I don't write down enough of what the kids are like at different times of their lives. And I love it, so I'm sur they would love to know about it! So, I feel the need to write it now. I was going to have the patience to add pics to this, but even the thought of it, well, I've already lost my patience. thus, this will be a pretty long and mostly likely a little boring of a post. :)
Right now, I feel like the kids are moving stages in life, it's so fun.
Hallee has graduated into the sitting up and "basically" crawling category. I didn't even know she could sit up, and then all of a sudden she was doing it. She also started doing some army crawling this week. True blue girl! ;) She also became a thumb sucker! My first. I remember the night when she seemed to just "figure it out." I was signing my lullabies to her, and she found her thumb and popped it in. It was like you could see the light bulb go on in her head. I could hear her unspoken words, "Hmm, this is great. I will do this every night from now on." It's incredibly hard to resist the cuteness of it all.
Willie is the love of my life right now. He makes me laugh so much! He is funny, not just a silly 2 year old kind of funny, but really a jokester. He's also switching from being a toddler to really a preschool kid. He's so smart! I smile every time I hear him pray, "thanks for my girl Lucy, and my other girl Hallee." He's so cute. It's fun to watch the mental development as a toddler leaves toddling age and becomes a preschooler.
I really click with Willie, more in a lot of ways than I have clicked with Lucy, which must mean he takes after me in personality or thought processes, because I know Lucy takes after Jeremy for sure. Jeremy and I were one of those oh so rare couples that, even though we were a match made in heaven, we found out how different we were
after we got married. Not many couples out there like that right? ;) We have some polar opposites with respect to some things, and I've always felt Lucy has taken after Daddy in these kinds of things, she's opposite of me. Willie seems to be more like me and so I feel like I understand him and can relate to him more. This is important to me mostly because as I do home preschool, I have to remember their differences while I'm doing lessons.
It's also great to see Willie getting out of his toddler stage with respect to obedience and playtime/sharing. It is so fun to watch the two play together in their room. Right now, the kid's room is the only room we've spent money on for furniture. And it's a long story, I'm not totally thrilled with the furniture, but I won't go into that. But their room is set up like their own little world. Lucy's got a "doll house" bunk bed, which is a bunk bed that looks like a mini house. It practically puts a hole in the roof, it was an ordeal putting it up. And she kind of hates it. *Sigh*. Willie has a little tikes car bed. There is a table and chairs under the house, or "inside" their house. They have dishes for tea time and a tea cart, and lots of play food. And soon to be added (lest I forget, Willie will remind me everyday), a basketball hoop in the "driveway". The basketball hoop is Willie's potty present. He's been doing awesome on potty training really. He might be fully trained before Lucy is.
Though I said Lucy is so different, she is just as smart as 4 year olds come. She picks things up from friends so quick! She's also started to become mommy's little helper with the baby, which is nice to have. She asks everyday when "school starts". We're going to be doing a Joy School with two other kids in our ward, and Lucy and Willie. It should be fun. Lucy's great accomplishment this summer has been learning how to swim. I would officially say she can swim! I'll put a video up of her swimming. It's just so amazing to me how much she progressed this summer and a lot of it was by watching her friends.
We've been in Columbia for 2 months now, and we still don't have a bed, believe it or not. We finally had to give back our borrowed sleeping mats, so we bought a futon. Sold it again two days later because I thought it was junk basically, junk for sleeping on at least. So we're back to having nothing to sleep on. Tonight I think I'm sleeping with Lucy (whose expensive bed is also the nicest bed in the house) and Jeremy will sleep on the couch. We will be getting something soon.... :o
Many of you know my husband's hobby/dream of running. He's been working really hard this year to hit a fast marathon time. Long story short, this goal has been put on the back burner. But his running fame is big here at Fort Jackson and he was put on the Army 10-miler team for Fort Jackson. The "Army 10-miler" is a HUGE race which takes place in Washington DC and brings in runners from around the world. One of the neat thing is militia from other countries will send their soliders to compete. It's a peace-making kind of thing. It's a really neat race because the runners get to pass many famous icons like Arlington Cemetary, Lincoln memorial, Washington memorial, many of the Simthsonian buildings, up past the US Capitol, the finish (and the start) was at the Pentagon. It was really neat granted, however, the runners aren't sight-seeing while trying to pound out the miles, :) thus we did go to visit many of those places aside from the race. I can't remember right now how Jeremy did exactly... I do know that it wasn't as well as he hoped, he had big blisters on both feet. I actually didn't even get to see him run!! I was so disappointed. I had to take 3 kids on the metro by myself to get to the race, so I opted to just go for the finish and somehow I didn't even see him pass us! Lucy said she saw him, so guess that counts for all of us. It was very fun to take a family trip though! The kids did great in the car, being the longest car ride they've done, I was happy with that. Hallee had the hardest time, but she made it through it. 
What Lucy does every spare moment she gets...and the reason why Lucy ALWAYS has to wear a skirt! She couldn't practice her spin if she didn't! 
This last pic is in front of the White House. This was the last place we stopped before hitting the road back home. We were walking around and this bicycle officer stopped to chat. He let us in on this secret he "wasn't supposed to tell people" and said that a certain chopper would be landing in about 15 minutes if we wanted to stick around to watch. Jeremy was as excited as a schoolboy and said he had to see the President's chopper. We waited more than 15 minutes, it was kind of cool to see, but by the time the chopper lands, you're so far away and the angle is such you can't even see anyone exit the chopper. Who knows if it really was the president or not...then again, who else would be flying by Air Force chopper to the White House, hmm?
