Lazzara Life

Today is Birthday numero uno for baby Kaden Robert Register!  His parents are my cousin Jason & his lovely wife Lauren.

I was lucky enough to be in the delivery room, up until Lauren had to go in for her c-sections (Kaden’s head was a bit stuck)  & it was so cool to experience a labor & not really be in it myself

Here’s Mama Lauren just a few days before Kaden came.  Sorry Lauren, but you looked fantastic!

God blessed our family with Kaden on November 12, 2008,

he was 8 pounds 10 ounces & 20″long.

My good friend Amy asked if I would like to participate in a Jesse Advent ornament exchange with 24 other mommies from our church.  What you do is get one of those small Christmas trees from Joann’s or Michael’s and each day from December 1 until Christmas, you will read a story about the ornament that you will put on your tree each day.

Well, by the time the sign up list of ornaments got to me, there were only about 3 to choose from & they all seemed pretty hard to make…  Cassie signed up early & lucked out with getting the “star” tree topper!  Okay, so out of what was left, I picked the “apple & the serpent”.  I couldn’t find the little craft apples, so I thought I’d make them.  It seemed like an impossible task, but I do have to say they turned out pretty fabulous!

I got the small balls of styrofoam, stabbed them with a toothpick (so it would be easier to handle & less messy), painted them with glue & the girls covered them with red glitter, glitter makes EVERYTHING pretty!!!!

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I made the stems by cutting some lollipop sticks and coloring them brown with a marker…  I then made a small hole in the ball & put a thin red ribbon across the hole and stuck the stem on top, so the stem is pushing the ribbon into the ball.  The next day, I tied the ribbons at the top, to act as the hanger and added my green pipe cleaner “serpent”.

This is how they turned out!!  Pretty cute, huh?  Now, I know they don’t really look like apples & serpents, BUT this is my interpretation & it is an ornament, so it should be shiny!  Sparkle, Sparkle, Sparkle is MY motto!

So I’ve been working on a few little projects & finished them both today!  Yay!

The first is favors for my friend Jenni’s baby shower on Sunday.  I did white and milk chocolate covered pretzels.  Yum Yum!  A lot of people ask me to make them & how I do it, so today, I took pictures!

First, I like the melting chocolate from Joann’s and Schnyder’s pretzel rods.  This brand of pretzels are harder than other brands and there are less broken pretzels in the package.  I bought 2 packages of the pretzels & got 50 pretzel rods out of them!

Melt the chocolate in double boiler.  I use a pot of boiling water  & glass measuring dish from Pampered Chef, it’s called the Classic Batter Bowl.

I like to push the chocolate close to the edge, so when I dip them, I get more chocolate on the pretzel, not just 1/2 way…

I then line them up on parchment paper & wait for them to dry.

Next I did the same thing to the milk chocolate.  On the milk chocolate pretzels, I sprinkled them with praline crunch (found by the ice cream toppings at the store).  Then used some of the milk chocolate to drizzle on the white chocolate ones.

Finally, I just put them in the plastic pretzel bags (from Joann’s), make a cute favor tag & tie with a ribbon!  VvvvwwwwwaaaaaaLaaaaaa!

So, I came across this post on a message board about a woman who’s mother is making holiday cakes to help fundraise for their adoption.  Well, I make some pretty fabulous desserts if I do say so myself  & wondered if I could do something like this?

I have made a sample menu of my best desserts & am thinking this might be a good idea, only if I don’t take on too much.  Also, my customers will have to be in our area, because I know NOTHING about shipping food items… What do you think?

Fundraiser Dessert Menu-

$25 suggested donation

Almond pear cream cheese torte-  A traditional butter crust with cream cheese filling beautifully topped with pears & sliced almonds.

Apple Dapple Cake- Vanilla cake with apples & pecans topped with a brown sugar sauce.

Baby cakes- miniature cupcakes that are actually made with a mix of baby food!  I typically use pear, apricot and applesauce (whatever is available) and they are light & wonderful.  The icing is an almond icing topped with ground pecans.

Caramel chocolate chip cheesecake-  Caramel cheesecake with granola & pecan crust, topped with chocolate chips

Cherry Berry Cobbler- a mixture of mostly sweet dark cherries, strawberries, blueberries & raspberries with cinnamon sugar biscuit pieces topped with almonds.  Serve with whipped cream.

Chocolate mayonnaise cake- This chocolate cake is the most moist chocolate cake you have ever had topped with cream cheese icing.

Harvest fruit dessert- a traditional butter crust torte, with orange cream cheese filling, topped with apples, plums, pecans and maple syrup.  It tastes a lot like fruit cake.

Maple pecan sticky buns- This is kind of like monkey bread, but a whole lot better.  Each bun is filled with cream cheese and topped with maple syrup!  Serve warm.

Peanut butter M&M brownies-  Chocolate brownies with a peanut butter icing,  mini marshmallows and m&m’s.

Pumpkin crisp- This crisp is pumpkin pie filling on the bottom, topped with yellow cake, lots of butter & pecans.  It is rich & wonderful!

Pumpkin swirl cheesecake- A mixture of traditional cheesecake with pumpkin cheesecake, a ginger snap cookie and pecan crust, topped with whipped cream!

Sour cream pound cake with lemon sauce- Need I say more?

*Each dessert should feed 8-12 people.

I found a few photos…

This is the Chocolate mayonaise Cake, my mom’s favorite, she has it every year for her birthday.

This is a sail boat cake I decorated for a baby shower & make the fish cookies..

This is the almond pear cream cheese torte.  The harvest Fruit dessert looks a lot like it.

Today Rich & I went to the Sheriff’s office & got our FBI fingerprints done along with our local background checks.

There are 4 background chekcs required for adoption- which we have mailed off TODAY!!!

1) local background check

2) Department of Children & Families

3) Florida Department of Law Enforcement

4) FBI fingerprints

Here’s our fingerprint cards going to Clarksburg, WV!

Wow!  It’s so nice to check things off the list, the very long list…  Today, I (Melissa) also went to see my doctor for a physical & lab work.  Rich is going on Saturday.

We were really hoping to be able to do our home study in December, but now that we’ve looked at our calendars & have already been invited to 2 Christmas parties along with Haley’s Nutcracker weekend, there is NO WAY we can do it in December…  Soooo, I will call Hope for Families (Home study team) and get on the schedule for JANUARY!!  I wish it were closer, but this is all on God’s time & He knows how busy we are in November & December!

So, that’s about all I have on our adoption.  We are still pursuing All God’s Children’s Ethiopia program.  We are hoping to get them the information they need to approve our application by the end of November, that would be very nice…

This year, Mimi’s Christmas cards will feature Haley, Lorin, Avery & our niece Ava in their cowboy boots and tutu’s…  Our good friend/photographer is doing a fundraising event this weekend to benefit our adoption, so we took advantage of her time & talents to get Mimi’s Christmas card photo done professionally this year!  Here are a few pictures I took while we did the shoot.  I can’t wait to get her pictures back!!

For those of you who don’t know, I (Melissa) am part Cuban, Italian and the “white” side of me is American Indian, German, Irish & Dutch.  Rich’s italian side is from Sicily and I’m not sure of his mom’s background.  Anyway, I have grown up on cuban food as well as southern cooking.  My grandmother Nana made traditional cuban dishes everyday & we’ve been very lucky to find some great cuban restaurants in our area.  We’ve been going to this little cafe near our house for breakfast every Saturday for the last few months & the girls just love it!  My dad & I are so proud of our youngest, Avery and her love of cuban coffee and toast, dipped in her coffee!!  That’s my girl!

After breakfast, Daddy got a haircut and the girls & I walked over to Walmart & saw some really cool new bikes (maybe for Christmas)…  Lorin liked the green one & Haley liked the pink one.

They had a lot of really pretty Christmas decorations out too.  Lorin loved this little tree!  They need a new one for their bedroom, so maybe I’ll go back and get it.  AND, it doubles as a hat!

When we were done, we came home to do some yard work, a little craft project (which I will post pictures of once we are finished) and took Haley to Nutcracker practice….  Then it was off to do our photos for Mimi’s Christmas cards….  Cowboy boots & Tutu’s!

I know some of you have been anxiously awaiting more talent show videos, so here you go!  Please enjoy our insanely funny Avery & the ever confident Lorin.  Our very talented Haley was the announcer once again..

Lorin, “Run It” by Chris Brown

Avery, “Thriller” by Michael Jackson

Lorin w/ Avery, “Smooth Criminal” by Michael Jackson

Lorin was told that she could write an essay for writing class for some extra credit.  We were headed over to Tina’s house to help her finish food from the baptism yesterday, so we went over to her house, played, ate & started collaborating for Lorin’s story.  We gave her a few suggestions, but she took off writing her story & it is hilarious!

With my 10th birthday coming up, my mom and dad said that I could have whatever I wanted.  There are so many things that go into making a perfect birthday party.  First I have to decide who I want to invite, what to wear and where to have the party.  I thought long and hard about what would make the perfect birthday party and this is what I came up with.

First what I needed to do was make my guest list.  I have to invite my family and my friends.  I would chose my best friends first.  They would include Shayna, Sara, Ciara, Zadia, Kylee, Daksh, Kijah, Beau, Miss Cooper along with Tony.  My guests would be greeted by midgets jumping on pogo-sticks.

I would have the party decorated to match my dress.  Sparkles and glitter everywhere.  I would love lots and lots of presents and balloons.  Also a delicious strawberry and vanilla cake decorated white with red and black sparkles.

I would like Miley Cyrus to sing Happy Birthday for me.  Then fireworks are going to go off and spell my name in the air.  After the thunderous applause, my giant cake will come out and Michael Jackson will jump out of my cake and do the moonwalk while singing Billie Jean.

The Taco Bell chihuahua would bring out all the presents.  After opening all of my hundreds of gifts, my favorite will have to be the present from Michael Jackson, which was a live baby monkey which I named Gus.  This was the best birthday of my life, my parents are awesome!

Tina is my sister who just so happens to have different parents than I do. We have been best friends since we were 11 years old & have been asked if we were twins at least 100 times in the last 20 years… We met while performing together in an all girls song & dance ensemble. We shared many laughs, many tears and for some reason only have gotten into 2 serious fights over the years too, one over a boy (so stupid) & the other because I wasn’t allowed to go to her birthday party (not my fault)! She was my maid of honor and I was hers. She has seen me at my ugliest and I have seen her at hers and we still love each other. My girls adore her, (Rich does too) because she is so loving, funny, super crazy & my best friend.

It was an honor (but not a surprise) when she and Oscar asked me to be Lily Camille’s Godmother, since I was there when she came out!

Here are some videos & photos from today…

Okay, we have to back up a bit. Everyone knows that Tina is ALWAYS late. She told us to be there 30 minutes early, which we were & where was she????

For some reason, I was standing directly behind Tina, so you can’t see me at all, but I was there… They did the baptism in 2 parts, this part was us saying that we will guide Lily in the faith.

This video is when she gets the water on her head & smelly oil.

Proud parents Tina & Oscar

I am Lily’s Godmother & Tina’s brother Eric is her Godfather.

Here is a photo of Tina, Lily, Oscar and their parents.