Ears and Santa

Last Friday Maddux got tubes in his ears. We finally decided it was time to take serious action when he got his 6th ear infection of 2009. Poor kid! His speech is suffering because, as the doctor put it, "everything sounds like he is under water". It was confirmed when he went in for surgery and the doc said he had a lot of liquid under his eardrums that could not drain on it's own.

My favorite part of his little surgery was when the doctor came to get him from the pre-op room. He had his blankie dragging on the floor in his right hand and was holding the doctor's hand with his left. He walked away and turned around to look at Drew with a look that said, "You sure this is ok Dad?" The doc said he crawled right up on the table with his hands to his sides and was a total champ. Coming out of the procedure was a little more chaotic, he was confused and disoriented for a while and it broke my heart. All is well now and he has been a much happier kid this past week. It was definitely the right choice and I'm glad we did it!

This might be my favorite Santa picture of all time! I am SOOOO in love with this boy!

20 weeks!!!

Today, I officially hit the halfway mark! It's actually going by pretty stinking fast! This is my first belly pic.
Good news: my tummy isn't as large from the side as it looks when I look down on it from above! yay!
Bad news: My face is already wider than I thought!!

Oh well, all part of the fun, right?

For fun...this is a pic of me at 22 weeks when I was pregnant with Maddux...

This morning Maddux was playing with his toys, which are RIGHT next to the Christmas tree. He started saying "dine head!" "DINE HEAD!!!" and came over to grab Drew. Translation: he found a dinosaur head and was SOOOO excited! He had dropped a toy in the bag and while fishing it out, discovered there was a talking dinosaur in this mystery bag.

We were laughing too hard to stop him and you can see how excited he is here about his early Christmas present!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Tattersall!

Ultrasound

I had my "official" utrasound to find out the sex of the baby today.
(I already knew it was a girl because my awesome friends Cody {an ultrasound tech} and Aubry let us have a little party at their house on their in-home machine! what a hookup, huh?)

Yes...see how her legs are aimed right into my stomach. We have another active kiddo on our hands! She's a mover!
Her little feet...
She must know about her big brother already because she is practicing her self defense moves here...
(those are her arms and you can barely see her face behind them)
PS- I am now SUPER excited to have a girl!!!!

A success!!

We got Maddux a "Big Boy Bed" and tried it out for the first time last night. It was a disaster, to say the least. Nap time today presented similar problems. Third times a charm, right? YES! We put him down for bed tonight and to be honest, we forgot about him...it was silent. When we went in to peek, this is how we found him...
I'm not getting TOO excited, because heaven knows how tomorrow will go!
But I do think he looks dang cute!

Timeout

We have been having a lot of timeouts at our house lately. Usually it's from throwing his food all over the ground.
Drew and I have to turn our backs and bite our lips to keep Maddux from seeing us smile. He is TOO cute- even when he's in trouble.
He sits in this corner with his arms folded for 2 minutes. When time is up, he gives us hugs and says "sorry" (which sounds more like "saw").

Boring Blog

I feel like I've become that person with the boring blog. I have NOTHING fun to write about. Lame.

Drew had hand surgery on Monday and it's been a little different around here this week. He can't get his hand wet which eliminates a lot more chores/maddux baths than I realized. He has limited mobility in his hand and fingers and needs to take it easy for a while. He has been a total trooper and has done really well so far! We are looking forward to his follow up appointment this Wednesday to make sure everything still looks good!

Maddux STILL has a double ear infection and now has an appointment with the ENT on the 24th to look into getting tubes for the poor little guy.

After 2.5 years (in this ward) and 2 years (in my last ward) I was finally released as the YW secretary today. It's going to be crazy having an extra night of the week to spend at home and I'm not even sure what you DO in Relief Society anymore.

Baby appears to be growing well as my tummy is way larger than I think it should be at 15.5 weeks. Already into maternity clothes, which doesn't quite seem fair. That's a LOT of weeks left to wear not-so-cute clothes! Wish me luck!

Hopefully I'll get some motivation to revamp the blog here soon. For now...here is a pic of Drew and his "ow ow ow", as Maddux calls it. :)

6 years ago....

One of my greatest blessings!!

Coming Soon...(but not soon enough)....

While I am sooo not excited to look like this again.....
(39 weeks)

I am WAY excited to add another one of these to the fam...Coming May 2010!

I'm 13 weeks along and finally feeling good again!
My little bambino (sex unknown) is currently the size of a Nutter Butter cookie.

Pumpkins!

For family night tonight we went to pick out Pumpkins with Maddux. We went to a local pumpkin patch and he was ticked that he couldn't go in and play on all the rides, we were only getting pumpkins. Luckily, we ran into our friends the Startins and the Perkins there so he got distracted pretty quickly and stopped the tantrums!

I saw Maddux doing this...I laughed and pulled him out...

Turned my back again and then found him like this....

You've NEVER heard a man complain about something as much as my husband does when cleaning out a pumpkin....Our finished products...Also found out today that Maddux has a bad double ear infection AND a sinus infection. Poor kid. It's no wonder he has been so fussy lately! I don't blame him! We've now got antibiotics and will hopefully be his old self again very soon!

Pre-Halloween

My mom has requested some new pics. I tried to get Maddux to hold still while he was in his Halloween costume at the ward party the other night. It is basically mission: impossible these days, but this is the best I could get! I will try for a better Pirate pic on Halloween.

Evening in Excellence 2009

Wednesday we had Evening In Excellence with the YW in the ward. This is the 3rd one that I've been a part of in this ward, and I have to say, it was pretty amazing! Tristin did ALL of the decor herself and had this total vision that turned out amazing!

We did STAR Awards (Stand for Truth And Righteous). The whole night was set up like the Oscars and each girl was escorted in on a red carpet by a young man. Each girl was presented with an award and shared with everyone their 10-hour projects. Jenn Daniels spoke and had everyone teary eyed. The whole night was a big success! The girls LOVED it!

Buds

Maddux has been completely attached to his Daddy today. I can't blame him.
Tonight, Drew (while helping me make dinner) says,
"Sweetie...did you have any idea that being a parent would be so much fun? I love that little guy!"

How did I get so lucky?

Sick x 3

We all came down with some sort of nastiness this week. Flu? Cold? I have no idea...but I've never been so MISERABLE!! All three of us got hit hard and I think we are finally coming out of it! I spent yesterday and today using these three guys on every toy and every square inch of my house...

It better be gone for good!

Sometimes I have days where I wonder what in the world I am going to do with Maddux. For those of you who haven't met him in person, he's...um...ACTIVE! That doesn't even do it justice. Crazy, busy, hyper, curious, I could go on and on. For those of you who DO know Maddux, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I LOVE him to death, but I tell you, there are some days that I am exhausted by noon!

Today I was looking at some old blog posts and got completely teary eyed and appreciative of the little guy I was blessed with. He is a total sweetheart and can melt me into a puddle in seconds. I wouldn't change him for the world! Here are some of my favorite pics from the past 22 months with my crazy little buddy!I LOVE this kid!

Firestation Tour

The other day we got to tour an awesome firestation in Scottsdale. Maddux was more interested in shutting all the doors to the engines than anything else, but I think he still had fun!

Date Night

Loving this new tradition with our good friends. This time we went to La Grande Orange in Phoenix. I know I said this about Pizzeria Bianco, but I take it back now...this is the BEST pizza I have EVER eaten!! EVER! Everything about this place was amazing.
And I LOVE my friends!!!!

have you ever seen a tastier looking pizza?

Bounce U

We took advantage of having drew home on Labor day and spent a fun filled Monday together. First we took Maddux to the splash pad then we all took naps (yay for naps). We got up and took Maddux to Bounce U. I thought it would be a fun place for him to jump around and get some of that energy out. Little did I know that Drew and I were allowed in on all that fun! I wasn't prepared and had to buy some of these awesome purple socks they sell there so we could play.
Total Blast!!!

notice maddux at the very top...he climbed up all by himself! It was STEEP!

Powell

We were missing half of the family on this year's Family Lake Powell Trip. Amber, Tyler, Brooklyn, Boston and Taz couldn't make it and Drew couldn't come because of work. We missed them all!
It was a crazy, busy couple of days for me. Watching an active kiddo like Maddux when you're surrounded by nothing but water sure does wear you out fast!

I got to ski once and wakeboard once, but we got there right before Labor day weekend and the conditions weren't the best. We had a blast just relaxing, swimming, hiking, going down the slide, and laying out!

He loved playing in the sand...

Check out this awesome outfit....Maddux gave me the scare of my life when I went to check on him one day during his nap. He had taken off his pullup, crawled out of his crib onto the ledge and was playing at the window. If that window had opened....!?!?!...well, I can't even think about it...I'll leave it at that!We had a fire and smores one night. The people on the other side of the canyon from us put on a pretty amazing fireworks show too! It was awesome!

My dad, Kasey and I went on this fun hike. Once we got to the top, we looked down and realized we weren't going to be able to get back down. It was SOOO steep! Here we are trying to figure out a plan...A little rock bowling while we were up there....Kasey driving the houseboat back to Wahweap...