Lazzara Life

Monday 12.21.09

Today we went over to Tina, Oscar & Lily’s house (Lola & Sam reside there too!) to have our gift exchange, hot chocolate & cookies while watching a Christmas movie day… The day started off SO good, everyone was getting along, having good attitudes and then it all fell apart… Luckily we ended on a good note, but there was a time in the middle that was miserable!! Three girls are certainly a challenge on some days!!

Happy times taking pictures with the doggies….

Okay, so before “gift time”, Mommy would like a nice picture of all 3 girls in front of the tree… so far so good.

Then Avery gets a little silly… Haley gets a little annoyed, but still half smiles.

then Avery gets very silly & Haley is super annoyed, then stomps off.

We sometimes have trouble with little sisters who like a lot of attention, because it takes the attention off of certain other girls. This does not always go over well. So we try to compose ourself during gift opening time & end up having to go sit on the other side of the room because of our attitude. I’m not pointing any fingers, but there is a very particular girl who this happens to every so often…

After gift time, we made hot chocolate with mini marshmallows. Tina thought it would be hilarious to fix Avery up with some marshmallows.

By the way, Lily was napping this whole time. Now that she’s up, Tina read all the girls a really funny elf story and Lily turned the pages. Lily missed all of the action, by the time she got up, the attitudes were back to normal & we enjoyed the rest of our time together… peacefully.

Oh my goodness, my friend Susan makes the CUTEST kids clothes (among other things) and I ordered this dress for Lily!!!

And, it’s reversible!!!!

Here’s her website http://thatstoocute.info/

Tina & I always take our “in front of the tree” photo together & this was the best one out of the 35 we had Haley take.

Well, tomorrow we will be doing our Christmas morning food shopping with my mom & shopping for some things we need for our trip, OH, BY THE WAY, we will be in Boone North Carolina for a few days during break and hopefully we will see some snow! Have a great week!

Well, it appears that I can only blog after a weekend. We had a busy week with the girls’ last week of school, with “holiday” CHRISTMAS parties,and all the other fun stuff that goes along with being out of school for 2 WEEKS! We also helped Granny & Wello finally decorate their tree, made Christmas cookies with Great Grandma Lazzara, Mimi, Aunt Gina and our cousins… We had our family Christmas party at Jennifer & Mike’s and then Rich & I had our Christmas Bowling party with the 9th and 10th graders from the Youth Group… Busy Busy, just like we always are!!

Here are a few pictures from when we helped Granny decorate her tree this Friday. All of the kids helped decorate and Harley and I supervised.

Saturday morning we went over to cousin Marie’s house to make Christmas cookies with her, her 2 children, Catherine & baby John, Aunt Gina, Great Grandma Lazzara, Mimi, Ally & Ava. They made their cookies, decorated them & played.
Here’s Aunt Gina helping Cat & Haley…

Here’s Mimi helping Avery & avery just eating the icing… there’s Great Grandma sitting at the table, she just had fun watching all the little girls bake & decorate. It’s a family tradition…

Here is Lorin with her cookies…

And Haley with hers…

Saturday night we went to our annual family Christmas party at cousin Jennifer & Mike’s home. We have THE BEST southern home cooking there! We had a wonderful time catching up with family & enjoying our time together. Here is me with my “boyfriend” Kaden.

Jennifer & Mike got a new kitten, who was the center of attention for the kids, her name is Olive & she is just precious!!!

Haley had a great time talking with her beloved Janie. Janie says she takes the best pictures when she’s with her “Haley girl”… I agree!

I didn’t take very many pictures, but I did however take one, my new favorite of Christian.

Christmas time is such a wonderful time of celebrating the birth of our savior and also a time where we can spend with our family, it’s the best! Be Merry!

I’ve been a really bad blogger as of lately, so let me fill you in on what we’ve been up to. Well, last week I was feeling icky, so I layed low most of the week. Haley had her performances in The Nutcracker & she was awesome!! Photography and videography was not allowed during the performances, but Haley did take her camera back stage, so you can see a picture of her in her “Angel” costume…

We had our Choir Concert called, “A Night of Hope” at BSBC, no one took pictures from the audience, but here is a photo of me & the ladies from my ensemble, “New Glory”, left to right is Kendall, Zoraya, me & Becky

The concert was awesome, we have SO much talent in our choir! We had a blast and it ended way too quickly (so we thought)!

I have been a BAKING QUEEN! I have fulfilled 8 baking orders for “Morsels for Micah” this week and have 3 more in the next 5 days. I have really enjoyed baking things for friends, family & new friends, but I am tired!!! Hopefully it will slow down after the holidays, so for now, I am not taking any more orders. The girls are out of school for 2 weeks beginning on Friday & I just want to relax & enjoy being with my babies.

Here’s a picture of a few of the desserts I’ve been making…

My famous Pear Almond Torte

Chocolate Mayonaise Cake with cream cheese icing & chocolate shavings

Apple Dapple Cake

Caramel Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

Tonight we had the girls “Winter Program” at school. Avery posed for a few pictures when we arrived…

Then we went by to see Christian, waiting with his class…

Then we went over to check on Lorin & Haley before the show started…

Rich took a few pictures while we were there too, I will upload those asap… Well, that’s all for now, have a great week!

We don’t have any photos for this post, not because we weren’t busy this weekend!  I just forgot my camera at home.  Rich & I had 2 Christmas parties to attend.  Friday night with our friends and teachers in the Youth Department and Saturday night with some dear friends that we celebrate with every year.  Haley had a very busy weekend with dress rehearsal for The Nutcracker & boy was she tired!!  This coming weekend will be even harder for her with 2 shows on Saturday and 2 shows on Sunday.  She will be officially pooped by Monday, we may have to sleep in & be late for school.

Well, we have lots of news on our adoption.  First of all, we decided on a name, Micah.  Secondly, we have been collecting information to submit our pre-application with an agency that we have been interested in.  This weekend we finally got all the documents needed & faxed 30 pages over this morning.   We got a call and were told that unfortunately we do not qualify for the Ethiopia program because of some of the criteria that needs to be met through immigration.  It’s not our fault or the agencies fault, it’s just certain criteria must be met for other countries when adopting a child internationally.  So, God is showing us clearly that Micah is NOT in Ethiopia, or Uganda or possibly not in Africa at all.  How clearly He is speaking to us and guiding us to where our son is.  It has been a very hard 5 months, but we will not give up on finding Micah.  He could be in Hillsborough County for all we know.  Now we are researching our options for domestic adoption, which we know nothing about.  Luckily our home study team does domestic adoptions, so they will be a huge help!  So, that’s all we have for now!

We’re getting all ready for a very busy weekend.  Haley will have her performances with The nutcracker and we have our choir Christmas Celebration concert Sunday night as well.  We hope to have pictures next week!!

I have been clinging to my favorite verse lately & it was comforting to read it over & over again today.  HE has a plan, HE will lead us & we will be blessed for our obedience.  Our pastor said something great a few weeks ago, it goes something like this…  Would you rather have something that YOU want now that may not be what God wants for you, or do you want something that GOD wants for you later, something perfect that is in His plan for your life?

Jeremiah 29:11    ”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Haley and Lorin are getting ready for their 4th grade Science Fair & today we finished conducting experiments & also put together the display boards.  We had the extra time this afternoon, so I was excited to put it all together &  get it over with!  Rich helped them with the hard stuff & I helped decorate!  They aren’t 100% finished with their boards, we need to make them pretty & add swirlies and maybe a little bit of glitter!

Haley’s project was to grow ice.  Here’s the finished product… Serafina thought it was pretty cool, she wanted to take a closer look.

Lorin was to see how different bubbles hang…  

Tonight we decorated our Christmas Tree.  Decorating the tree is one of my favorite things to do to gear up for Christmas.  We love unwrapping each ornament & remembering when and where we got it.  Rich & I especially love the ones with the girls pre-school photos on them, or hand made ones they made in class.

Here are the girls decorating…  AND no one dropped and broke any ornaments this year!!  What an accomplishment!

And Lorin (with a little help from Daddy) put our ugly Saint Nick on top.   We really need a new topper.

Here are some of our favorite ornaments…

Merry Christmas!