A New Job

It’s official – I gave notice at 26NY where I have worked for the past eight years and will begin with Avanade (www.avanade.com) one week from Monday (January 8th). I’ve been thinking of leaving my position at 26NY for about a year. I started interviewing at a variety of firms last spring and decided I wanted to join Avanade over the summer when one of my friends joined them. Six interview and innumerable phone calls later, and I sent in my papers today.

Avanade is a great company. It was founded as a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture a few years ago because each company wanted to work more closely with the other and a JV was deemed the best way to go forward. Today there are about 6,000 Avanade consultants and the company is expecting to earn around $1BB next year (2007). I’m entering the company as an Account Director – it’s a great position for me, and one I am extremely excited about taking.

Zina in Color

Here's another great shot from Jimmy O! Zina still has blue eyes, but otherwise looks much like Razzy did at two months. She get's to go for her first trip this week to visit with Milda's family - looking forward to seeing everyone!

Holiday Party

We had a little Holiday party yesterday afternoon over at our place - about a dozen people came over - 2 with friends for Erazmas to play with. There was lots of food and fun for all.

Raz and Milda are Fine!

Last weekend on te way to see the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular, Milda and Raz had a taxi misshap. The taxi they were in had to stop suddenly to avoid a car that cut accross 4 lanes in front of them - and Raz and Milda were bumped around a bit. Unfortunately, Raz bumped his mouth on the car door and came away with a bloody lip and sore teeth.

We took him into the dentist on Tuesday to check things out and after she took an x-ray we could all see that the teeth were broken below the gum-line and up in the jaw. We had to bring him back in on wednesday to have the 2 teeth extracted. Raz was amazing and brave through the whole process, and the dentist was wonderful. It took about 40 minutes to get ready for the extraction and 5 for the actual event.

This picture is from yesterday and shows him healing nicely, but with a big gap where one of his front teeth and the smaller tooth next to it used to be.



As you can see, he's in pretty good spirits!

The Holiday's Have Arrived

Here's Raz engaged in the time honored tradition known as "watching a Christmas special." This might be Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, but I'm not sure.

Zinal Modeling Pic #3

The project has turned out some really nice photos - here's another from James Oligney - take a look at his website (see the links on the right)!

Another very cute picture of Zina

Another glam shot from James Oligney! Apparently the session went well and the model was relatively cooperative.

Raz' Modeling Gig

Check out the site at http://www.artebebe.com/ to see some more pictures of him modeling other garments. My crazy friend Aubree has posted one of these pictures on her "MySpace" she likes them so much - yes her friends are worried about her. But she's really nice... really... she is...

Zina's Modeling Debut!

Zina posed for a friend of ours who is a professional photographer on Monday - they got some beautiful shots! Thanks to our friend Jimmy Oligney (check out his other work and rates at http://photography.oligney.com/)!

Raz Holding Zina in MOTO shirts

Serious excitement in the household! Raz loves his sister and was very happy to hold her for a bit this evening. Milda and I went out to the movies ;-)

The matching shirts are from Veronika's old Montessori school - Mary of the Oaks - thanks Veronika!

Raz Tall Tower

Raz has gotten really good at building tall towers with his castle blocks! He loves building this sort of thing and is even OK with the blocks falling down - he just startes over.

Raz Castle Tower

Raz made a pretty cool tower here - this one is the elaborate tower and the next one is the tall tower and he did both by himself!

Zina Swinging

Zina in her throne of lights... well, we haven't put in batteries yet but she loves the swing!

Raz Holding Zina

This is the first time Raz held Zina in his lap. He was very excited and is a very happy big brother.

 

Nicole's Birthday Party

Here's a little gallery of pictures from Nicole's birthday party. As usual Raz-centric, but some fun pics nonetheless! I've also posted a video here!

Teamwork and Puzzle

Well, Raz and I finished the puzzle and he did a great job! He enjoyed the puzzle, though I think this was still a bit too hard for him. I had to select most of the pieces(though he did select and fit a number himself). It's pretty cool to watch how his mind works at this point - he was able to fit the pieces correctly, but he had trouble meshing the image together correctly at a micro level. He could tell that a part was from Spiderman's body, but not where it belonged. A very good time though.

 

Pepe Le Pyu Eat Your Heart Out

We've received a number of very sweet and somewhat ironic baby gifts for Zina, I suppose a commentary on how well our friends know us or how disturbed they all are. We have t-shirts that say: "I don't floss", "Dingo Snack", "I Party Naked", and the shown onesy featuring a skunk. :-)

Thanks to everyone - we love them all!

 

Hess Truck

Our friends Dave and Jen sent a very sweet gift package over last week which included a fantastic Hess truck and plane for Erazmas. He really enjoys them and has been driving and flying all over the house for the past week. Thanks Dave and Jen!

 

Blue Eyes

We understand that a baby's eye color isn't actually final for about 6 months and that it can continue to change for about a year. Zina's a still very blue! She started smiling a lot in the last week or so, but the smiles are fleeting and we haven't captured one on film yet. Very sweet though.

 

Swinging Together

Raz and Zina spending some quality time together on her swing. She really enjoys swinging and Raz really enjoys pushing her.

 

Halloween Dinner

Here we all are out to dinner at our favorite local pizza place. Luckily it was a nice evening so we were able to sit outside and enjoy the autumn weather.


 

Dinosaur Room Halloween

Here is a slideshow from the Dinosaur Room Halloween pageant! It was awesome. And here's a short video clip of the "Scary Walk" - ity's Erazmas centric - but this is my blog...

Trick or Treat

Here's the trick or treat outfit from Elena and Jeff (thanks guys). Great Halloween this year and Raz had a Halloween pre-school show that was awesome!


 

Halloween Pictures

Here are some pictures from Halloween! This was the daytime ensemble - there is a separate outfit for trick or treating!


 

Baby Zina - Week 3

Zina here enjoying her mirror and caught thinking about food!

 

A Fall Outing

We went out for a fall outing for the first time with both kids this weekend. Rented a car, placed the 2 child seats, and got into the car with Milda's Mom. Went great! The day was largely cold and crisp and the folliage in Southern NY State was very pretty. It got a bit barren as we moved further north. Here was where we stopped for lunch - an old fort on the Hudson outside of West Point. Took a nice walk.

 

Kaleb's Birthday

Raz' friend Kaleb had his birthday party at a very cool place called the Art Farm. It seems to be a cross between an art class and a petting zoo and all the kids enjoyed it enormously. There are some more pictures here in my web albums. 

Cosmo and Harper

Our friends came to visit with their children Cosmo and Harper - they seemed to hit it off with Raz and all enjoyed some playtime! Thanks for visiting. 

Veronika and Zina

Here is Texas Grandma with her new granddaughter. They seem to be hitting it off pretty well. 

Feet

Feet can sure tell some cool stories! Here are Raz and Zina's feet - mine wouldn't fit in the frame. It's amazing how small a one week old is! 

Getting Ready for Gabriella's Party!

This year Raz asked to be an astronaut for Halloween and Milda outdid herself in the costume department. Anyway, our first Halloween Party was today at his friend Gabriella's house and he and about 20 friends from school came to the event. It was a fun party - the highlight was a magician who did some great tricks with the kids. A very fun event. There are additional photos here in the gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/lawrence.devoe/GabriellaSParty

A very fun time!

Raz and I took a walk yesterday accross the Brooklyn Bridge - it was a beautiful day with that mid October chill and a stiff breeze off the water! I put some photos from the walk in my gallery (see the links on the right).