Sunday, August 23, 2009

Monkey Business




Tommaso seems to be growing quite of collection of scimmie (that's monkeys in Italiano).
Pictured from left to right are:
Freecycle monkey puppet, Tommaso's first monkey from our cousins Anna Maria & Frank(plays twinkle twinkle little star and his cheeks light up), Macy's monkey that Tommaso picked out for his 1st birthday, monkey from the Wayne County Fair won by from our cousin Frank, monkey from Signora Linda (the newest monkey, and currently the favorite), in front is the monkey from Italia (he screeches when you squeeze his belly) from our cousins Anna Maria & Frank. Not pictured is travel monkey(he's really a backpack and leash) who lives in the cars and accompanies us on our outings.

$293

Scored some great bargains yesterday while shoe shopping...for $150 I scored 3 pairs(Nine West, Enzo Angiolini & Betsey Johnson) of shoes for me and 2 (Stride Rite) for the little guy.


I saved $293 off the original prices!

Monday, August 10, 2009

More Road Trip Photos











Sunday, August 09, 2009

Road Trip Day 5

Tommaso slept in today....but then he had no nap....but he did go on the potty...so, er...emm.
Went to Mass at St. John the Evangelist, followed by yet another trip to WallyWorld! It was an overcast rainy day. (As I type this, it is thundering and being quite stormy.) We lunched on Spaghetti alla Sepia and dined on Chicken stuffed with asparagus and sun-dried tomato.

Tommaso spent the day running laps in the house and bonding some more with Frank. They looked at many big trucks online and practiced counting.

Tomorrow afternoon, we head on a loooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggg drive to my parent's house where there will be no internet access (wah!)

Saturday, August 08, 2009

Road Trip Day 4

So much we wanted to do, but when you have a bambino around, plans always need to be flexible. Today we fed the fish in the pond some stale bread.
video

Friday, August 07, 2009

Road Trip Day 3

Well, we went to the fair today. I'll let the photos tell the story.


video

Thursday, August 06, 2009

Road Trip Day 2



By 8 am, Tommaso had me back on schedule, insisting it was time to “EAT! EAT!” his daily oatmeal with apple sauce and ‘uva’. After breakfast, all the adults got their screen time in…have to check the email and facebook updates, y’know. Tommaso received some tribute today: a new scimmia(he screeches when you press his pancina), a dinosaur and a shirt and jacket from Italy.


We lunched on last night’s leftovers and then Frank & the wee one went on a short walk between the buildings and showed him the water pump. Tommaso loved operating it and now keeps asking to go to the POMPA.







Then it was time for today’s excursion: Honesdale’s
SuperWalmart(I kid you not) for food shopping.
It was a short, scenic ride, past grazing cow’s and lots of horses. Tommaso fell asleep in the car since it was naptime. But he awoke when we pulled in. I must admit, this Walmart is much nicer than the Cherry Hill one! Frank entertained Tommaso by playing every musical card in the store for him while we waited to be rung up. Poor baby fell asleep in the car on the way home, only to wake up upon arrival. I tried to get him to nap, but he won.

My cousins rewarded him (or tried to distract him) by presenting him with his very own lawn mower. It blows bubbles! So fun. He also got a souped up wagon made from a CocaCola crate from 1974(coincidentally, the year my parents got married.) that they purchased at an antiques auction for the little prince. I toured their guest cottage, which they are thinking of offering as a vacation rental to nice people.


As you can see here, Tommaso and Frank had some fun on the swing. He seems to have really taken a liking to him! To toast Frank’s survival of Tommaso climbing all over him, we(the adults) had a shot of Crema di Limoncello made by our cousin Giovanna in Italy. TASTY!
For dinner, we had Spaghetti al Pesto di Pistacchio con Bacon(needless to say there is NO PANCETTA in Wayne County, PA) YIAM!




Yet again, Junior was an un-cooperative bather and insisted on sleeping in the big bed to boot. I made a barricade of pillows to make sure he didn’t fall out. He woke up with a nightmare around 11 and he went back to his own bed to sleep(Grazie a Dio!)

INOX ICE CREAM SPOONS

yet another example of Italian genius

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Road Trip Day 1

It was a busy morning as we prepared for my road trip with Tommaso. We left the house at 3:00, survived the SUREKILL(er, I mean Schuylkill) and made it to Allentown,PA by 4:40. Early dinner at Chianti Italiano Ristorante
We had an Appetizer of Calamari Fritti
Awesome Bread…I think we had three baskets worth. The bread alone was worth the trip!
We had: Cheese Tortellini Bolognese(Frank), Veal Francese(Tom), Veal Marsala(AnnaMaria) &
Eggplant Parmigiana(Me)

No tears shed when we said goodbye to hubby. We had told Tommaso about the trip knew what was coming…he hugged Scimmia and announced all points of interest as we rolled along the Northeast Extension. A short pit stop at Turkey Hill Market(yes, Turkey Hill Ice Cream has a market and they sell gas, too!)
Quick bath for Tommaso at 10pm.and Butter Pecan Ice Cream for the grown ups.
Tommaso slept in his special travel bed till 4:30 then came into bed with me for a couple hours.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Trippingly off the (baby's) tongue

Tommaso is adding more and more words to his vocabulary. Just now he said mela, which means apple in Italian! So here is the official list of words my 19month old says in no particular order.
  1. mela (apple)
  2. grazie
  3. thanks
  4. please
  5. bye bye
  6. mamma (mom)
  7. papa`(daddy)
  8. nonno(grandfather)
  9. nonna(grandmother)
  10. Elmo[ugh]
  11. uva(grapes)
  12. uvetta(raisins)
  13. si(yes)
  14. yeah
  15. no
  16. fell
  17. uh oh
  18. hot
  19. hi
  20. dog
  21. bus
  22. all done
  23. eyes
  24. where is
  25. here it is
  26. book
  27. pappa(pablum)
  28. head
  29. hat
  30. ball
  31. bubble
  32. mine
  33. duck
  34. light
  35. shoes
  36. chair
  37. car
  38. cacca
  39. clean up
  40. boom
  41. scimmia(monkey)
  42. pesce(fish)
  43. Gesu`(Jesus)
  44. Jesus

He also blows lovely kisses to all those he loves!