Goodbye 2009!

The last day of the year is here! I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Years Eve.We are going to be celebrating close to home at our friend Ken's house. I am making some appetizers and a dessert for tonight's festivities.

Here's an update on my December Goals:

1. Lose 15 pounds in the month of December (This will bring my total loss to 40lbs!) I'm down 42 lbs; goal met!
2. Workout at least 3 times a week (I'm shooting for 4, but I want to be realistic as well) goal accomplished; it definitely helped being off work half the month.
3. Have all presents wrapped by December 12 goal accomplished!
4. Donate to Toys for Tots donated on December 22
5. Have all of my Christmas decorations down by New Years they were down the day after Christmas!

January Goals:
1. Meet my first weight loss goal of 50lbs, only have to lose 8lbs to reach this goal.
2. Continue to workout at least 3 times a week.
3. Try at least 3 new recipes this month.
4. Have Valentine's Day decorations up by the end of the month
5. Blog at least 20 times this month

2009 Year in Review

As 2009 comes to a close I thought it would be fun to do a year in review post with a summary of pictures with some of the things we did this year.

January: Happy New Year! We spent New Years at Arla and Teddy's new home.

February: Valentine's Day celebration at Wildfire.

March: Wishing for Spring! This picture was from our trip to the Grand Geneva Resort.

April: Happy Easter! Porkchop playing the part as Peter Cottontail!

May: Vegas trip, we stayed at the Wynn seen below, 1st wedding anniversary

June: Mom and Dad Dworianyn's 30th Anniversary Surprise Party

July: Camping trip in Wisconsin (Michael standing with our brand new McMansion)

August: Grand Geneva Resort, Rich and Tif's Luau

September: Goebberts pumpkin farm, pumpkin carving

October: Walt Disney World

November: Thanksgiving, Picking our Christmas tree at Platt Hill Nursery

December: Zoo Lights at Lincoln Park Zoo, Decorating the house, 1st Christmas village, Christmas baking, Christmas parties

 

 

New additions to the family!

My cousin Andrea had her twin boys yesterday! Cole and Carter were born at 7:01 and 7:18 AM. Here is their first picture together. Cole is on the left and Carter is on the right. Luckily they're not identical so I can already tell them apart!

Cole and Carter have 3 big brothers to teach them the ropes! I'm sure Cade, Carson and Colin are super excited to have some new playmates. Andrea is doing well and a total trooper. She deserves a medal after delivering 5 babies! I can't wait to see these beautiful baby boys in person!

Here's another picture of Cole (he looks just like his Daddy)

And here's one of Carter (he looks like big brother Cade)

Who knew?

Who knew that remote control helicopters now require USB cables, flight simulators, steel case tool kits, carrying cases, and a manual the size of a college textbook. I don't think Michael knew this either! But apparently if you want to go pro flying helicopters, this is the helicopter to do it. Michael is excited and learning the ropes. Let's just hope this baby is airborn come spring otherwise my family is going to want their $400 back!

Menu for the Week:
Monday: Cheese ravioli and turkey sausage
Tuesday: Slow cooked BBQ turkey legs and salad
Wednesday: Chicken Parmesan Sandwiches and salad
Thursday: New Year's Eve Party
Friday: Pesto Parmesan Pork Tenderloin with hasselback potatoes
Saturday: Date Night
Sunday: Herb roasted turkey breast with mashed potatoes

Weekend Recap

Well, another Christmas has come and gone. As much as I love Christmas and the holiday season, I always look forward to starting a fresh year. Yesterday it snowed all day long and we were pretty much snowed in. We had over a foot of snow. This was our view out our window yesterday.

Since we were snowed in, we decided to seize the opportunity to get all the Christmas decorations down and put away until next year. We got everything down, put away and vacuumed every last tree needle! The house looks so barren, it's crazy.

Today, we went to see Avatar and went out to lunch at Coopers Hawk. We really liked Avatar. I thought it was a tad too long at 2 hours and 40 minutes but it was still visually spectacular and I liked the story as well.

After lunch we did some shopping and we're just going to relax the rest of the evening. I'm sad that 1 week of my break has already come and gone, but at least I still have a week left!

Christmas wrap-up: I'm such a lucky girl!

First, I hope all of you had a very merry Christmas. This year was a great one for our family. Second, I can't believe I've blogged 26 days in a row, it's crazy! I really wanted to capture the days leading up to Christmas and I'm so glad I did. It will be great to look back on all of our Christmas' each year. Third, this is a really long post, don't say I didn't warn you!

Here are some more pictures and details about our Christmas! We started out our morning at home having our little family Christmas just Michael, Porkchop and I. We got up very early; 5 am to be exact. We exchanged our gifts with each other starting with Porkchop. Porkchop loves opening his presents and is really good at it too. He received lots of new toys this year. He was supposed to get a new bed but its been back ordered since November. Apparently Santa is moving a little slower this year! Here's some pictures of Porkchop enjoying his Christmas loot.

 

Next it was my turn to open gifts from Michael. He went over the top as usual! I got this beauty from Coach it's totally different than anything I have so I was really excited!

I also got a super cute new Marc Jacobs watch.

He also got me my Gucci Envy Me perfume, a tourmaline blow dryer, babybliss hair straightener and some MAC eyeshadows.

It was Michael's turn next and he got a new wallet from Coach, a pair of Oakley sunglasses, some new jeans and shirts as well as a calendar that I make for him every year. Here's some pictures of Michael opening his gifts.

Michael modeling his new sunglasses!

 

After opening gifts at our house we went to Michael's parents house and had Christmas morning presents and breakfast. Here's Tif, Peanut, Mom Dworianyn, Porkchop and Rich ready to open up gifts.

Michael and Porkchop

Finally, we headed to my parents house to have our Christmas morning with my family and we stayed there all day. Here's some Christmas morning pictures of us opening presents at my mom and dad's. We were overwhelmed by everything we got. Michael was so excited to get his pro helicopter and I got an unbelievable new zoom lens for my DSLR camera that I've already put to good use. I also got new Uggs, a cookbook, a necklace, Your Shape for Wii, amazon and home depot gift cards and a bunch of other things!

Arla and Teddy opening up 1 of about 12 Crate and Barrel boxes

Michael and I with my new Uggs

Michael and his new toy, his helicopter

Mom opening her new Cricut machine

Dad and his new Disney train set

Later on we had an amazing dinner, here is the table all set and ready.

We had filet mignon and king crab legs with twice baked potatoes, asparagus, biscuits and salad. It was delicious. When my mom got the crab legs they gave her lobster bibs for all of us, it was really funny, and very practical for Michael!

 

 

After dinner we played some Yahtzee and had dessert. which was individual chocolate chip cookie skillets with ice cream, hot fudge, whip cream and pecans; they were really good!

Even Fozzie wanted to play Yahtzee!

Porkchop was exhausted since he had been up since 5 and this is what he did while we played Yahtzee!

We had such a wonderful Christmas and are so thankful for our families who make it special. We have had the best 2 days celebrating with them!

Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas! It's one of my favorite days of the year and I am lucky enough to be able to spend it with my favorite people. Michael and I are having our little family Christmas morning together and then we are headed over to Michael's parents to celebrate with Mom, Dad, Grandma, Rich and Tif along with all the puppies and kittens (there's 5 total)! Then we will be on our way to my spend the rest of the day at my parents to celebrate with Mom, Dad, Arla and Teddy and 2 puppies (soon to be 3)!

I will have a full Christmas wrap-up tomorrow with lots of pictures and more details. Merry Christmas!

2 days till Christmas: Christmas Eve

Tonight we spent Christmas Eve with Michael's parents, Grandma, Rich and Tif. We had a delicious dinner and enjoyed celebrating Christmas together. I'm so excited for Christmas Day tomorrow; I feel like a little kid who isn't going to be able to sleep tonight! I'm sure we'll be up super early tomorrow, we have a full day of family activities planned!

I hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas!

3 days till Christmas: All is calm...all is bright

Well it's the day before all of the Christmas festivities begin! Things are very chill here in the Dworianyn Love Nest. Everything is ready to go. I have all the presents in bags ready to bring to our parents' homes. All the baking is done, I even have our Christmas outfits all ready and laid out! It definitely helped that I was off this week.

Today I got up and worked out and then went to get a manicure and pedicure which was a treat! Tonight we are just going to relax, watch some movies and enjoy the quiet before all the craziness starts tomorrow. We are spending Christmas Eve with Michael's family so we are looking forward to that. It's nice that we don't have to run around and go to 5 different stops.

I can't believe Christmas is just a couple of days away, we are so excited!

4 days till Christmas: Tis the season for giving...

One of things that I try to do every year is donate to some cause at Christmastime. I used to organize a toy and clothes drive for La Rabida children's hospital every year for work, but now my company does United Way instead. I heard on the radio the other day that the Toys for Tots organization sponsored by the Marines is down more than 250,000 gifts from last year in a year where even more people need help.

So today, I headed to Target and loaded up a cart full of goodies and then went our gym, Lifetime Fitness, where they had a drop off box for Toys for Tots. We are lucky enough to have a wonderful Christmas and now we can help someone else to have one.

The goods!

5 days till Christmas: Merry Christmas from Porkchop!

Well, its that time of year again; when I torture Porkchop with some type of ridiculous hat and/or outfit to wear. Every year I've done a mini Christmas photo shoot with him. It usually takes somewhere between 30-50 pictures and 5-10 treats to get a winner!

His first Christmas photo in 2007

2008 Christmas Photo

And the latest...the 2009 Christmas photo