HO HO HO Y'all

We hope y'all had a very merry Christmas! The camera actually caught some of ours! Can you believe it?

Christmas Eve dinner! Standing rib roast, mac n' cheese, stuffing, green bean casserole and some YUMMY deserts!

Aunt Brenna made a yummy chocolate pie!

Listening to Christmas carols after dinner

Dirty kitchen and dishes to clean!

Table cleared, guests gone, dishes done and jammies on, it's time to prepare for Santa's arrival!

Placing the cookies

Cookies and milk out, Christmas tree aglow, we said our prayers and went to bed.

Mowgli was the first one awake Christmas Morn!

Mommy started on breakfast and lots (LOTS) of coffee!

Good morning!

Checkin' out the loot!

Between Santa, Mommy, Daddy, and Mowgli, we were off to a bountiful start! After our first Christmas in the morning, we headed off to Kiki and Po's - Aunt Brenna took pictures there, so those will come later. We had a wonderful time with Kiki, Po, Aunt Brenna, Uncle Will and Great Grampa! After the second round of gifts and food, the boys went out to the shooting range (another tradition we started this year!) while the girls started cooking dinner!

Once the boys got back, our little family left Kiki and Po's, and headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas #3. We had a lovely third round of gifts and food, and while the grown ups visited, Lily had a blast in her latest gift:

Nice!

After visiting Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Heather and Cousin Puppy Tally, we headed home. It was just about bedtime, but before we turned in, Daddy and Lily had a little story time:

So sweet. It was a busy, bustling, exhausting day, but we are so blessed and thankful to have it all. Lily had so much fun this year, and her enthusiasm for this beautiful day will only grow in the years to come. She showed a lot of interest in her nativity this year, too. I can't wait until we get into more details with her next year! Merry Christmas, y'all!

A Month In Review...

SOOOOOO in the month since my last post:


1. Daddy graduated from Police Man School!!! Of course, our camera was dead so I have NO pictures to show. Yet. I'm working on it. Anyway, we are all SO proud of Daddy! He worked so hard and even won a special award for all of his effort and achievement!


2. The family took a trip to Pensacola to visit Mommy's side of the clan. The Pensacola crew had rented the most beautiful beach house for all of us to enjoy! The family played on the beach, put puzzles together, opened gifts and ate - my oh my we ate, and played a large game of Dirty Santa - Daddy won some new tools and I got away with a book of vintage cocktail recipes with the history behind each drink - LOVE! It was fabulous! Again, didn't take the time to charge the camera before going (I'm usually so prepared! It was obvious I needed Christmas break to get here FAST!). But we did manage to get one picture from the weekend:

3. Mommy made it through her first semester of teaching! Woot! I got read a book! A fictional, non-educational, unnecessary, slightly sad, whole book! It was wonderful.

4. CHRISTMAS! But those details are in the next post...

O Christmas Tree

The Saturday following Thanksgiving, we started our new tradition of driving to Havana to cut down our own Christmas tree! It was lovely, full of beautiful memories and images and sights and smells. Almost all of this I would love to show you (minus the smells, of course - you can use your imagination, it was divine) but, of course, after all the Thanksgiving picture-taking, my camera was on its last leg, and I only managed to get a few shots in:

Lily was actually thrilled with this tree. She marched right up to it and began clapping. That's Jason in the background preparing to saw it down!

After choppin the tree (a beautful pine - complete with petite pine cones!) we got it up and began the home transformation from "Fall" to "Christmas". Even Mowgli got in the spirit!

I am SO excited for the upcoming holiday!

We Are Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all! This year, Mommy, Daddy, Baby Girl and the Greifs went to Ponte Vedra to spend time with Great Grampa! It's been several years since we've spent a holiday in Sawgrass so we were all thrilled to go back - and to show Daddy and Baby Girl around! We drove over early Thursday morning and met up with dear friends for dinner at the Country Cub:

One of my absolute favorite ladies! Mrs. Byrd.

Family photo op. Yes, Jason and I match. No, this was not planned.


Dancing with Aunt Brenna on the porch

After dinner, we broke out the band! Mommy rockin the trumpet.

Lily trying her hand - she's a natural!

After dinner, Mommy, Daddy, Aunt Brenna and Great Grampa went out for drinks and some beautiful music at the beach club. It was lovely.

The next morning, The family drove on down to the beach!

Ready to roll! Lily had a blast riding backwards!

The Atlantic

Lily was not a fan of the wind! It was a bit chilly!

Looking for shark teeth - we found several!

Before we knew it, it was time to head home. We watched Backyardigans, dozed and snacked on leftovers the whole way back!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Opa, Y'all!

So, immediately following the Halloween festivities, Mommy, Daddy, Baby Girl and Aunt Lisa headed to the Greek food festival. It's a fabulous Tally tradition every fall. I was especially happy Aunt Lisa could come with! You see, before she moved to Yankee Land, we used to make a day of the festival, going in the early afternoon and then later enjoying an evening of Greek deserts and a showing of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Tradition resumed this year, and all was perfection!

Waiting with Daddy for some Greek yummies

In the desert line - where else?

We love the Greek Food Festivsal!

Pumpkin Pickin', Treatin' and Trickin'

Greetings from the Sugar Plum Fairy!

Happy Halloween, y'all! The past few days have been all kinds of crazy with all the spooktacular festivities! Lily and Mommy had their Fall Festivals at school, Mommy chaperoned her first middle school Halloween dance and Daddy has been busy busy busy rockin' Police Man School! After we decorated the house, our next stop this past weekend was the Pumpkin Patch:

She knew EXACTLY which one she wanted!



Similar to last year, not too big on the whole Pumpkin Goo thing...

But she LOVED getting to decorate her own!

Then, before we knew it, Halloween was here! Mommy and the Sugar Plum Fairy posing with pumpkins!

Ready to go Trick or Treating!

Got my pumpkin!

Let's Roll!

We headed over to the Lafayette Park area where the whole neighborhood comes out to celebrate! Candy, drinks and costumes galore, it was a block party for the whole family! We bumped into everyone and their dogs, and even a few good friends:

Trick or Treat with the Campbells! Apparently the kids saw something interesting while the parents were busy posing...

After we paraded up and down Halloween Town, we marched home. Phew! What a night!

Happy Halloween, y'all!

It's Fall, Y'all!

Hey, y'all! Football season has started, the Pumpkin Spice Latte is now a food group, the churchyards are full of pumpkins and the weather is flat-out gorgeous! It is FALL! Here's what we've been up to:

Thanks, Aunt Annette for my fabulous FSU gear! Class of 2032!

Bloomers to match, bien sur!

Nole girls

And special visits from Great Grampa!

To top off the first fall weekend, we all went and visited the Campbells. Daddies played with Daddy toys, Mamas cooked, and the two little ones grew a little closer....

That's right! First kiss! My oh my they grow up so fast!

Check it out!

Coming back from Lily's latest visit to the good doctor. Lily is, as always, right on track, weighing in at 23 pounds and measuring up to 32 inches! We are now one flu-shot away from vaccination-free visits until she's 4! Ahhhhh a life without shots. It's gonna be nice.

In other news, apart from the Plague we're all sharing (because what kind of family doesn't share? Presenting the Lazar Family Cougher/Sniffers, sniffling their way to a pharmacy near you!), Mommy is having a blast at her big girl job, and Daddy is totally in his element at Police Man school. Lily is rocking the school house and brother puppy Mowgli just waits patiently for us to remember he's still there. Sweet puppy. We all seem to be in much higher spirits than usual, as Fall is quickly approaching and we are positively tingling with anticipation of cooler weather. This time of year we live weekend to weekend, football game to pumpkin patch, family trips to decking halls. It really is a beautiful time of year! Updates and pictures to come as Football Season unfolds! GO NOLES!

Bubbles!

Adding "bubbles" to Lily's list of words!

Back To School!

Today is a very big day. Today marks the 2nd year of marriage for Mommy and Daddy. Today is the first day of Mommy's pre-planning as a big girl grown up teacher. Today was our little girl's first day of school.

Wait.....what???? That's right, y'all! Lily started preschool today and had a positively marvelous time! Kinda. The morning was a bit rough, but I'm told she perked up throughout the day. What makes this place so great is that I get a worksheet with a run-down of all her daily activities. What time she ate, how much she ate, what she liked, what she didn't, how long she napped and even when she was checked and changed. While dropping her off this morning was crazy difficult, I can't tell you how relieved we all are to know that she is in such good hands during the day!

Backpack and lunch all packed and ready!

Yummy eggs and juice for breakfast!



"What exactly do you expect me to do with this?"

While today technically was her debut into the school system, I am trying to hold out on too much ceremony until the angel starts kindergarten. So, today, I did not cry, I did not worry about my little girl growing up too quickly, nor did I go crazy with the camera or label maker. I don't think any of us are truly ready for the "first day of school". So for now, we'll just look at this as if it were a two-year summer camp. OK? OK! Good luck to everyone this upcoming school year!