Milestones...at 4 months

She is interacting with her toys!! (dont' mind that the date shows these pictures as a year ago! We need to fix that...) Gracee now knows that the apple talking thing is her friend on her exersaucer and that she can control when it responds to her.








Some of the other gadgets on it still are a little perplexing...

She finally likes the baby carrier!! I can't tell you how many times I've tried this and she just cried and cried until I took her out.

This is the first time she actually figured out that those ripped arms of hers can actually serve the purpose of keeping her face from being smooshed into the floor! Yea for Gracee, she can push herself up now! (Thanks Ryanne for all of these toys!)

"We're proud of you we're proud of you so very very proud of you, we're proud of you we're proud of you! And we hope that you are proud of you too..."

-Mr Rogers and Star & Stef

Shining like the top of the Chrsyler building!

OKAY KIDS, HOW MANY THINGS CAN YOU FIND WRONG IN THIS PICTURE??? (hint: items in picture are: pacifier, cough syrup, scrub brush, dirty diaper, and a fooder scraper offer thingie) Answer at bottom of post...

So why is it that mine and Russ's house never 'shines' unless we're expecting company?? (BTW, anyone that can name the quote this title is from wins a prize...)

I have been doing a lot of cleaning, side projects, and dejunking this week. Whenver I get in hyper-focus mode, the small details get a little overlooked. Hence, the huge health hazard I saw before my eyes yesterday morning (see above photo). I was alarmed at first when I came upon the scene, but then I just laughed and HAD to take a picture! Seriously, I have a hard time keeping up with the house with only ONE child! I SO admire all of those moms in my life who have more than one child, and some several! And to all of those moms out there who have it mastered and manage to have your house clean all the time even when unexpected visits occur...I say to you--We all know you secretly hire a maid! We are just being polite by not unveiling your secret. You know who you are. Just to keep the peace I won't mention any names...

(Answers: Oh I don't know...if the unopened cough syrup being next to the dirty diaper wasn't enough, we went ahead and threw in the pacifier, scrubber and food scraper just to make things exciting around here.)

My first post--the Journey

I thought my very first post should be some sort of explanation as to why I chose the title I did for our blog.


Russ has always been a one-track minded man. When we were dating and I was away on Christmas break, he must have been--for the first time in months--focused more on work and his life than on me! Because up until the day of, there was not yet a plan set forth for how he was going to propose. But he knew he was ready with the ring to propose when I got back, so when he woke up the morning of the proposal (as I was packing my bags and saying goodbye to my AZ family) that one-track mind of his reverted back to "Susie-mode" and knew it only had mere hours to come up with a plan. He instantly thought of this book and spent the whole rest of the day scheming with our families. To make a long 'story' (no pun intended!) short, he re-wrote the words in the book to match our story. I came home to strings and clues strung about the house, backyard, driveway, street, all the way over to Russ's house a few doors down!

Now let's backtrack for a just a moment. I have had a lot of travels before there was Russ. I have lived a lot of places.

It seemed like I was always moving from place to place. The word "home" has meant a lot of different things to me. . . until I met Russ. He is my home now. No matter where we go, and no matter what happens to us, I will always have a home with him.

Since that proposal night, I have been blessed to travel to several places with that clever guy...

But the best part of all is that we don't have to travel too far to find the adventures in life. They seem to find us wherever we are. The journeys I will be recounting will often be journeys of the heart. Though I hope to continue to travel and learn about other cultures, the greatest journeys in life are those in which the destination is deep in the heart. Through the Atonement of our Savior, me and Russ will continue to experience little changes in our hearts--bringing more unity and trust between the two of us and our children. There are twists and turns in the road--and even roadblocks at times--but the end goal is clear. We know that together, we can experience true joy in the journey. In the eloquent words of my sister in law, "What you are describing and witnessing is real JOY --uncluttered, deeper than happiness or wishes or dreams. It is what happens after the trial of our faith, after we've risked more emotion than we thought we could or should...and then our Father in Heaven's blessings and His awareness of us as individuals hits us (if we're willing recipients) and our eyes get all watery and we feel overwhelmed, overblessed and "eternally indebted. (Stef Hall)"

In these chapters I hope to focus on finding the joy in life, because it's always there...sometimes it just takes a little looking.