Lazzara Life

I’ve finally visited ww.pinterest.com and fell in love!  The first thing I’m going to make is THIS menu board.

Here’s the link to the blog where I found it & I couldn’t be more excited about a project!

Meal planning is not one of my strong suits, but this menu board will certainly help me out a ton.  Last week I started back on my “healthier diet”, so after coming home from the store, I knew what we were going to eat.  Isn’t that what everyone does?  PLAN a diet.  Why not PLAN every dinner ALL the time?  My week went by so smoothly and WAY less chaotic at meal time because I knew what I was going to make.  The kids even comments on how good dinners were, because I’d actually thought about it before 5:30pm!

I’ll post a photo and maybe a few recipes after I complete it, SO EXCITED!!

Happy New Year!

One of my new years’ resolutions should be to blog more.  I used to be on top of things, but adding a 4th child has really made things a LOT busier

We are very low key for New Years Eve.  We have pizza and the kids do fireworks at my parents house with my parnets, brother, nephew & aunt & uncle.

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New years day we spent most of our day at a local park with great nature trails and had a picnic.

The girls has scooter races

Played scooter tag

And had “Survivor” type balancing contests.

Poppe and Billy were nearby, so they stopped by to play for a little bit

Santana was content to play with sticks and water

Happy 2012!!

That face!  Don’t you just want to eat him up!!??

Merry Merry Christmas!!!  Christmas Eve’s traditions include going to my parents house and helping my mom prepare all the foods for Christmas Day lunch, church service at 4 and dinner at Uncle Joe & Aunt Gina’s!

We enjoy time with family, EAT, and play games.  This years’ game was to divide into 3 teams and reenact a popular Christmas story while using random household items.  This was a hoot!  It’s hard to explain how it all went down, but we had a blast!

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Christmas morning finally came and we opened all of our gifts at home, Poppe & Tracey came to our house to exchange gifts, we went over to my parents house for gifts and lunch, then headed to Rich’s mom’s for gifts & dinner!  It’s a long, exhausting, wonderful day.

Serafina was excited about all of the craziness in gift sorting, can’t you tell?

Avery helped Santana with his first few gifts, then he was an old pro at unwrapping at lightning speed

Avery modeling her new Justing Bieber gear.

Poppe and Daddy were putting Tanny’s new big wheels together, when a small part fell through some cracks,

so the engineer Poppe, made a contraption with tape and a metal hanger to retrieve the little part.

Lorin loves the new big wheels

Avery and Santana enjoying some play time…

Harley & Haley

Lorin got a unicycle from Mimi!

Avery got a singing Justin Bieber toothbrush

Santana got a talking Woody doll

and Santana took Ava for a wild ride in her convertible

Lastly, but MOST importantly, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus, our risen Savior!

HIS cupcakes were not near as awesome as HIS gift of salvation.

Sooo, December just literally flew by!  We had a lot going on, but when do we not?  We started the month with my choir “Family Christmas” celebration the first weekend.  We had performances Saturday and Sunday evenings & it was really wonderful!  We LOVE our church and are so blessed to be a part of wonderful ministries.  While we were preparing for the Christmas concert, Haley was busy with dress rehearsals for her part in dancing the Nutcracker with the Brandon Ballet Company.

Haley & Lorin are in 6th grade, and are part of an awesome 6th grade ministry at our church!  Each month (on or really close to the 6th), there are special outings, called the “6th Grade Serendipity”. The 6th graders get togeher and do an assortment of things like, family game night, going to nearby fast food restaurants and having an appetizer at one,dinner at another, dessert at another…, well, December’s event was really great.  I was able to chaparone (yay!)… we met at the church, went to the mall, had dinner and shopped for local needy children in the “Sincerely Santa” program.  We had 2 hours a budget of $24 and a list from an 8 year old girl to “Santa”.  We bargain shopped most of her list and then the girls wanted to use some of their own money to help get EVERYTHING on her list!  This is something I think we will do as a family each year!  The girls overwhelm me with the heart and compassion for others (tear).

The Nutcracker was the second weekend of December.  Haley LOVES ballet and loves her ballet sisters in the company.  I served as a “quick change” backstage mom for the 2nd year and I really love being a part of all of the backstage action, plus it’s extra time with my Haley girl

Woohoo!  Nutcracker is over!  Yay for mommy who drives all around town, sad for Haley who will miss seeing her friends ALL THE TIME!

The 3rd week was really crazy with parties at school performances at school, etc.  The girls already have dance classes every day except Wednesday, but this week, we had a school dance performance as well as an orchestra performance in addition!!!  Little Santana is just along for the ride, but he LOVES seeing his big sisters on the stage and was perfectly behaved!!

Yay!  Christmas break = No school, no alarm, no bedtime for 2 weeks!!!!!!

The first Monday of Christmas Break, we headed over to cousin Marie’s house to do our annual “Cookies with Grandma Day”.  Grandma Lazzara “supervises” as Marie and Gina do most of the work, the kids have a blast and it seems like I just hang out and eat

One of my very favorite Christmas traditionas is piling in the car in our jammies and bringing lots of blankets (because it’s usually cold) and going out to see Christmas LIGHTS!!!  We heard of a nearby place that sets up an amazing display that’s about 1/2 mily long.  You stay in your car and drive to see the most beautiful colorful light display!  It’s called Night of Shimmering Lights off of highway 60 and Dover Road.  It’s $20 per car and you can drive it twice.  There’s a 1/2 way point where they sell HOT donuts and hot chocolate

Rich has some video on his phone.  If I can think to remmeber to ask him to eamil it to me, I’ll add it to the blog later

Next up, Register family (my mother’s side) Christmas party at my cousin Jennifer & Mike’s house!!  THE BEST FOOD EVER!!!!  Uncle Kenneth’s collards are to DIE FOR!  Mike makes a roast, we have a ham, everyone brings sides & desserts…  I did Paula Deen’s Mac & Cheese, there was my Mama’s candied yams (best thing I’ve ever eaten) and much much more!!

The kids had a blast, especially Avery with her cousin Carley (who is 18 &  #1 Babysitter).  Our nephew, Christian is quite the ladies man.  The girls absolutely adore him

Santana is a horrible eater when we are at parties, so we just give him a cup and put crackers, bread, pieces of ham, cookies and m&m’s in it when he comes around

One of the kids Christmas gifts (mainly for Santana) was a trip to Disney World on the Wednesday before Christmas.  Uncle Tony joined us and we had a blast taking Santana for his first time!!  a 3 year old whole LOVES Mickey and anything Disney, at Disney World for the 1st time is truly magical

Here are a few of my favorite pictures!

We stayed very busy all of December, and had a wonderful time making new memories!  My next post will catch you up on Christmas Eve & Christmas Day & New Years…

December is in full force and we are so excited about all of our Christmas traditions and seeing everything through Santana’s eyes as he celebrates his first Christmas with us!

We went to pick out our Christmas tree last week and Santana was not sure about it.  Come to find out that he had never had a Christmas tree in the house!  He has seen Christmas trees before and LOVES them, but he didn’t believe us that we were going to bring it in the house!

We had such a fun time decorating the tree, remembering old ornaments and adding special new ones

Better late than never.  These last few weeks have been incredibly busy and I have neglected our little blog.  Soooo sorry!

Thanksgiving was wonderful, as usual, but this year we have even more to be thankful for.  We are so thankful for Santana, his birth mother and his foster family (our new extended family)…

I love the Thanksgiving day parade and none of the children like to watch it, but this year Lorin sat and watched it with me & Santana.  He LOVED it!

We had prepared the few desserts & dishes that I am responsible for and then headed to my aunt & uncles house for lunch!  I LOVE having our family food traditions & getting to spend quality time together

thankful

Lorin loving baby Wyatt

Santana & Jake

Mom, me & Anthony

Silly girl

After lunch, we headed over to Rich’s moms house for more family & dinner.  When we arrived, we decided to get the kids dressed with cousin Ava to take Mimi’s Christmas card picture.  They turned out so great!!!

Then it was time to help finish dinner preparations & eat.  Again.  :)

Mimi always has the kids make a turkey hand & each year it’s so much fun to look at their hands all displayed from previous years.

Another tradition is to go around the room & name 3 things you are thankful for this year & one of the things has to begin with the first letter of your first name.

After dinner the ladies chat, the boys relax, we play a game and are treated with a fashion show.

We usually spend the night after Thanksgiving dinner, so the next morning we went to breakfast and over to a local park to play.

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We had a wonderful, thankful thanksgiving & give God the glory & honor for all He has blessed our family with!!

My parents have a time share in Daytona Beach and my dad goes every Thanksgiving week with friend to the annual Turkey Rod Run.  It’s a HUGE carshow of old cars, and since he restores old cars for a living & is an avid car fan (he’s seriously owned around 80 cars since he has been able to drive), he loves going and seeing all of the cars & hearing about the work put into restoration.

Anyway, we packed up the kids and drove 3 hours to the east coast where we arrived at our home for the next few days.

Even though it was a little chilly (overcast), the kids made a bee-line for the swimming pool.

The next day, we made a day of seeing the sights in St Augustine.  We visited the old historic fort and then walked around downtown & saw the Ripley’s Believe it or not museum.

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Next up, the Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum…

After we returned, some kids needed a nap, some wanted to swim, so I took Haley down to the beach & she did some dance jumps, so pretty!

In the eveneing we had dinner & went to a smaller car show.  It was Santana’s actual birthday, so we had cupcakes at the restaurant for him

We came back home Tuesday night and got ready for Thanksgiving…

 

Here’s a cute video Rich made of our trip to the fort.    Enjoy!

We started off our Thanksgiving week by celebrating Santana’s 3rd birthday!  We headed out to his favorite local playground/park and invited family & close friends (which still equals 50 peeps)!

 

We had pizza, snacks and cake !  Publix vanilla is our all time favorite, but we added chocolate pudding filling & he chose Woody & Buzz to top his cake.  He had a wonderful time playing, opening gifts, eating everything is sight and riding around on his new scooter.

 

We feel so incredibly blessed to have our sweet Santana and even more blessed to have family & friends who love him so much & celebrate his birth with us!  Happy Birthday Santana!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is going to be a very long post, BUT, you will know just about everything we did in the month of October!!  Of course the most exciting thing that happened was on our last post, October 17th!  Santana’s Adoption day!!!

 

The first weekend of October, we took Avery & Santana to a Pumpkin Festival, while Haley & Lorin attended a birthday sleepover party.

We decorated baby pumpkins

Lorin bought a hot pink kids “Snuggie” and did a little fashion show for us, showing all the ways you can wear your snuggie.

One of Mommy’s favorite milestone of October was potty training Santana!!  He’s doing awesome and loves to wear his superhero undies.  He will sometimes wear several pairs a day just because   He is a fashionista like his sisters.

Poor Avery was sick on the 21st and we had to go to a pumpkin farm/festival without her

The farm was in Bradenton, quite a little drive.  Mimi came with us

There were games, petting zoo & a corn maze!

Avery’s school had “Red Ribbon Week”, an anti drug spirit week.  We dressed up each day, but our favorite was “hat day”.

October 24th!  Happy Birthday to my dad!  He turned sixty-something and we came over to celebrate with a flan!Pumpkin Patch!  We have to select our pumpkins for carving, so we head over to the local pumpkin patch.

October 29th, we have cousin Ava sleepover and go to a costume party at my cousin, Jason & Lauren’s home.This is my cousin Jason, his costume was hilarious  He grew a mustache special for the party.

Here’s my very silly uncle David & his grandson, Jake.
Lauren did an amazing job on the food!  Everything was SOOOO good.  She even came up with clever names for each dish.

Lorin, Granny (my mother), Avery, Haley & Janie (my moms sister, my aunt, Haley’s favorite person)Me & my brother Anthony.  You can’t tell in this picture, but he had on some freaky bright green contacts.

Lorin, Lauren (aka BIG Lauren, not bcs she’s prego, bcs she is bigger than Lo, Aunt Judy (aka JuJu) and Haley.

Twins!  Haley girl & Mommy.

Kaden the police officer kissing a gypsy pirate….  scandalous.Sunday Oct. 30, Ally and Ava came over to carve pumpkins & help prepare goodies for our annual Halloween dinner/Trick-or-Treating party.

Avery & Ava made peanut butter popcorn balls with peanut butter m&m’s, mini chocolate chips & reeses peanut butter cup pieces The girls made cat & pumpkin cookies & Lorin was in charge of decorating.
Here are our awesome pumpkins!!!  Lorin carved this one…Haley carved this one.

During the preparation, Santana was being a little bit of a grouchy pest.  He was put in time out a handful of times & also put himself in time out when he knew he was being naughty.  This time, he was making the CUTEST sad face at me & of course I wanted to take a picture.  As soon as he saw the camera, he went from puppy dog eyed, very sad face to CHEESE! in seconds.Today is Halloween.  Avery has Book-a-ween at her school, where she can dress up like any storybook character.  She likes this book called Granny Clearwater & Critter.  A story about a granny and her grand baby that get separated from their family on a trip out west.  They go on a bunch of crazy, funny adventures until they finally meet up with their family.  Here’s Avery as “Granny Clearwater”.More Halloween pictures to come tomorrow.  Happy Halloween, have a fun & very safe evening!  And, pray for NO RAIN here in FLorida.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day we’ve been waiting for has finally arrived!  This morning we headed to court to finalize the adoption of Micah Santana Lazzara!  Our family~ me, Daddy, Haley, Lorin, Avery & Santana, along with my mother~ Carol, Rich’s mother~ Debbie, my sister in law~ Ally, Santana’s foster family~ Oma, Christina, Vivianna, Derrick, Rex & Leah, the attorney, the case manager, and Santana’s CMS nurse all piled in the court room.  The judge was impressed with the size of our group & also very sweet and gave ALL the kids stuffed animals.  We all got sworn in, the attorney read the petition for adoption, we answered “yes” to all of the questions, the judge and Rich joked around (it was very light hearted), and a few minutes later, the judge signed the papers, took pictures and that was it!  We were in and out in 15-20 minutes.

The Lord has seen us through our entire journey.  He’s been our constant companion through searching, through trials, road blocks, paperwork, fingerprints and everything in between.  He has held us when we cried, carried us when we couldn’t see a way and is now overjoyed that Santana is finally OURS!

Happy adoption day, our precious Santana!