Trip to Arizona

Gracee and I recently returned from a 10-day trip to AZ. It was so much fun seeing grandma, great grandman, cousins, friends, and Aunts. Here are some of the pictures from it.

this bow is the first one I've EVER liked on Gracee! We had a magnificent photo shoot at Micaela's with some of Gracee's new little friends.
Afterwards, we had a swim party and Gracee made her usual concerned look at the water....but after being with grandma and seeing a handsome face, she was her usual flirty happy self in no time!

She also got to meet some more new friends--Christie, Emily, Brooke, and Erin--it was so good to see you!
She also got to meet her great Grandma Ione for the first time!
Then we headed up to the White Mountains to stay with Steph's family.
She got to meet her great Aunt Pam and Uncle Starl--and she got to see one of my dad's classic laughing fits. Love to see you laugh dad!
She had her first pony ride!
She got to have lots of cousin bonding time!
Aunt Sandy even came to say goodbye before we left for the airport.
She had lots of fun charming everyone on the airplane. I may have already mentioned this but she does this thing where she will make noises or shout at someone until they look at her. Once she has caught their eye, she engages them in a full head shaking, nose-scrunching, laughing conversation. Needless to say, she had a lot of friends by the end.
First plane ride. Lots of firsts. She did awesome and was so much fun. She really missed her daddy though. We were so happy to be home.

Livin' off the land...

For me, life's sweetest joys have always been the simple ones; getting a good deal, relaxing after a hard day's work, being sore from a good workout, harvesting food that I have grown, or cloth diapering--even with its challenges.
We began cloth diapers as soon as our 5 month supply of generously-gifted diapers ran out, and as you can see, we had a bit of a rough start. Russ has reiterated his feelings about these little cloth creations. It is no secret that if it were entirely up to him, we'd be using disposables.


When I was out of town for 3 weeks, I used disposables. It was a nice break but it reminded me of why I have been enjoying the cloth diaper world. It is for the same reason that I love to get up at dawn and go for an invigorating run. It is for the same reason I love to work and sweat out in the yard all day. It is for the same reason I LOVED working out in the wilderness with troubled teens and learning from nature--All of these give some sort of feeling that I am living off the land. I usually rinse the diaper covers out by hand and hang them out to dry. When I need a fresh one, I'll go and get one off of the line out back. It reminds me of when I lived in Vanuatu and we would just go grab some island cabbage out of our garden in the back when we needed it. Last night I just grabbed a huge thing of broccoli out of our garden for dinner and once again had that invigorating 'livin off the land' rush and remembered I wanted to do this post today. Sometimes, for me, convenience is only second to feeling like I REALLY experienced something. Go ahead, call me crazy. Many do.

The parts we love about you

HAPPY 9 MONTHS!! Wow Gracee, it's amazing we've only known you for 9 months. Gracee can now get up on her hands and knees, she doesn't quite know what to do from there yet. She gets more and more verbal every week. She open and closes her hands really fast when she's excited and wants what she is looking at. Or she'll also do it and look around frantically if we have the NERVE to set her down anywhere without something to suck, chew or bang with. She still does her nose scrunching thing--but it's morphed into being the way she smiles now. She scrunch her nose and breathes in and out of it really loud to get people's attention at the store, church, or at the house. Once she cathces their eye, she proceeds to charm them by completely engaging and interacting. If people try to talk with her when she is tired or hungry, she usually tries to give a polite smile before she turns back around to mom or dad to show how she REALLY feels! Do we have a people pleaser? =) I can't even begin to count how many times a day I kiss her sweet cheeks, nose, or lips. She's learning how to give kisses, too. She doesn't get the whole pucker thing, but she knows what's going on!

We also love her chubby little thighs!

And my personal SECOND favorite---the neck! It's so cute and little and defined already!

Gracee girl, we love you! You have brightened every day in the last 9 months since you've come to us. We love your sweet, engaging spirit. We thank our Heavenly Father every day for you.

Happy Father's Day!

Father! - to God himself we cannot give a holier name. ~William Wordsworth I knew from the moment I first met him that he would be a fabulous father.

Gracee feels so comfortable with him. From her very first weeks, they were very well bonded--like two kindred spirits.

He's comfortable doing pretty much everything I do with her. He watches her in the evenings and on Saturdays when I go to work. He is very aware of her needs and her moods.

He enjoys all of the fun holiday parts of parenting that I like to cheese up and take photos of, or at least I should say he's a good sport about!

He is everything I ever hoped for in a husband and father and much more. I still realize/learn little things about him and think, "did I know I'd be getting that too when we were dating? Nope, that's just another icing on the cake."

One of the youth in our ward said that he's learned more from Russ in the last year than he has ever learned...that is one of my favorite things about Russ. He's an excellent teacher and example and has a burning testimony, which he is very passionate about sharing.

I am so grateful to have you as the father of my children honey! Thanks for being you because you're my favorite!

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

DIE HARD? I think not.

So many of you may know that I like to do triathlons. A lot of people sound impressed when they hear that and say something like, "Woah, you're die hard," or, "Go Sus!" And when I tell them I just do it for fun and I'm not die hard, they seem to think I'm just being modest. This morning I snuck into the rec center--hoping to go unnoticed by the die hards--with my new wet suit on (It's a lot like the one in this picture, but I bought it on a crazy sale last summer when I was also CRAZY pregnant, so I had no idea how/if it fit!) and my new goggles--a beloved and much needed COSTCO find.
I looked about as goofy as I do in this picture, but even goofier because I was at an INDOOR swimming pool in the SUMMER! But I am doing the Salem relay tri with my nephew Zach and my hubby Russ in a little over a week--so I decided to swallow my pride and try out my new gear so that I will get a better feel for it. (Incidentally, this picture is about how far my friend Kenzie and I made it to doing the Salem tri last year! See the shirt and the sweat band? We also got some free water bottles. It was really rainy and freezing that morning and so we opted out.)

So here's where the funny part comes in. Most long pools have lanes marked like this comic shows:

I usually choose the slow lane (remember the part about me not being die hard? Yah, getting kicked in the face by snobby die hards needing to pass me each time they lap me is not my idea of an 'uplifting' workout!) but this morning I got there a little early and the lanes were not yet marked. So I went into the one that looked like I would get disturbed the least. Half way through my swim, I noticed they had marked my lane as the fast lane. I was trying to beat my last record time--so I decided to stay in the "die hard" fast lane... to make a long 20 minutes short, the dude I was sharing it with had to pass me SEVERAL times. (He had fins on though). When he exited the pool I just finished my last lap and came up out of the water to hear him venting something to a fellow die hard who had just entered. Though I couldn't make out the topic of conversation, his tone was heated and his last words were, "EXACTLY!" and he glared at me TWICE as he walked out of the pool! I was just innocently stretching and catching my breath. I thought of asking the lady what he had said about me, but I didn't really want to know the answer.

So again I say, I really am just doing this because I enjoy it. I am not trying to be the first, fifth, or even fiftieth. I do it because it makes me feel driven and happy--I LOVE IT.

Die hard. DEFINATELY NOT!

My First Mother's Day

These are the perplexed looks Gracee has been doing lately...

Here is a journal excerpt about my first mother's day(don't ask me why it's all underlined, I don't profess to be blogger savvy yet):

So I had the most fantastic Mother's Day ever! When I got out of the shower in the morning Russ had flowers and two cute books waiting for me on the floor, along with a really nice letter. He normally has to have tons of help from his sisters, but this time he went solo! He even traced Gracee's hand into the book that was from her, so cute. It's a Sally Deford book with illustrations that go along with some of her lyrics. Then the other book is a gardening at temple square book cuz I've been so interested in learning about gardening. The roses were all different colors. Me and Russ got to team teach a marriage lesson in young women's. Gracee took a 2 and ½ hour nap!!! (She normally take 30 min. naps, but we've been trying the cry-it-out thing during naptime and she is adjusting like a rock star!) That was her gift to me. So Russ and I got to sleep for about two hours—THE longest nap we've had since Gracee was born. We went over to Russ's family's house and enjoyed a meal and a beautiful spring afternoon. It was so peaceful. After we put Gracee down, Russ's parents came over and gave us advice on our flowers and vegetable garden. After our visit, we waved goodbye to them and turned to go inside, Russ's arm around my shoulder. I told him this is just what I always imagined family life to be like. I said THIS is what happiness is.

Series of unfortunate events turned fortunate...

so the other day I was cleaning in a hurry (our usual style around here) and I put a little bowl of pineapple juice in the fridge, uncovered. (afterall, I was in a hurry!) Most of you know pineapple juice is just about the stickiest of all juices. Anyway, about 5 minutes later I went back into the fridge and capsized the bowl all over the fridge and floor! I was of course, on hands and knees cleaning every nook and cranny....and I happened to stumble upon some nooks I hadn't yet seen...
There is a little hidden bottom row to our fridge! WHO KNEW??? I was so excited, it erased all of my hurried woes. I cleaned off the secret shelf and neatly placed all of my mom's fancy protein and joint drinks and such in a spot just perfect for them! Simple thing, yet it made my afternoon.

Have any of you had an unfortunate event lead you to something very fortunate?