutes of the rain our power went out. We sat all night wondering when it was going to come back on, the power company kept pushing back the reconnect time and finally at about 8 a.m. we found out the real story, the storm had knocked out 11 power poles in Coolidge and becasue of where the town sits in relation to the reservation (pretty much as close as it can get without being reservation land) there was a giant beaurocratic mess to get the poles removed and replaced. So, we bailed out of town for the day thinking we would be back home that evening. No such luck, it was a bigger mess than they thought. We ended up spending the night with my parents and keeping an eye on the news. It took them 2 full days and the actual night of the storm to finally get power restored to 2300 Coolidge residents. We lost almost everything in our fridge and the house was all musty when we got back home, I'm pretty sure there won't be a credit on the electric bill for inconvenience either. So, since we had such a weird week we decided we were staying home for the weekend.

Saturday morning Ben's buddy Scott came out to the house and they loaded up the dirtbikes and went to play in the desert while Deacon and I attempted to get the house defunked and picked up. Deak had been a little grump all morning and he had woken up with a fever of 102. I had a little panic attack at first and called my mom at 5:30 in the morning to ask what to do (Marx and Maddox hardly ever got sick as babies and fevers terrify me), she of course calmed me down and walked me through what to do and Deacons fever was down quick and he was back asleep. Ben came home around 11 and proceeded to start his relaxing, go nowhere weekend. Deacon was up for just a few hours and slept most of the day, I thought it was a little strange but not completely unusual. Ben and Deacon both took a long afternoon nap and I took the oportunity to scrapbook. I went to get Deacon up from his nap at 5 and he was burning hot, I took his temp and it was 104.8!!! I bolted down the hall simultaneously dialing my mom and yelling for Ben to get up NOW. I quickly told my mom what was happening and strapped Deak into the carseat. I filled his carseat with ice packs and cold waterbottles, gave him the last of the motrin I had and we headed out. he didn't make a peep the whole way to the hospital and I sat in the back with him trying to keep him awake. We got to Casa Grande Hospital at 5:30, I told the nurse his temp and they had him in back before I knew it. he registered 104.9 on their thermometer and they started asking if he had a seizure and talking about what it could be. I was so freaked out, I'd never seen a temp that high and I'd heard about brain damage and seizures brought on by high fevers. His fever started to drop pretty fast and we just had to wait for a doctor to look at him to make sure it wasn't something really bad. Turns out it was just a double ear infection and after a prescription for an antibiotic we were home by 9:30. i had somehow managed to forget my phone in the frenzy to get out of the house so by the time we got home my mom was a little freaked, sorry mom. Deacon is doing fine now, thank goodness. I would prefer not to deal with another ear infection though. I had my fun.

More from the crazy weekend

Will reading to Alan.

They had these really cool scooters in the facilities building of the hospital so we decided to try them out, they were so fun, made great bumper cars. It was hard to get a good shot of Brook & Trav zooming by.

4 Generations

This is four Generations of Tuttles, Merrill & Shirley (Grandma & Grandpa), Roy (my dad), Michelle (me, duh), and my baby Deacon, whose last name is not Tuttle but he still counts.

Grandma & Grandpa with us kids and our youngest babies. Merrill & Shirley, Me and Deacon, Travis (my bro)and Charly, Cambria (my sis) and Molly.

This is my sisters beautiful family with Grandma & Grandpa, Greg, her husband and Alan, who is going to be 3 very soon, along with Cambria and Molly. We had a hard time getting a good picture, Alan was a little wiggly.

Everyone (accept the 4 older boys & Charly) went to tour the brand new Banner Gateway Medical Center that my dad has had a huge role in designing and putting together, the place is gorgeous, looks like a resort, you would never guess it's a hospital from the outside. This is in the pedatric play room on the top floor, the artwork in there is so cool, the cat on the wall in the corner by Greg is Saffron, my mom & dads cat.

Ben was goofing around with Deacon Friday & took a self portrait.

More Random Notes (ran outa room)

Deacon with Papa, i was just trying to get Deak to smile, making faces at him and being a dork like we all are trying to get our babies to grin at us and both he and Papa ended up laughing at me.

Great Grandpa Tuttle holding Deacon, this is the first time Grandma & Grandpa have met him, it's so fun for me to see my Grandparents with my kids, we have had 4 generations of Tuttles at my parents this weekend! How cool! We are definately a lively bunch and LOUD! Holy cow, I'm amazed how much noise 20 people can make!

Random Notes

My hansome first grader

Mr. Maddox and his favorite toy right now, an old Wendy's kids meal toy he found in a bag of stuff someone gave me. Takes the thing everywhere with him. He's even made Marx want one so bad. Stragely we found an identical one at a yardsale yesterday so now they both have one! Thank goodness, at least that fight is over!

Deacons first experience with an oreo cookie, I ate one half & the cream and gave him the other half, he loved it, obviously. he was actually a lot messier than the picture shows

This is just funny, Deak was playing with Shryn at like 5:30 a.m. and she kept licking his face and got him cracking up.

My darling niece, Charly, with Nana. Shes hilarious, goes from zero (happy) to 60 (crying) in bout 3 seconds, according to her mom. I can't stand how cute she is, she always has a little hairbow and bracelets on and the cutest outfits.