whitney is moving, tucker is eating

The biggest excitement in this house is how much Whitney is moving. This week she figured out how to pull herself from sit to stand. In the bathtub of all places. Apparently the tub side is the perfect height for her. She also is able to do the same feat in the church pew, so she practiced that plenty today, instead of taking a nap. She has two bottom teeth now, also. She did something else amazing. She sat still and watched me cut her toenails and fingernails. I had tried to catch her sleeping to do it, but they were getting so long, that I tried doing it right before nap. She sat perfectly still while I cut them, as if she knew she needed her nails done. What baby does that? A girl baby, apparently. She also really likes to talk. She is on syllables like ma-ma, ba-ba, da-da and spitting. Tucker thinks spitting is so funny. He stops eating to peer around his highchair side to watch her and laugh.

Tucker is working hard on eating. He has his 6 teeth and inhales his food. Someone asked me this week what they like to eat. I didn't know about Tucker. He inhales it all. Whitney definitely has a preference for fruits. She does a "yummy" sound when she eats them. But he doesn't differentiate. He needs to practice eating crackers, though. He inhales them, too. It didn't work in his favor one day. He ended up gagging himself by having a whole cracker in his mouth that he wouldn't give it up and lost half of his food from the meal. Whatever.

Some of the pictures this week I will try to describe to you. Tucker is practicing his beauty contest wave. It cracks me up!! He has been very fascinated with his hands. He has gone to reach for a toy and stops short to watch his hand move. Pronate, supinate, pronate, supinate, pronate, supinate. In other words "Wow! The back of my hand, the front of my hand, the back of my hand, the front of my hand. that is so cool!!" Another fun picture is of Whitney giving Sammy a hug. It looks like Sammy has his head on her lap. There is a picture of Whitney in her "fort". She loves to crawl over things right now. She loves to crawl in the bottom part of the exersaucer and spends a lot of time there hitting toys on the plastic floor and grabbing Tucker's feet. Tucker has a lot of pictures of him smiling. He is pretty happy and has figured out how to smile on cue to other people and the camera. He and Whitney are still sharing a lot of "jokes" this week. They laugh at each other a lot. I think he is a lot happier because he hasn't been cutting teeth this week, just eating, and I was able to get them on a fairly regular schedule for sleeping. Life is pretty fun right now. Another favorite picture of mine is when Whitney crawled in Rocky's bed. He didn't like that as much.

We've been spending time enjoying each other's company this week. Yesterday morning and this afternoon we walked around as a family, including the dogs. Jim went looking for shoes yesterday and today we watched the cruise ships leave the Sound. We've had some people over for dinner this week and I met another mom at the park, so socializing has helped me feel less alone in this crazy big city. In general we are enjoying life together before real life really hits again with church callings and being in a place that we will be staying in for awhile, instead of living more like a long term vacation.

This week the history channel had a review of main events surrounding 9-11-01. At the time, 9-11 was a foreign event for me. I was serving a mission in Argentina at the time, and the rule for missionaries is to not watch TV in order to focus on serving others and teaching about Jesus Christ and His gospel. I was in a hardware store in Argentina buying nails for an object lesson with the scriptures when I heard over the radio "Los estados unidos..... los estados unidos....(the US...the US)". I thought to myself, "oh great. The US did something else with their economic policy that is going to tick everyone off again." I didn't understand the rest of the radio because I had only been in the country for 5 months and didn't understand radio spanish yet. We went to a copy shop after that for some handouts and the guy behind the counter stared at us like we were crazy and just pointed to the screen (all shops have a TV in them for the most part). My companion and I turned around in reaction and I saw the image of the twin towers burning, smoke coming out of both of them and a helicopter flying around. I remembered that I wasn't supposed to be watching TV and turned away. That is the only live image I saw.

As the day went on, many strangers in the street stopped to ask us if our families were ok. This was quite a day for us. Most the time people on the street avoid talking to missionaries. We heard bits and pieces of what was happening through the people on the street and the ward members. I remember wondering if I was going to finish my mission if the US was at war. Our mission president told us that night through the telephone tree, the basics of what happened that day, and that we would continue working as usual the next day. I was overwhelmed with the kindness of the Argentines and the compassion they had for a foreign event. It made me wonder at myself of how often I even pay attention to wars or calamaties in other nations, let alone stop to talk to someone from that country to see how they are feeling about it.

Not all the experiences were completely positive at first. One guy that we stopped to talk to about the gospel asked us how we could even believe in God after what had happened in our country the day before. Then he told us to go home so that we could actually do some good where good was needed, not in Argentina because they were doing just fine. He walked off before we could respond to him. His accusations of us being in the wrong place at the wrong time made me think. If I could have responded back, I would have told him that I was doing exactly what needed to be done to help a situation like that. Teaching people about Christ and His atonement that allows us to be forgiven, so in turn we can be forgiving of others because we have felt what it is like to be forgiven.

Long story short, I didn't know what was happening minute by minute like everyone else that was in the US did, so I didn't have the anxiety of the day etched in me. I found out the basic details over time and heard more details when I got back, but I already knew the end results. This week when I watched the history channel special, I got a small sense of what all of you must have felt, not knowing what was coming next. I finally saw parts of the live footage. It stressed me out for the two hours the special was on, and I even stayed up an extra hour to watch the whole thing. After that, I was all worked up and couldn't sleep until midnight. (And all you moms know how precious your sleep is.) I can't even imagine what it was like for everyone else that day.

Which brings me to what our city did this weekend. They sponsored a Day of Service at a park and planted trees, as well as clean up the park (things have to be cut back from growing here, as opposed to coaxing plants to grow like in Utah) a bit in commemoration of 9-11. I guess the terrorists goals were not all completely met. Now it is a day that brings us together as a nation, instead of being divided, as long as continue to participate in things like this. Anyway. It's getting late.

Until next week....