Lazzara Life

We LOVE Halloween/Fall/Harvest…  I usually have all the decorations up on October 1st, but this year, we have been so busy, I just got them up yesterday, October 18th!  I only did outside because most of my inside decorations go on the dining room table, which is full of laundry, so the decorations are just sitting on the floor.  Lovely!  So here are pictures of the outside…

Haley putting in the Pumpkin sign…

Our Black Kitty on the mail box

Avery helped me put the lights up on the garage, anything to do with the ladder, Avery is all over it!   I was super annoyned when no one would take a picture of me actually doing manual labor!  No one would take a picture of while I was on the ladder, proof that I do get on the ladder!!  The older girls are SO over my blogging obsession and they are annoyed by me & my camera!  So after Avery helped me put up the lights, she came inside to watch Ariel & finish off the Reeses peanut butter cups I was eating the other night!  After this picture, I realized it was time to go get Avery some new jeans that don’t require her laying on the bed to zip up…  She has grown 3 3/4 inches and gained 10 pounds in 6 months!

Here’s the outside of the house with all of our orange lights up!  So pretty!!!  We love lights on the house!!!

Now Lorin is loving Acro class, we all know it because the child NEVER stops doing hand stands, head stands, walkovers, whatever, she will not stop!!!  This new trick is pretty cool.

Happy Fall!!

Avery rented Ariel 2 today & we’ve watched it 3 times.  Tonight the girls decided they were going to draw Ariel & I thought it would be fun to post the pictures & have a vote.   Anyway, here are the drawings… Feel free to leave a comment to place your vote.

Avery

Haley

Lorin

Friday night fun included dinner, head stands & movies…  I made pork chops with apples, onions & honey mustard glaze & Mac & cheese shells were made by Lorin…  I’ve made the pork chops before & they were a hit, so here they are again…

Brown your pork chops, about 4 minutes on each side, salt & pepper both sides.

Take them out & saute 1 medium apple & some onion, however much you like…

Then add, 1/3 apple juice, I didn’t have any, so I used a capri sun, it was apple raspberry flavor I think.

Then add some honey mustard & stir it up!  It takes about 8 minutes for the apples to soften…    While that’s going on, grab one of your kids to make the mac & cheese.

Put the chops back in the pan & get them all soaked up in the yummy sauce.

While I was cooking, I ate about 6 mini reeses peanut butter cups, I would not recommend doing that before dinner…  Looking at this picture, I think it’s safe to say that I ate more than 6, the bowl was pretty full when I started  :(

Here’s the finished product, it looks very fancy on a paper plate…  That’s how we do it Lazzara-style.

Immediately after dinner Lorin wanted to challenge me in a head stand contest.  Now, typically this is not something I would say is a great idea, but it wasn’t that bad?!  I really believe I would have won, but Avery was trying to get me down, I think Lorin may have promised her something in return for sabotaging my performance!

Avery tried too, but she didn’t get how it was supposed to work…

Everyone knows that when Rich is on a trip, most of our schedule goes out the window.  We usually have breakfast for dinner, stay up late & watch a bunch of girly shows like “So you think you can dance” and “18 kids & counting”….  It all ends with everyone sleeping in my bedroom.  Why?  Because I’m afraid & know that my kids will protect me, or whoever is coming to get me will get them first & I will be safe…  KIDDING!!!  I just can’t stand sleeping in my room all alone.  So we put the air mattress on the floor & 2 girls sleep there & 1 gets to sleep with me, they rotate & they always remember who’s turn it is!  I almost died laughing when I was getting ready for bed because I walked in the room & saw this! How on earth did she fall asleep like that?  and why did she think that would be comfortable in the first place?  I have no idea where this crazy child came from, but I’m glad she’s mine!

Before bed, the girls asked if I could roll their hair…  We’ve had sponge rollers in the past, but lost them..  So I found a bag of sponge rollers (all sizes) at Target yesterday for $9!!  My mom said that Rachel Jane would put Debra’s hair in a ponytail on top of her head & put a few rollers at the ends of her hair when she was little, so I tried this technique for the first time tonight.  I had to roll Lorin’s whole head, but the ponytail thing worked for Haley & Avery.

Lorin asked me if I thought she looked like an old African American woman with this scarf on her head?  I laughed and thought of my friend Yolanda who says she sleeps with her head wrapped up tight at night.  I got a visual, but Lorin doesn’t look anything like an old African American woman with her scrawny little neck & blonde hair!

Here are pictures from this morning with our end result..

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Today was Family day!  Family day started after the death of my grandmother “Nanny” back in 1997.  We wanted to make sure that we got together often to support each other & to keep the family “alive” since Nanny was the center of the family.  Year after year it’s been harder to get together once a month, so we now just do it as often as possible.

Here I am with my beloved first born, Harley.  He is 11 years old!

Jake & Kaden are trying to get to know each other as the new “batch” of baby cousins.  At just 7 months apart in age, they are sure to be best of friends!

Jake also meets Harley for the first time today…

Granny loves all the babies & steals a big squeeze from Kaden…

Kaden’s Mama & Daddy, Lauren & Jason love visiting with family…  Rich & I always LOVED going to family events where everyone wants to hold your baby!!  It’s a great break time…  Lauren made these unbelievably good, peanut butter cookies, dipped in chocolate & then sprinkled with powdered sugar, YUMMY!

Next we set up the water-slide for the kids outside.  Yes, it is October and a very hot & humid 97 degrees!

After a nice lunch with visiting & playing, it was time to go home.

Haley said goodbye to baby Jake & Lorin got an extra hug from baby Kaden.

Harley was so tired of all the activities, he said, “Everyone, please go home,

I’m so sleepy!”

Last night cousin Ava had a sleepover at our house. We went to our usual pizza place for dinner & tried a new ice cream place, since our beloved Carvel is “closed due to inventory”….

The place was so cute!

After pizza and ice cream we came home to watch a movie, play and go to bed!

Upwards of 70,000 people were crammed into Raymond James Stadium, waiting for musical liftoff, and were rewarded with a colossal production spectacle steered by the voices, instruments and magnetic charismas of the Irish mega-foursome.  U2′s 360 Tour was awesome.  The stage was a 4 post, spaceship, sometimes called “The Claw”.  They played all of their hit songs and really put on an amazing show.

Complete 10/09/09 setlist

Breathe

Get On Your Boots

Mysterious Ways

Beautiful Day

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For / Stand By Me (snippet),

Stuck In A Moment You Can’t Get Out Of

No Line On The Horizon

Magnificent

Elevation

Until The End Of The World

The Unforgettable Fire / Mofo (snippet)

City Of Blinding Lights

Vertigo

I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight

Sunday Bloody Sunday / Get Up Stand Up (snippet),

MLK

Walk On

I’ve had a day with wild animals…  First my insane squirrels and then when I was leaving the house to go get the girls from school, there was a snake right behind my car & then it went into the garage!!!  So, of course it went right where I needed to go to get into the car…  I scared it a little and went passed it to get my murder weapon.  The shovel.  I had to scare it out of the corner of the garage, to lead it to it’s impending death.  It went into my little flower bed & I tried and tried to kill it, but the shovel was not going down far enough, so I had to scoop it up into the shovel and put it on the pavement so I could kill it.  It sounds a little barbaric, but I really hate snakes!!!  Really really hate snakes!!!  So here it is after a fatal wound to the hip.  It’s a non-poisonous red rat snake & it’s about the 6th one I’ve killed in the last year.  There is a big mama snake around somewhere!!

We have huge oak trees in our front and back yard & have had the pleasure of seeing lots and lots of squirrels!  They always come and sit on the top of our front door when it rains, there is a window above the doors, so we can see the squirrel family get shelter together.  They are very playful and we hear them running on our roof all day long.  Well today they are particularly playful!!  They are running around the windows in the back of the house & crawling on the screens on the windows.  Here are a few pictures I snapped while Serafina watched them play…