DD Does A Guest Post

Hi my name is Sarah! I am 10 years old. My mom calls me on her blog DD! I am my moms Guest Blogger Today. I am going to talk about what I got for Christmas…. For Christmas I got an Ipod Touch!

I was so excited I screamed! After like 1 min and a half I wanted my dad (handy man) to download music, games, and lots more to it.

I also got lots of lululemon stuff. Like pants, jacket, and 2 headbands.
1 headband was slip less and the other one was non slip less! The slip less headband was the white one and the non slip less headband was purple. The jacket was red. It was VERY warm. I even have I hanger that I put it on at night before I go to sleep! My pants I used gift cards for. They are reversible. One side is people playing sports. And the other side is just plain black.

I also got 3 different types of outfits. One was from mom and dad and it was a hoodie from Mudd and yoga pants!

And Nonna and Nonno got me an out fit from Ardene’s. And my Zia Lisa got me an outfit too from Winners! They are all really cute!! And mom and dad also got me A pair of Pjs!

Bye,
Sarah

MIA Again

I seem to have made another disappearing act yesterday! I’ve been spending a lot of time with family and haven’t had much time to post. Although the past 2 days haven’t been crazy busy, I haven’t been at home a whole lot. DD had a friend sleep over Monday night so I made the fam a big bacon, egg, toast hash brown breakie Tuesday. I had planned on eggs, too, but changed my mind at the last minute!

• 3/4 cup Rice Dreams “eggnog”
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup Quaker oats
• raisins
• hazelnuts

I did some much needed housework for a few hours then settled in for a small lunch. Small because we had early dinner plans with my family. I went with a smoothie:

• 1 cup kefir
• splash of USAB
• handful each of frozen blueberries, blackberries & pineapple
• 1 tbsp of honey

I’m not a big beverage gal, but this was bang on! I loved it. Once I got myself all dolled up DD and I headed out to Walmart to buy a George Foreman grill. They were 50% off and I’ve been wanting one for some time now. By the time we got back it was time to head out for dinner. I grabbed this baggie of almonds to eat on the way because we were going to a buffet style restaurant and I didn’t want to arrive famished.

So the place we went to is called The Mandarin and has some pretty decent eats. I usually only go once a year so it’s one of those places that remains a treat. I started off light with some sushi, cold noodles and mango salad;

My main plate had a little bit of everything that I don’t have easy access to. That’s sort of my game plan at these types of restaurants….only put on my plate what I can’t/don’t eat daily.

I didn’t finish everything you see. Some I didn’t end up liking. Most of it was fantastic, though. Especially the snap peas. I had a nice sampling plate for dessert and loved every bit of it! :D

Once we left we made our way straight to a hockey game with my parents. Even though our city lost 4-2, the actual game was pretty exciting. We all pretty much crashed upon arriving home. ;)

On to today, shall we? It was a great one! DD and I had plans with Mom to go shopping in Toronto. Seeing as we had to pick her up by 9:30, I went the fast route with breakfast having a bowl of one of my favourite cereals.

This is some seriously good stuff! Here’s my serving.

YUM! The 3 of us shopped for 3hours before stopping for lunch. I didn’t buy a whole lot. A new gym bag and some running shorts from Lululemon. To be 100% honest, the main reason for hitting the mall we did is because a Panera opened up across the street from it! HOT DIGGITY DOG! And I was more than thrilled to see that everything was exactly the same as any Panera I’ve been to in the USA. I went with the soup sandwich combo. Turkey artichoke and Fuji apple, with a gala apple that DD ended up eating;

Love, love, LOVE!

We got home by 3pm at which point I settled in to get some serious blog reading done. Then we headed back out again at 4 to hockey practice. Ye Haw! Back home by 6:30, I made good use of the new grill with some chicken breasts. That baby rocks! The meat was done in 10 minutes! I served it with broccoli and quinoa. My chicken also had some leftover cranberry sauce spread on top.

My bestie came over for a visit this evening as well. She lives 3hrs away and is home visiting for the holidays. It’s SO great to see her! She’s going to stop by for a longer visit tomorrow, too.

Well, I thin that’s all for this post! I have a feeling that I won’t be back until Friday evening so HAPPY NEW YEAR to each and every one of you! I hope you’ll all be doing exactly what you want tomorrow evening. Please be safe, though!!!

Bye for now!!

Two Days In One Post

Happy Monday!! I knew yesterday that today was gonna be pretty low key so I decided to blend Sunday and Monday together.

I felt like a dense breakfast yesterday so I cut back on the usual amount of liquid that I use;

• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup Quaker oats
• cinnamon
• pineapple jam
• almond butter

I also cooked it in the microwave. I’ve done enough dishes the past few days that I didn’t feel like dirtying a pot!

My Uncle came by around 10am to take DD for a Starbuck’s run. You just know that she was tickled pink! When he dropped her off he informed me that he was going on a Whole Foods run and did he have any takers. Um….HELL YA!!! I flew in the shower and was ready to go in record time. Here are a few of the more interesting items I bought;

That kefir’s for you, Allie!!! We were there over the noon hour so my lunch pretty much consisted of cheese samples. Yummy cheese samples. I bought some goat’s milk cheese and some Parmesan that was on sale at 50% off. Before heading out my Uncles treated me to a NF latte and the most delicious cranberry scone my taste buds have ever had!

He also brought us some treats that he got in a gift basket but knew he wouldn’t use;

The boys played in a father/son hockey game this afternoon. It was pretty hilarious to watch. The boys were definitely out to nail their Dad’s!

Dinner was a simple affair. Saturday night I took all the meat of the turkey bones and popped them into a stock pot with lots of cold water, brought it to a boil and then let it simmer for a few hours. After being strained and cooled all night, the fat that rose to the top got skimmed off and a pot of thick, rich broth was born. The fam had theirs with tortellini and I cooked up about a cup and a half with a 1/4 cup of Aztec grain blend. I also added a good helping of turkey meat back to the pot;

Nom. nom. nom! I finished the meal off with a delicious piece of apple crumble…

Then I busted out my Wii EA Active and hammered out a 45 minute workout. The first 1/2 hour was a full body circuit and the last 15 concentrated on my upper body. I’m quite pleased with the game. I totally broke a sweat and got my heart rate pumping. And I’m stiff today! :D The rest of last night was spent watching 4 episodes of Criminal Minds. Yes, I sat that long!!!

I wasn’t feeling something hot this morning so I ate a bowl of Wildroots cereal. This is quickly becoming a fave of mine!

This is what it says on the back of the bag;

Hope you can all see that!!!

I sat around for a few hours playing on the computer before getting ready to get the groceries done. We were in dire need of toothpaste and toilet paper so there was no putting it off another day! I was starving by the time I got back and went with a quick pizza!

This is a flatout wrap with some sun dried tomato pesto, turkey, green olives, a bit of canned cranberries and some of this cheese from Whole Foods;

TASTY! Then I ate 3 Clementine's;

It was so dreary out today that I needed the flash at 1:30 in the afternoon! BLAH! DD and I watched a few episodes of Cold Case and then we went to pick up a friend of hers who is spending the night. Lasagna was requested by all and seeing as it was too late in the day to make my own, I bought one…and some garlic bread sticks. I got myself a single serve of roasted veggie lasagna. T’was good!

Then I had the last piece of apple crumble. Looked pretty much the same as the one above.

I’m told the plan for the evening is to watch the kids play Rockband. God help me!! :D Maybe it’ll keep my hands free of this type of nonsense that has been happening much too frequently the past week;

Ow, ow, OW!!!

Bye for now!!

Christmas Day, And The Next One, Too!

Happy Boxing Day! Well, in Canada anyways. I’m really not sure if the States has Boxing Day? I’ll be recapping today and Christmas Day in this post but I promise to keep the dialogue to a minimum!! The kids were THRILLED with their “Santa” presents…an ipod touch for DD and a PSP for DS;

I ate a light breakfast as we normally do a brunch at Mom’s around 10:30-11am on Christmas morning.

A toasted WW English muffin with a smear of almond butter and pomegranate jelly.

Santa was GOOD to me! Aeropostle was the winner in the “keeping Krista warm and comfy” category;

And my favourite thing to do when I’m nice and cozy is read! So Chapter’s came in second with 2 great books, a gift cert and Edward!

Coming in third at keeping me young and hip is my favourite moisturizer from Clinique as well and some samples,an awesome scarf in my favourite colour and a gorgeous teal purse that I actually picked out while Mom and I were at JC Penney’s in November;

And to help keep me lean and mean we have EA Active for my Wii and a great little t-shirt.

I was also spoiled with a few gift certificates to one of the malls in the area. CHA-CHING!! :D How did Santa treat all of you? I’d LOVE to know what your favourite present was this year.

My brother was thrilled with the motorcycle book I got him;

I pulled his name out of the hat this year and this was one of the gifts I got him. Here are my boys post gift opening at Mom’s;

My eats at Mom’s were light as the English muffin kept me quite content. I only ate what I did because it’s impossible to say no to food in an Italian household without the ‘rents getting offended. I had some scrambled eggs, 1/2 a slice of toast and a piece of Dad’s salami which Mom baked;

To give you an idea of how small this actually was, this was on a side plate. My brother brought his kitten, Quincy, over for a visit;

My Mom’s cat, Sinjin, was NOT impressed. Poor gal is 17 and doesn’t like company of the feline nature! ;)

As soon as we got home I set to cleaning the house before company arrived. The washroom’s and kitchen got extra special attention this time! Three hours later I was famished! I had to eat something or I knew I’d overeat and be uncomfortable after dinner so I made up a small bowl of cottage cheese, pineapple jam and Bare Naked granola.

This held me over well. This is the jam that I used (and love).

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner with all the fixings. I made sure to have a bit of everything on my plate!

For dessert I passed on the pie and devoured a rather large piece of Mom’s tiramisu…

She only makes this at Christmas time so I always pig out a little on it. LOL! We had 11 people over to enjoy the meal and I’m positive that nobody left hungry. Over the course of the evening we also made our way through a bowl of mixed nuts;

All the men in my family are big on this type of snack. Here’s Mom and I after dinner.

I didn’t get to bed until well past 1am and woke up at a later than usual 8:30! I wasn’t terribly hungry…go figure…so stuck to a smallish size bowl of Wildroots cereal with USAB.

By 10:30 DD and I were out the door to shop some sales! Three hours later she came home with a pretty good loot from using some gift cards and I behaved in buying only 2 long sleeve tee’s and a bracelet. My hubby had the leftover turkey out so I made up a small plate for myself.

Then I played with this fool for awhile:

What a fatso! :D And watched some TV along with blog reading. What a tough life!

Seeing as lunch was late, so was dinner. The fam had pasta so I made myself a nice bowl of quinoa:

• 1 cup cooked quinoa
• 1/4 cup USAB
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• cinnamon
• 1/4 cup of fruit & nut trail mix

This was fabulous! I probably should’ve stopped there but there were limited amounts of peach blueberry pie so I knew I had to get one or miss out. Like I would never have the opportunity to drive up the road to buy another one. Right.

Man, I <3 this combo!

Well, I really hope that everybody spent some quality time with family and had a blast while at it! I know I did…

Bye for now!!