Go Giants!

In about 8 hours I'll be off to New York to visit my sister (in Conn.) and watch the Giants-Cowboys football game on Sunday. The Giants officially became my favourite team when I watched my first live football game last year with Saadia and Raju in Buffalo. Everyone was cheering for Buffalo (naturally,) but ever since watching my first game on tv (which also happened to be the Giants,) I liked Eli Manning. Gerwyn introduced me to the team and explained that Eli was Peyton's little brother. Peyton always got all the glory being a star QB on a SuperBowl winning team (the Colts,) and I thought it would be nice to cheer for the little brother who probably always lived in his big brother's shadow. Ever since watching that first game, I've been hooked on them. (Of course there are plenty of other great players on the team too!) Can't wait to see them live again in my sister's corporate box. Go Giants! And go Big Sister for the free ticket! And go Freddie for giving me his air miles! Woo Hoo!

In addition to the game, my sister and I will also be hitting the outlet mall, checking out Manhattan, possibly going to the spa and visiting her gym. (Her gym is one of the nicest I've ever seen. Very spacious and bright, and plenty of state of the art equipment.) We'll also make a pit stop at my favourite store, Anthropologie and probably try to squeeze in a Thanksgiving dinner in there somewhere. I'm just looking forward to the change of scenery. Nothing like a new city (ad country for that matter,) to make you feel like you're on vacation...

View from the top...

Here's a pic I took while the sun was setting during the football game last night. The last bit of light was disappearing behind the CN Tower and it just looked so cool. This photo doesn't do it justice but I thought I'd try.

Kids!

Sunday I went to Scarbs to visit the fam and while I was at Grams, my cousin's other daughter Stephanie was visiting her grandparents. Now that she's two, she is very entertaining. She will copy what you do and what you say. While Michael was playing with his DS, I decided to distract her with a little yoga. Or in her case, mini-yoga. I taught her how to do a tree pose on command. It took awhile for her to get balanced but once she figured it out, she could stand for a full 2 seconds before falling down. Eventually I could just say "TREE" and she'd hop up on her little stool and do her tree pose. What a little yogi!

Later in the day I went to my mom's for lunch and to celebrate Nancy's birthday. Michael and I had made cupcakes the night before for her and my brother's friend Neel and his wife Arti also stopped in from Peterborough with their newborn Sohan. He was 6 months old and had the longest eyelashes I've ever seen on a baby. So cute!

After dropping Michael off with his uncle Mark later in the afternoon, I was totally wiped out. I barely had enough energy to take Kahlua for her evening walk. I watched the rest of the Steelers-Giants football game (which was amazing, can't wait to see the Giants play next weekend!) and then passed out in front of the tv at 8pm. I ended up going to bed at 9. Kids just have a way of wearing you out!!

Kahlua and Michael

These are the guests at Chez Diana this weekend. I'm dogsitting Kahlua while Ev and Stu are in England for a couple of weeks and this weekend I'm also "kid"-sitting my cousin's son Michael while she's in New York with her daughter.

After taking Kahlua for her morning walk in the rain, I picked up Michael to take him to his Tae-Kwon-Do class at the Y and then we came back to check in on Kahlua, have some grilled cheese sandwiches and then go for a walk to Rogers to rent our evening dvd. Michael has been on a major Star Wars kick lately and even though he's seen all 6 movies plus the Clone Wars animated film, he wanted to watch Star Wars again. He didn't even really care which one the video store had. Turns out they only had 2 and 5 so he chose 2, "Attack of the Clones". After we got home, we took Kahlua for another walk and then we made our meatballs for spaghetti and meatball dinner. Then Michael did his Kumon and we ate. Then Michael made cupcakes for Nancy's birthday tomorrow (at my request,) read some of his book and then we took Kahlua for her final walk before putting in Star Wars. (He also had to play a little "Lego Star Wars" on his DS to get into the theme before the movie.)

Tomorrow its off to the Grandparents for the day. I know my cousin Mad will read this when she gets back so I thought I'd try to be at detailed as possible so she knows that he did his reading and his Kumon and didn't watch too much tv or eat too much sugar.

Dogs, rabbits, kids... I'm a full service agency!

The renovations continue... kitchen backsplash

This is the sample glass tile for my kitchen backsplash. In the store, I thought it was a great match. Now that I have it in my kitchen, I'm not so sure. Its very beige-ish. I thought it was complementary to my granite countertop (shown in pic) and also my brown cupboards but now I wonder if its just too neutral.

What do you think?

SO FULL!

After work I decided to go for a jog on the treadmill. After my run, I was starving (as usual) with not much options for instant gratification. Although I could've made a full dinner I just couldn't bear the thought of having to wait more than 15 minutes for it. So instead I made one of the frozen pizzas I bought from Costco and added some mushrooms and proscuitto. Once it was out of the oven I couldn't get it into my tummy fast enough. I practically ate the whole thing. And now, I can barely breathe. After working my butt off on the treadmill to burn a measly 200 calories, I realized that I had consumed about 700 within 10 minutes. Of course after my pizza I had to have something sweet so I also ate a fudgesicle. Well half a fudgesicle. I was honestly so full that I couldn't even finish it. And for anyone who has seen me eat one of those, you know that I must've been EXTREMELY full not to finish it.

Whoo. I think I need to park myself in front of the tv and digest a little.

Wednesday Night Dinner at my place!

This week was my turn to cook WND and by popular request, I was instructed to make Thanksgiving Dinner (as if the weekend wasn't enough!). I decided to make roasted chickens instead of a turkey and do mashed parsnips and carrots instead of potatoes but the rest was pretty standard (green beans with dill, crab and mushroom stuffing and cornbread). Dessert was courtesy of Costco, Creme Brulee was on sale so I just personalized it with a little minted berry mix.

For some of you this photo may look very familiar but due to my hosting duties, I forgot to take actual pics of everything so I just stole this pic off of Sally's blog. Thanks Sal!

Gobble Gobble with a side of kim-chi

Sunday we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving at Hanna's parents house with a full turkey dinner plus another dozen or so Korean dishes. My cousin Carol also made a few of her amazing desserts: Caramel Apple pie, Pecan pie and one of my favourites: pumpkin bars. My usual M.O at these types of meals is to take it slow and only take a VERY little of each thing so I can try a little of everything. It has to happen in two shifts: first I go up for the Canadian Turkey dinner (turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy and cranberry) and then I go up again for all the Korean food (kalbi, kimchi, sushi, dumplings, sprouts, etc, etc, etc.) Due to the amount of Korean food, I usually have to go up twice so that means a total of 3 trips (not including dessert) up to the buffet. Its a logistical challenge to say the least. I also have a thing about my Canadian food touching the Korean food. Unlike Hanna (see pic included,) I just can't mix my mashed potatoes and kimchi... ewww.

I've also included a few pics of my cousin's daughter Stephanie eating her noodles. I tried to be very subtle in taking the pics because she would get all shy when she saw me but watching her eat her noodles was SO funny. The rest of the day was spent digesting our food, going up for more, challenging Michael with our Nintendo DS's and then going to a late movie with my cousins Mad and Carol. (We watched Burn After Reading.)

Fall Leaves

This weekend while visiting the fam in Scarborough I decided to take some shots of the fall leaves. Living downtown you sometimes forget what its like to have trees around you. With this great weekend weather, it was a perfect opportunity to appreciate Fall...

Molly Umali and Tony Little...

Last night I went over to MelandNorm's for a pie-making extravaganza! Mary-Ann had so kindly dropped off a bushel of apples she had picked with her kids and Mel decided to make a few apple pies with her new cooking class pie recipe. I was the official apple peeler/corer. Mel had already made the dough (in an effort to keep her recipe a secret I think!) and she rolled out the pie crusts and made the "slurry" (a mix of the apple juices, spices and cornstarch.) We ended up with three deeleecious pies.

Norm's mom had also requested they make her some empanadas with the filling that she provided. (Seems that Mel is the resident "pastry" expert) so she pumped out a few dozen of those too... also deeleecious! Way to go Mel, you should start your own pastry making business "Molly Umali's pies and pastries!" Sally can even design your logo!

On my way in from work this evening I received a note about a package that had arrived for me. It was my highly anticipated "Tony Little Micropedic Pillow" which I had ordered from the Home Shopping Channel. Yes that's right ladies, I shop on the Home Shopping Channel. Its my second purchase actually. (The first one was my duvet.) There's just something about seeing something on tv and then picking up the phone and 5 days later, its at your door. Also, there just happened to be nothing on tv on Friday night at midnight. I'm excited to try it, even though I read all the materials and it seems like its just a sack of tiny foam beads. Anyway, there IS a 30 day money back guarantee so if I don't have a "revolutionary and advanced" night's sleep tonight, Tony Little will be hearing from me!!