Visiting pop-pop and grammy for the first time

Hanging out on the couch and relaxing
with the kids

Tomorrow we leave for a short but much-needed vacation to Phoenix to visit Rachael's father and brother. It'll be everyone's first opportunity to meet Nora and have a chance to see how much Joe has grown since they last saw him. Wayne hasn't seen Joe since before he turned three and Wes hasn't seen him since just before we left for Belgium when Joe was only 8 months old. It'll be a great weekend, I'm sure.

Nora is just about 6 months old now and just loves to smile and spend time snuggling with mom and dad. She has parts of three lower teeth in now and has been gumming soft food for about 3 weeks now - sweet potatoes, bananas, and steamed carrots mostly. She also loves grabbing at just about anything we put near our mouths, especially glasses and cups. She's still running in the 60-70 percentile for height and weight, which is a drop-off from her earlier rate but still is great to see. She fits in mostly 9-month clothes now and his consistently been a size or two ahead, which has thrown off all our clothes we had lined up for. We're not complaining about it all that much, but it's led to some stressful times trying to get her in clothes that fit.

Joe has been doing great the last few months. He's very active when we give him the chance to be and loves to read and count in books or on his apps we got for his tablet. He's been a bit of a handful trying to get to bed sometimes, but other than that he's been very helpful around the house with Nora and loves snuggling with her and making her laugh. He also has been playing around with technology and has been very interested in making phone calls or trying to make voice-directed web searches with my mobile phone when he finds it unattended.

Comments

The Shannons

Out at lunch with my wonderful family As always, I feel I need to add a disclaimer here about how busy I've been and apologize to myself - and whoever ends up reading this - about not keeping up with this blog. It was easier with just Joe because my time home meant mostly quiet during his frequent naps and plenty of time to gather thoughts to put down, where now I feel I can barely keep up with sleep and other basic functions of life. Hectic life aside, I couldn't be happier with where I am right now as father. Joe is at a wonderful age where he always wants to help us and be affectionate with Nora and we have started playing sports together rather than just hanging around the house. He's really started taking an interest in baseball and soccer, and whenever I have the chance I try to at least kick the ball around the house a bit if I can't take him outside. I'm hoping that once things settle down we can really spend some time together and work on some soc...

German Kindergarten

Mom and the kids at the Alhambra, Granada, Spain Both kids have started German Kindergarten (Kindi) in the past few weeks. We're still going through a compulsory transition period with Nora but Joe's been in full-time for a good while and he's loving it. It's rare that he doesn't come home covered head-to-toe in sand and he still has a hard time leaving every day because he's having such a good time. His German is improving quite rapidly and he's already saying things I don't understand, which couldn't make me happier. I'm so happy for both of my kids that they get this privilege of growing up in another country and having two primary languages, which I hope will give them opportunities later in life that I can't even think of. Even without new opportunities, though, I'm happy that they can grow up in another culture and have the perspective of the world you can only gain through travel that I sorely wish I'd had as a young k...

Week 17 update

Last night Rachael and I decided on a Natural Birth center in Chantilly for baby delivery. She's been immersed in baby books and documentaries since we found out she was pregnant and I know that she's been wanting to find a great natural birth center. I could tell from watching her last night that she can see herself having the baby there and that she's getting very excited about all this - unfortunately we still have 20 long weeks to go. We've decided to schedule an ultrasound for 2 weeks from now to hopefully determine what gender the baby will be. Rachael's been going back and forth for some time now on what it'll be ... some days she feels its going to be a girl, but recently it's gone back more towards boy. Basically... we won't know until the ultrasound. Rachael's belly is definitely starting to show; you can tell that she's actually pregnant now and not putting on a little extra weight for the upcoming winter. She's been starting ...

My little Angels

Search This Blog