The day after Emilio's party (yeah we're crazy) we had his dedication to the Lord.
It was great! We watched a slide show that I put together of pictures of the Bean, my Pastor fixed the music. Thanks Pastor G, we love you!
Our Pastor prayed over us, and the Bean, and we gave him back to Jesus.
We realize that it is our job to raise this little boy to be a mighty man of God, who will one day part from his parents and set on FIRE this world for the Lord! Such a big job Joey and I sometimes think, but the Lord, He is so great! He chose us to be the parents of these two children for a reason. We pray always for our friends and family, but especially the ones who have children. The things we do to them, with them, and teach them now will have a tremendous impact on the people they will one day become. Will they be strong courageous men and women who will not crumble under the pressures of their peers? Will they be the ones drawing their friends, and neighbors to the Lord? Joey and I pray so, but more important that is what the Lord Jesus Christ wants for His creation, for them to one day become His children, and then bring others to him.
God bless you all, be encouraged in your ministry, your family!
ONE GENERATION SHALL PRAISE THY WORKS TO ANOTHER,
AND SHALL DECLARE THY MIGHTY ACTS.
PSALM 145:4

Happy 1st Birthday Emilio!

The Bean is a year old, I can't believe it! We celebrated in true Zarazua style, a big birthday bash... that he won't even remember having.
The theme was Curious George. Only because he's the cutest monkey that ever lived, and we think the bean looks just like him. We had it at Monkey See Monkey Do Art Studio for Kids (my best friends studio).
It was so much fun. They did circle time, singing, dancing, coloring, play-dough, and they even made a canvas of Curious George's face.
I think 1st birthday's are absolutely hysterical. The birthday child has no idea what's going on, or that any of this is even about them. All Emilio knew was that people kept screaming in his face "Happy Birthday", and trying to snatch him from his mothers arms. So he pretty much looked at everyone with his usual blank stare almost the whole time.
I say almost because I think I got one shot of him actually smiling. When was that shot taken you ask, well when he started digging into his little cake. Well, I shouldn't say digging, he was actually very careful about it, he wasn't exactly sure he was allowed to eat it. He kept looking at me for the ok.
It was a great party, all the kids had so much fun!

So lately I have been experiencing extremely horrible headaches, possible migraines.
Not knowing exactly what was causing them, I decided to pay closer attention to some things I thought might be the reason. I recently stopped drinking so much Coke, and thought that I was going through a major caffeine withdrawal or something, but... that wasn't it.
Then I starting tracking my eating habits. I didn't even realize it, but I have been maybe eating , twice a day. Can you believe that? I mean what was I thinking? Oh wait, I know what I was thinking. I have three kids here all day, who has the time to sit and enjoy a nice healthy meal?
So I put myself on a nice healthy diet this week, complete with 3 healthy meals a day, and of course healthy snacks. After starting this I have come to notice that if I don't eat about every 2 hours I start to feel the pain in my neck, and if I don't feed myself right then, it starts to work it's way up the back of my head.
This has made me realize that we as women, can become so caught up in caring for everyone and everything around us, and that we really need to focus more on making sure that we are taking care of ourselves as well.

I am happy to report, since I started actually feeding myself this week, I am feeling great. I have so much more energy for the kids, I have a much better attitude, and even though I have to be munching every two hours, the headaches are gone, and I think I'm actually gaining weight! I lost a lot while not eating.

Emilio's First Year

Birth
























1 Month























2 Months
























3 Months


















4 Months






















5 Months

















6 Months






















7 Months






















8 Months

9 Months

10 Months






















11 Months






















12 Months

11 Months Old!

So the Bean is now 11 months old. Where does time go?
Not only is he crawling all over,but he's now walking along the furniture, while holding on of course.
He says four words now. Dada, Momma, ball, and now whenever he sees Amiyah's orange bat he says "baaaaaaat" it's super cute!
He loves music, especially jazz. I downloaded the cd Baby Loves Jazz from itunes, and he claps along to it every morning and afternoon.

Look, Amiyah has a mullet! She did it herself.
Needless to say I was not very happy when I first saw it. Especially since Joey and I just had her hair cut into a beautiful layered bob, so that all her bouncy curls would lay just right. Well apparently Amiyah didn't like her new cut. When I asked her why she did it she said because she didn't like her curls in her face. So... instead of asking me to put her hair back, she figured she would solve the problem herself, and just cut them all off.
Well... looks like she's gonna be sportin' an afro for a little while.

Sneaky Bean

So I left the living room for about five seconds to get the phone, and as you can see I left him all alone with the can of snacks. Mind you, they were closed when I left.I come back and they were dumped all over the place, and he was munching away with his two teeth.

Merry Christmas in 2007

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas, and a blessed New Year!

In Christ, The Zarazua Family
Jose, Brandi, Amiyah & celebrating his first Christmas, Emilio.

What is it???

So yesterday, like usual, Amiyah wakes up and the first thing she goes for are her paper, pencils, and crayons.
After about 30 minutes she came to me with her finished drawing.
Upon looking at it, I was puzzled as to what it was. So I sat for a second trying to figure it out, can you? I sure couldn't.
After a minute I excitedly said, "wow Amiyah, that's great! What is it?"

She explained to me that it was the inside of her body. Well besides the two faces. Those were drawings of herself and me.
At the top on the left you have what she said was colored blood. Then on the bottom left we have her colored bones. Finally we see her heart in all different colors.
I was very curious as to why she drew this. She informed me that she wanted to draw blood, hearts, and bones on paper, so that she was able to see inside her body.

She comes up with the most random things sometimes. What an imagination.