New baby! (but not me!)

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, Ray met Juan and Maureen through his job. Juan and Maureen lived together with their cats that Juan always seemed to threaten to flush down the toilet. Then Juan and Mo moved to the DC area and Ray and I stayed in Jax and Ray moved onto other things besides AOL. But I guess we were all meant to meet back up at some point. Right after Ray and I got married, Juan gave Ray a call and, lo and behold, Ray was working for AOL and we moved to the DC area. Since then, sometimes our paths have parted ways for a while, sometimes they have merged back together. Once Ray and I left the DC area but we moved back. Throughout it all, we always stayed in touch just enough that we knew what was going on in each other's lives. We knew that Juan and Mo were happy being childfree and they didn't plan on having children. But once, while out at a restaurant, Maureen said she might like to have a child one day. I relayed this information to Ray later and he laughed and said "No way. They're never having children." I said I wasn't so convinced and I was pretty sure they would have a child someday.

So, of course (this is YEARS after she mentioned this to me), when they told us Maureen was pregnant... I wasn't too surprised. But Ray and I were both SO EXCITED! I just feel like I have known Juan and Mo for so long and it's such a thrill to witness them enter the wonderful world of parenting. They will be fabulous parents. So now I'll go ahead and post some teeny tiny baby pictures!

New mommy, Maureen, looking absolutely wonderful!


Oh, Ray... don't you want another baby?


Baby Zen Juaquin


Such a perfect little baby! He was so quiet, too. Living up to his name.


I'm a huge breastfeeding advocate. Maureen was showing off her nursing chart. heehee.


If there was a thought bubble coming out of my head, I would be thinking "OK, as soon as she turns around, I'm running off with Zen!" He is such a gorgeous, perfect baby. Congrats to the proud mommy and daddy!

St Patrick's Day and Ray's birthday

I realize I haven't updated in a month. Oops. It's been busy- between class, volunteering, baseball, work, etc etc, I haven't had much in the way of a spare moment. I don't really have a spare moment now, but here are a few pics. I actually don't have much in the way of really good pictures, either. *sigh*


The girlies were all excited about St Patrick's Day and dressing in green. They went all out. Gotta love the teeny tiny sportin the winter boots and the scarf from India.


Trevor, who is a teenager early, said dressing in green was "super lame and he wasn't doing it". I told him he would get pinched. But he didn't care. He was however, really disappointed that the leprechaun didn't visit his classroom. He knows it's really the teacher, but all the same, he was bummed. So then being in third grade was lame because nothing cool like a desk fairy (for clean desks in Rachael's room) or anything like that came. I told him it was because he didn't wear green.. then we went out and got mint chip ice cream to make up for the leprechaun being lame that day.


Then, to complete the "lame" theme here, I didn't take good pictures for Ray's little family bday party we had! Ray's birthday was Tuesday but Ariel had a doctor's appt, and I worked that afternoon and then had class that evening. So we celebrated Wednesday, even though Trevor had baseball practice until 7pm. phew. Busy. The kids made him this super cool mug that they could write on- they wrote Happy Birthday! and then signed their names with lots of xoxoxoxo and little pictures. Then I bake it and supposedly the ink sets and it's dishwasher safe. It's cool! We also got a Coffeehouse Crunch Ice cream cake from Coldstone Creamery and that was super decadent. Ray is officially 34 years old! Ray and I have the babysitter for Saturday and we're meeting friends in DC so hopefully I will get more pics then.


And I can't finish an entry without posting a pic of house pony Reznor. This is his favorite position when the kids are outside playing. He turned one year old on March 19th. He's huge now- 140 lbs of big ole drooly hairiness. So Happy birthday to Rezzie, too!

Trevor and Rez working, well, kind of together.

Trevor training Rez. This video is so classic. Love the end of it where Rez goes on strike.


This is the other video. I told Trevor Rez was tired but Trevor didn't want to stop training. Before these videos, he worked with Rez for about 20 minutes on "wait" and "leave it".