My little Angels

Little Joe seeing a space shuttle for the first time This week we found out that we will be having a little girl and we decided to name her Nora Caroline.  Nora was a name we had picked out before we knew Joe would be a boy, so there wasn't much work to be done on that end.  We chose Nora because it derives from 'light' in Arabic and Hebrew, but it also means 'honor' in the Anglo-Saxon origination.  Caroline is Rachael's step-mother and we decided to name Nora after her. We've been talking to Joe about Nora and we're pretty sure he understands that a sibling is in mommy's tummy, but he keeps talking about a door for the baby to come out.  He's also been talking up a storm and has been very much into space shuttles, rockets, and trains the last few weeks.    We took him to the Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian museum last weekend and took the photo above when he saw the space shuttle for the first time.

Hiking in the mountains with mom and dad Things have been insanely busy for us lately - I'm still working two jobs and have two classes left for my degree and Rachael is working more.  In addition to all of that, it looks like we're going to be having another baby around the beginning of May next year.  I regret that my time commitment here has fallen off but I've been enjoying spending as much time as I can with little Joe. Joe's at the point that he can understand just about anything we ask of him and can formulate some sort of sentence response to us.  He loves talking about trucks, cars, airplanes, rockets, and trains and enjoys every chance he gets to get out and be outside.  He just started sleeping in his own bed in the last week, even though its still just next to ours, and still sleeps through the night most nights. His health issues have all but disappeared to this point, with the exception of a minor ear infection every once in a while.  It looks like

Little Joe dressed up for Easter Keeping with the common refrain from the last year, the last few months have been insane both for little Joe's development and our schedule with school and work, preventing me from writing here anywhere close to as often as I would like to. Since my last update little Joe has had a ton of language development.  He can count to 10 on his own with little prompting, recognizes all the letters and numbers, many of the basic colors, and can construct basic sentences on his own to communicate with us.  Mornings typically have "Dada, yummy toast now" or "Hi Dada" with a hug, while car rides are "ooh, green trees" or "Dada, outside please". He absolutely loves his time outside and cries at the mention of going inside even after many hours at parks.  I'm looking forward to the summer with longer hours, nicer weather, and chances to play with him outside more often.  I have a break in school coming up after

Little Joe enjoying the snow Little Joe turned two today, and what a whirlwind year it's been.  Again I find myself regretting that I've been unable to keep up with the amazing progress he's made but with our busy schedules I'm barely keeping my head above water with my school and work, let alone having the personal time to keep something like this up. For Joe's birthday Rachael and I both left work early to take him to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum because it was unfortunately a little cold for us to do much of anything else.  We'd hoped to take him to the zoo or to a playground but I don't think he minded the museum.  He still absolutely loves airplanes- just like dad- and he spent the better part of almost two hours wandering around and looking at the planes.  "Aaaah!  Shoom!" Yesterday we had a little birthday get together with Rachael's mom and two friends, Nick and Priya, along with their son Zack.  It wasn't much to sp

Baby Joe reading with Pop-pop and Grammy on Christmas It's been a good long while since I've had a chance to update little Joe's status.  Since my last post we've moved back to the US to Alexandria and have had a lot going on that has made it incredibly difficult to make the time to devote to a good post, which I sincerely regret since little Joe has been changing so much. In the last 2 months he has picked up quite the vocabulary.  He can say words like 'banana', 'apple', 'bubble', 'pop', 'kiss', 'firetruck', and his most recent favorite 'aaaaa', which means 'airplane'.  He's really been enjoying videos of airplanes and boats on top of his go-to favorite firetruck videos.  He also has started doing puzzles and has been getting good at manipulating pieces and blocks, which he'd had problems with in the past. Little Joe has been sick lately and not doing very well, but I'm hoping that he