Spaghetti Night (and My Version of This Whole Italian Thing)

My kids LOVE spaghetti. They may look Irish but they have strong Italian blood running through those veins. Pasta in any way, shape, or form is always a big hit with them. And we HAVE to have it with plenty of "sprinkle cheese" (Chiodo code name for Parmesan cheese). We even make our own gravy sometimes.
Gravy is what real Italians call sauce. Here's a side note about this whole Italian thing...I have learned a lot about Italians and their food since moving up here to Connecticut. I'm a OK farm girl who grew up on meat and potatoes. I didn't know a thing about Italian food other than having eaten at Olive Garden a few times. Seriously. Here's a few things to note:
1. Italians will spend all day making gravy. You start in the morning with your mounds of garlic and meat and tomatoes..do your magic and then let that magic simmer all day long. We had Jason's aunt and uncle over a couple of years ago to teach me how to make gravy. It is some good tastin' stuff...but quite involved. I am so thankful that my mother-in-law is not a hardcore Italian cook. She buys the frozen stuffed shells at Costco right along with me.
2. Italians love fish. I am still mystified by this. Why is fish such a big part of Italian food? I never imagined fish and pasta going hand in hand. The only thing I can figure is that Italy is on the sea?
3. Italians don't pronounce their cheeses and pastas correctly. Ricotta cheese is pronounced "rigot." Manicotti is pronounced "manacot". Mozzarella cheese is pronounced "mootsarel." Please don't laugh at me but when we first lived here, one of my coworkers was a big Italian. She gave me a recipe and I spent a long time looking in the cheese section of the grocery store looking for mootsarel and rigot cheeses. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what these cheeses were that everyone talked about. What a hoot.
Okay-that's my sidebar. Here's my Italian/Irish children.