Sofia and Grandpa Dad and Me front of necklace Back of necklance We were going to all drive to Ohio for Christmas. Ralph had some deadlines to meet with his Superman book and other projects and felt too much pressure since driving would take 2 days of travel each way. We decided that I would fly instead and I would go alone because of the cost. Sofia had money saved from modeling this summer and asked if she could use her own money and fly with me to Cleveland. She has never been on an airplane and really wanted to go. We decided that she should be able to spend her money if she wanted to and...

Today, I received an unexpected Christmas gift in the mail from my dear friend Gloria who lives in Florida. She sent me these yummy cookies and crumb cake. The cookies are chocolate and raspberry rugalach and butter pecan melt-aways. She is always so thoughtful of...

Ornaments we made last year Rudolph Castle The toothless Bumble Vintage Santa Yesterday the kids and I went to get a Christmas tree. We got rid of our old one because it was just too big to store. It had pre-strung lights which were great the first couple of years but really annoying the last few when the lights started to burn out and big sections of the tree were unlit. I spent hours trying to replace the bulbs one by one causing my fingertips to go numb until I finally resolved to string new lights over the burnt out pre-strung lights which really defeated the purpose of having...

risotto and peas simmering in broth I don’t know about anyone else, but making dinner can be so tiresome and stressful. I like to cook, if I have all the ingredients and the time and a good recipe. I hate it when I’m scrambling to think of something to cook, frantically throw something together and the family complains about it. Not only did I not want to cook, but then I get the complaints about it. I’m always looking for tasty, simple recipes that hopefully the kids will like. This recipe is from a cookbook called Italian by Carla Capalbo. It has really great photos and pretty...

Snow covered trampoline We got our first snow in Kansas here on Sunday. The kids were pretty excited and Dante and Sofia were hoping for a snow day. (Isabella loves middle school and socializing so much that she wanted to go to school on Monday.) Anyway, the two tried to challenge the forces of nature by doing all the snow day rituals. They flushed ice cubes down the toilet until I found out and put a stop to that – “your wasting water by doing that!”, they wore their pajamas and underwear inside out, ran around in circles and chanted SNOW DAY, SNOW DAY, SNOW DAY, and finally...