Lotsa pictures, kids and food

This is one of those shameless entries where I just post a lot of pictures and pretend my readers are interested.

John took Monday off work so we could be with the family in Washington, MI for Easter Sunday. It's a good thing he took off work Monday instead of Friday, because starting Friday morning, it began to snow, and it didn't stop until we had 12 inches! So much for winter being gone! But John always says that late March is when you get that last big dumping of snow, and he was right this year.

I knew the roads were bad Friday, because that's when AJ had tubes put in his ears, poor fella. We went into the surgery center and he was all happy and charming, but he was screaming when we left. It turns out he had pretty bad ears. One was badly infected and blistered when the doctor went in to put the tubes in. The good news is that I made the right decision to get this done ... he needed it, just like his sister did.

The roads were bad when we headed home from Kalamazoo at 10:30 a.m. If it weren't for anti-lock breaks, I'd have had an accident on I-94.

He still didn't feel well Saturday, but by Sunday, he was his happy self again, and loved hanging out with Papa and scaling their stairs, which he can do rather quickly:


Aunt Joanne, Joe and Kathy made some delicious homemade ravioli and sauce for Easter dinner. They served it in Grandma's wooden dish from Italy:



Here are two adorable sisters hanging out – Lauren and Clara:


Stella was jumpy all weekend, but eventually showed up at the dinner table to play with all the Easter goodies and hang out with her family. Here she is with Aunt Joanne:


Miss Clara Kathryn sure is cute, and boy did she love all that food. She kept begging for more! She eats better than AJ!


AJ is looking scruffy these days ... so Aunt Jill cut his hair, even though I hated to do it. But what's the point, I asked myself. He's a boy and it's not like I can put a bow in it. Here is AJ with Dad pre-haircut:


Here he is when the cutting started:


He eventually settled down. Bless his saintly Aunt Jill, who does all this hair-cutting out of the goodness of her heart!


Now he looks like a little boy ... pictured with Uncle Bill.


Even though Stella is a handful when we take her away from home, she sure does seem happier after being around her family. She loves all the attention she gets and having all the people around her. She was still aglow when we got home. There's nothing in the world like Stella's beautiful smile, is there?


The End.

Adventures in boyhood

It's been an interesting day with the boy. I've had to chase the little guy all day. For starters, I had the most outgoing child at the doctor's office today. He went up to every person in the waiting room, giggled and flirted, and then tried to get away with their stuff! He took one lady's Mt. Dew and ran off laughing. He tried to take another's guy's expensive cell phone. He started digging in a woman's purse! I wasn't too far behind him, but he's fast. I apologized to every person in there, but they all thought he was funny.

He's also been playing with the computer mouse and my cell phone so that I will come chase him. He's a pistol!

Here he is enjoying some Lazy Daisy Cake:



Lazy Daisy Cake is a new favorite in the Puzzuoli house. It's called a hot milk cake because you put hot milk and butter into the batter, mix it quickly, and pop it into the oven as speedy as you can. Twenty-five minutes later, what you've got is this spongey, light, soft, heavily-vanilla flavored cake. The last step, you heat butter, brown sugar and pecans (or coconut), pour over the top of the cake, and broil two minutes ... and then that delicious cake has a cruchy praline topping. This is the perfect use for my large stash of pecans from Aunt Edie's grove.

Anyway, Albert John loves this cake (we don't give him the pecans) and so does John!

Okay, back to my crazy day with the boy ...

He climbed into the pot-pan cabinet and made himself comfortable:



He explored his feminine side with a pretty scarf:



And then he pulled little pieces of fuzz off the scarf and handed them to me one-by-one, saying "Ah? Ah?"

Ugh, it's been a day. Thank goodness he's in bed.

Winter loses hold!

The snow is almost all melted. The big ice jam at the end of our driveway has all but disappeared. And Stella and AJ have seen the light of day.

Today it's supposed to be 54° and for the forseeable future, all temps are above freezing.

Ahhhhhhhh!

I took both kids outside yesterday. Albert John probably can't remember the backyard; it's been buried under a blanket of snow for months! He kind of stood there in a daze when I took him out.



Stella has been outside a couple of times, and she loves it. She's an outdoor girl. She ran around giggling in true Stella form.



But because she had been up since 4 a.m. (don't ask) and had swimming at school that day, she quickly got tired and sat down in a pile of leaves and looked somber:



Speaking of those leaves, yes, they're left from last fall. I hope John will finally get a chance to rake them up this weekend.

Albert eventually discovered a pile of rocks and put some in his mouth, hence the dirty face!

Celebrating Grandma ... and other things, too

Catherine Puzzuoli was laid to rest on Saturday. It was a beautiful ceremony, and a very eloquent priest at SS. John and Paul Parish summarized her life, her faith and her dedication to her family perfectly. Here are some of the remarks that Father Dave made that will stick with me.

• That Italian women are anchors – they are anchored in their families, in food, in their faith. He recognized our pain saying it is hard to lose such an anchor in a family.
• That she and Albert had such a strong marriage. He said, "It was one of those marriages where the two really do become one." She really never recovered from his death. It was so hard to see her miss him so much.
• She was a woman who knew grief in her life. All of her 4 brothers preceded her in death, including her youngest brother Joe whom she helped raise. He was only 5 years older than Joe-Dad.
• That she was "earthy." She butchered chickens, worked in the garden, took care of her children and grandchildren ... and was comfortable in that role and knew that it was what God wanted for her. She could also put on fancy clothes and go to nice events, or to church. She knew who she was.
• That she had an unshakable faith. She never questioned it. She was always comfortable in it.

And Jill and Jim also made wonderful remarks about her, telling stories from the past, and how she touched everyone's lives. Everyone said such wonderful things that I can't remember it all. I am only very happy that everyone shared all the beautiful things about her.

It was a fitting farewell.

And then we had a birthday party . . .

At first, he was timid about the cake ... hey do you want to try this frosting?


Then he got his hands into it a little more . . .


Then he plunged . . .


And finally, frosting all the way up his nostrils!


His birthday was actually last Wednesday – two days after Grandma died, but Joe and Kathy and all the family threw together a special party for him Sunday, complete with his own cake and presents that they all went and bought the morning before. It was fun.

Despite the fact that this past year has been without question the hardest of my life, I cannot feel like a total victim because this little guy has brought me enormous joy. Watching him grow, become active and ornery has added so much humor to our lives that despite the difficulties, we feel very blessed for sure. Isn't life funny that way?


And while we lost a Grandma recently, Aunt Joanne became a Grandma for the first time. Mark and Traci's little one, Gabriella Catherine, was born February 23rd. She's a beauty and there's no question that Grandma Joanne is going to be the next Grandma Extraordinaire!

How we will miss her

She was a very special lady. She was my surrogate grandma in Michigan. I remember when I first moved to Michigan, I gravitated toward her at family gatherings. She and I always had things to talk about. She told me how she missed Albert. I told her how I missed home. She's always been one of my favorite people. It's been hard, the last few years, to see her go downhill from both health problems and the perpetual sadness of missing her dear Albert who died in 2001.



No one could cook like her. The woman was dedicated to making good pasta, sauce, crispelle. And I've heard so many stories from the past about the great meals she made, about how she could haggle with the people at the fruit market for the most spotty rotting tomatoes ... and make the most terrific sauce you ever tasted, in a dented pan she picked up at a garage sale for 25¢.



She had stopped cooking a lot in the past few years. Luckily she passed so many of these skills on to Joe-Dad and Aunt Joanne. But she was the master! The matriarch. And there's no replacing her.

And there was not a more loving grandmother, according to her 5 grandchildren. John remembers spending so much time with her. Jill remembers "birdie kisses" and just how wonderful and loving she was.

My deep hope now is that she will look down on, watch out for and help our poor girl Stella Caterina.



Rest in Peace, Caterina. You will be missed forever.