Chirstmas Day

Merry Christmas!  We began our day going going to Mass to celebrate the birth of our Lord.  Scott offered to watch Jalen (he does not do so well in a quiet environment, hah!) so the rest of us went and had a peaceful service!  Scott was lucky enough to help Jalen build things with his new Handy Manny tool bench!  Wow, they spent about 1 1/2 hour building, destroying and rebuilding!  And on the way home I get a phone call from Scott, "are you coming home now? an hour and a half is a looooong time!"  LOL!!!!!  Can you tell Papa hasn't had much experience with babysitting by himself?

In the late afternoon, the Iacolucci clan all gathered over at Dina's new house for our Christmas day celebration.  We do an Italian feast with meatballs, baked spaghetti, chicken/broccoli fettuccine, salad and bread, of course!  After the gifts are opened and the pasta has settled, we take slices of the pie that Lacey, Marty and Dad made!  What a great eating day!

The children spend about 5 minutes unwrapping the gifts!  It sure does go fast!  Marty gave the girls big jugs of cat litter to take to their favorite kitty shelter, PAWS.  They were so happy about that, he is going to take them there to drop off the litter and to play a bit with the kitties.  No new kitties to come home with them, as they adopted a one year old puppy from a shelter.  Happy is his name and he sure is a cutie and so good.  Being a one year old, he is already potty trained for being in the house, that is a big plus!  Happy is a mixture of several breeds.  He has the softest black hair, not too short like a lab, (although he has lab in him), but not too long like a retriever, (he has that in him also) and he is SUPER fast at running!  OMG watch out, he could knock you down just from the wind as he blows by you!!  He is really a sweet dog, was perhaps a bit mistreated or at least very neglected at his first home.  He is showered with all sorts of love and affection from the Snook kids!  And he soaks it up!

My dad played a little Italian hand game with Tristan and he just kept giggling and loving it!  I wonder if any one of you know that little game:  you take the hand of the other person and you speak in Italian, and unfortunately I don't know how to spell the words, but I could do it phonetically and see if anyone can tell me what it means.  My dad doesn't know, he just knows how to do it.  I so clearly remember my Uncle John playing that hand game with me from a very young age.  So this is it phonetically spelled:  taking the wrists of the other person you rub their cheeks and say:  moo sha moo sheel (remember it is phonetically spelled!! tee hee), then taking their hands and rubbing your own cheeks, say:  gosh a goo sheel! Back to the other's cheeks:  poca te (which actually means:  little you! so I think it is:  a little for you); going back to your own cheeks:  poca me (little for me!) and then this is the fun part, back to the other person you kind of slap their cheeks many times and say:  poca to ta kwan!( a little for everyone...maybe?)  The last part is where Tristan just cracks up laughing and starts flapping his arms and legs.  I can't tell you how many times my dad had to stand there and play that with Tristan, he got such a big kick out if him!  So hopefully one of you reading this can help me out with the spelling and the words!