Weekend Recap

Another weekend has come and gone and the first month of the year is behind us. Hopefully that groundhog doesn't see his shadow on Tuesday so spring will come early! I am ready for this snow and cold to go away. At least February is a shorter month so hopefully it will go by fast. In less than two weeks we will be on our weekend getaway to Lake Geneva for Valentine's Day! I am so excited; it will be nice to have a 4 day weekend off of work. It seems like Christmas break was so long ago, so a few days off work is definitely needed.

We had a really nice weekend. Friday we just relaxed and hung out after a long week. On Saturday, I got up and worked out and then we got ready and headed down to Naperville for the day. I had read online that the Whole Foods in Naperville was new and one of the biggest in the area so we wanted to check it out. It was amazing! It is like 4 times the size of the Whole Foods we've been going to in Wheaton. I am hoping the new one that is going to be opening soon in Schaumburg is like the Naperville store so we don't have to drive so far. After grocery shopping we headed to the downtown area and went to one of my favorite boutiques, SaraBoo Creek. I made a customized Valentine's Day sign for our door. I have made Easter and Halloween signs there before. Here's the Valentine's heart I made.

 

  

here's a close-up

Saturday night we went on a date night at our favorite sushi restaurant, Sushi Kushi Toyo. It was so good and we had a really good time. We need to not wait so long before we go again. Here's some pictures of us on our way out to dinner.

 

Michael with his "GQ" pose

Feeling sassy in a new outfit!

  

Ready to go eat some sushi!

Today I got up and worked out and then we went to our favorite breakfast spot. I ran a few errands at Target and CVS, did some laundry and now we are going to spend the rest of the day enjoying what's left of the weekend. I am making a yummy Sunday dinner with a new recipe. It's called Pesto Presto Italian Flag Chicken. It looks and sounds really good. I'll let you know tomorrow if it was a hit.

I hope everyone had a great weekend; I'm already looking forward to next weekend and the Super Bowl! We are going to be having a small Super Bowl party here so I need to work on my menu this week.

TGIF!

I'm so excited the weekend is here! This week wasn't too bad. Having Wednesday off work really helped move things along. Even better I got out of work a couple of hours early today. We don't have a lot of big plans this weekend. We have some things we need to get done around the house like laundry and cleaning, but other than that, the weekend is ours! We are going to go on our sushi date tomorrow night to Sushi Kushi Toyo; I am so excited! Its been over a year since we've been there. It is our favorite place for sushi, but we don't go very often because it is pretty far away, but so worth it!

I also want to work on some planning for our California trip. We booked our flight this week, so excited, especially since we are flying first class for free on miles! I also picked up a couple of books to start our planning so I'll have my nose buried in both of these this weekend.

 

I hope you have a great weekend and I'll be back on Sunday with a full weekend recap with some pictures!

Kinda creepy...kinda cool

This girl at work was telling me about this site called makemebabies.com. It's a site where you can upload two pictures and they will see what your baby would look like. You can also see what it would look like if you had a baby with a celebrity. It's kinda creepy, but kinda cool. Our kid is going to have a giant head!

Things I'm loving: January

A lot of the blogs I read do a monthly post of things they are loving at the moment. I thought it would be fun to do this every month as well and since it's the first month of the year, there's no better time to start than now!

So here's 5 things I'm loving in January:

Whole Foods

I am totally in love with this place and even though it is more expensive than Jewel, the quality of the products can not be beat anywhere. I don't really think I can put a price on eating better and feeling healthier; and if it helps continue my weight loss, it is totally worth it. 

Rice Krispie Treats

One of my biggest weaknesses prior to changing my eating habits was dessert. I used to eat way too much ice cream, cookies, etc. Cutting out dessert for me helped save my calories and cut out sugar. I still have a sweet tooth from time to time though and rice krispie treats have been a great alternative. They are low in calories and a more sensible dessert or treat during the day. Everything in moderation, right?

American Idol

I'm so glad American Idol is back, it's such a fun show. You never know what crazy and super talented people they are going to find. I think the best crazy so far is obviously Mr. Pants on the ground! That was hilarious!! 

Jersey Shore

Okay this show is totally trashtastic and everyone knows it, but somehow you just have to watch. Michael and I love this show and we laugh so hard every week at their hilarious one liners and crazy antics. We especially loved watching them dance like crazy beating the beat!! GTL for life!

My new car!

Well I might be biased but this might be my favorite thing I'm loving in January. Getting a new car was totally unexpected and all Michael's idea! I'm really grateful that we were able to get rid of my old car and upgrade to something new that we really love, and love to drive!

100th Blog Post!

Today marks my 100th post on our blog!

I started our blog on July 23, 2009. When I started the blog I didn't know if I'd like it, or keep up with it, but I really have fun doing it. Some people start blogging to make money or get noticed by people around the globe, but I do it for us. It's our online photo journal of what is going on in our everyday. I don't always post every day but my posting has definitely increased since I began. I got so used to posting every day when I did the "25 days of Christmas" project, it has just kind of stuck. I look forward to blogging about our vacations this year, my continued weight loss, all of my sister's wedding activities, a nephew on the way, and hopefully a pregnancy of our own later in the year! 2010 is starting off great and I feel like it could be our best year yet and we'll have it all captured here; so keep reading!

Menu Planning Monday

Another week of menu planning. This week we are starting to use all organic meat that we got from Whole Foods which I'm excited about.

Here's our menu for the week:

Sunday: Baked penne pasta with salad
Monday: Crunchy garlic chicken with baked fries (new recipe!)
Tuesday: Burger night (turkey for me, sirloin for Michael) with beans and salad
Wednesday: Chicken pesto pasta
Thursday: Italian sausage sammies with leftover penne pasta
Friday: Take out

Weekend Recap

I don't know about you, but these weekends lately seem to be going by entirely too fast. Another Monday is ready to greet us tomorrow and I am already wishing for Friday! This weekend was pretty low key for the most part.

On Friday we went out for a quick bite to eat and then just relaxed and rented a movie. We rented this.

HOLY CRAP! This movie will blow your mind and make you want to buy organic meat! It is unbelievable how the meat and grain industry has changed in just the past 15 years and what the government and the large companies are doing. I will not look at Tyson, Perdue, Smithfield or any piece of beef the same way ever again. I could write pages about it, but it would be a lot easier for you to just see the movie. I highly recommend it.

On Saturday, I worked out and then we were planning on running some errands and going up to Lake Forest to one of our favorite restaurants, Sushi Kushi, for a date night but we bought a car instead! My old Pontiac Vibe has been put out to pasture. It served me well for 6 years. After 4 hours at the dealership, we ended up just grabbing some dinner on our way home. It was worth it though because I got to drive home this beauty.

Today I worked out and then we went for breakfast and headed to Whole Foods to do our grocery shopping. Since we were heading down to Wheaton we thought we would go a little further and stop by my mom and dad's to show them our new wheels! We hung out for a little while and played with puppy Watson. Tonight we are going to just relax and root Brett Favre on to another Super Bowl!!

We also got some really exciting news from Rich and Tif who found out the gender of their baby this weekend. And.....

We are so excited for them and excited to have our first nephew on the way! He will make his big debut this June and we can't wait!

So I guess for a weekend that was supposed to be pretty low key, it ended up being pretty exciting! I can't wait to see what next weekend brings. Let's hope this week goes by fast!

Well that was unexpected...

Today we went to the DMV to get a reprint of the title for my car so that at some point we could sell it (I lost the original title). On our way home we made a few stops and came home with this!

Our brand new 2010 Toyota Camry

TGIF!

I never thought this week would end! It was a rough work week this week. Lots of 12/14 hour days. I am so happy the weekend is here!

Last night when I got home I was excited to see my Valentine's sign had finally arrived! It's hard to see in the picture but the red Valentine script is all glitter! It's really pretty. I got the sign here. I've bought some of her signs from local craft fairs and boutiques. I love her style. I also have a Christmas and an Easter sign of hers.

I am really looking forward to a relaxing weekend, we have very little planned. I have some hard workouts scheduled, date night on Saturday and football playoffs on Sunday. I'll have a full weekend recap on Sunday. Have a great weekend everyone!

California Dreaming...

Well after months of deliberation about what we were going to do for vacations this year we have finally figured out. We were all over the board. We were originally supposed to do a 2 week road trip in California going from San Diego to San Francisco. But then we officially decided we wanted to start our family this year so we decided we weren't prepared to spend $5-8K since we should be saving for our future bambino. Then we were thinking about going on a cruise since they are super cheap right now. But we couldn't decide on a cruise line or an itinerary and we just weren't sure. The only thing we were sure about was that we were going to Lake Geneva for a 3-day Valentine's Day weekend!

So imagine my surprise when this weekend we decided to go to California! My parents had decided that they wanted to go to California this year with their Disney Vacation Club points and asked us if we'd like to join them for 7 days! After a week with them we are going to take an additional 3-5 days to ourselves most likely in San Francisco. I am so excited! We are going to be able to fly for free, stay for free for a week and just have to pay for food, activities, a rental car and then our stay in San Francisco. We are so lucky, I can't wait. We are going in late July!

We are staying here. It's brand new, it just opened this month!

It's called the The Villas at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel & Spa.

This is the room where Michael and I will be staying

And the best part is that it's right across the street from this!

Disneyland!

You literally just walk across the street to the themeparks Disneyland and Disney's California Adventure! That is so different from Disney World where you take the bus or monorail to all the theme parks. Since these parks aren't very big compared to Disney World we are only going to spend 2 or 3 days there. We are also going to take some day trips to San Diego and other areas.

We can't wait to go here!

And here!

So let the planning begin! We need to figure out all the other places we want to go and things we want to see and Michael and I need to start planning our San Francisco leg of the trip! The other thing that is different about going to Disneyland versus Disney World is we usually get the Disney Dining Plan and have all our meals planned in advance. This time we can wait and see where we want to eat and figure it out then. I definitely need to do some research on some fab restaurants in the Anaheim and San Diego areas, especially sushi and seafood!

I can't wait to go to California. It will be both mine and Michael's first time there. My parents have been there before but my mom was 18 and my dad was 10 so I'm sure some things have changed. It's always nice to have something to look forward to months in advance; it keeps you showing up for work! I'll be sure to post more updates and plans as we get closer to the trip.

Valentine's Day Decor

Love is in the air at the Dworianyn Love Nest! I love decorating for pretty much any holiday and Valentine's Day is no different. I don't go too crazy like I do for Halloween or Christmas, but I love all the pink and red sparkly touches the Valentine's Day decorations bring. I put the decorations up on Saturday and took some pictures.

Our dining room table

A close up. The middle giant cupcake is from the candy bar at our wedding!

Our china cabinet

Close up of the top hutch.

Close up of one of the plates, I love these!

Love birds sign...so sweet!

Puppy kisses!

Some cupcake window clings

Sparkly hearts hanging from the windows

Our love letter mailbox. When the heart flag is up, a note is waiting inside!

So there's a look at our house all decked out for Valentine's Day! I'm still waiting on a painted canvas I ordered that I am super excited for; I hope it comes soon! I'll be sure to post a picture when it arrives.

Menu Planning Monday

Well it's a new week. We didn't stick to the menu too well last week since it was so busy. We definitely need to cook more this week. I also tried to make Tuesday and Thursday quick and easy meals since they are my week night workout nights when I don't feel like making a huge meal and being stuck in the kitchen till 8 at night.

We are still loving Whole Foods for our fresh produce. Everything is so fresh and its amazing how much longer everything stays fresh. Even cucumbers I bought a week ago were still fresh and ready to use, that would be unlikely with ones I purchased at Jewel. I am also digging their deli section. I got some amazing garlic rosemary all natural turkey breast from there last week and made sandwiches with it almost every day last week for lunch.

Here's our menu for the week:
Monday: Fresh fish caught by my dad - lake perch and crappie with baked fries and salad
Tuesday: Honey chicken tenders with salad
Wednesday: Chicken pad thai
Thursday: Chicken pesto pasta
Friday: Date night

Weekend Recap

Well another weekend is dying down here at the Dworianyn Love Nest. They always go by way too fast and the weeks seem to get longer and longer! At least January is almost over, the harsh winter will hopefully let up and make way for spring! I'm really looking forward to February as well since we are going away for a 3-day weekend for Valentine's Day. We just booked our getaway this weekend for the Grand Geneva Resort!

We had a really nice weekend. Friday night we went out to dinner with Michael's parents, Rich, Tif, and Ken. We went to Flat Top Grill which is one of my faves, it's so good!

On Saturday I got up and finished a long tough workout but it was worth it because I met my first weight loss goal of 50 pounds! After working out I put up our Valentine's Day decorations and they look so cute. The house looks very "lovey dovey" according to Michael! I'm going to post some pictures this week of the decorations. After getting some things done around the house we grabbed some lunch and then headed down to my parents for the rest of the day. We got to see this little guy and he was so cute!

We also went to my cousins Andrea and Chris' house to see their new twin boys! I'm so mad at myself for not taking any pictures but I was too busy holding babies to grab the camera! They were the most precious babies and so good. They did not make a peep when we were there, they had just been fed so with full little bellies they slept the afternoon away. The visit definitely increased the baby fever here in the Dworianyn Love Nest, hopefully it won't be long before we are holding one of our own! We went back to my parents and had a delicious dinner and we hung out for a while and then headed home.

Today, I got up and had another challenging workout. I'm trying to ramp my workouts up to the next level so my weight loss doesn't start slowing down. After I finished my workout, we did our Sunday routine of breakfast and grocery shopping. I did some more shopping to see if I could find anything else cute for Valentine's Day and found a few new things. We are just relaxing the rest of the day watching some football and trying not to think about tomorrow being Monday! 

Goal Achieved!

It's a very good day for me today. This morning when I stepped on the scale, I was officially 50 pounds lighter! I started eating healthier and working out in November so I'm pretty pleased that in 3 months I have lost 50 pounds. I have lost a lot of inches too. I've been taking my measurements along the way and I've lost 5 inches in my bust, 6 and a half inches in my waist and 8 inches off my hips!

My next goal is to lose 25 more for a total loss of 75 before we start trying to start our family. And if I keep losing more, that's great too!

Sometimes when you look at yourself everyday it's hard to see a dramatic difference. I was looking at pictures from Disney and I was happy to see the changes were very visible.

Before:

And now:

Side by side:

I'm really proud of myself and will use this as inspiration to keep going, especially on the nights when I don't feel like working out!

Yay for the weekend!

I'm so glad another week is over and it is the weekend! We don't have a ton of plans this weekend and I'll take it. Tonight we are going out to dinner with Michael's parents and Rich, Tif and Ken at Flat Top Grill. Saturday I need to work out and then I think I'm going to put up my Valentine's Day decorations. In the afternoon we are going to head down to see my parents and have dinner plus play with little Watson. I can't wait to see this little face again! I think we are also going to see my cousin Andrea and her brand new twin boys!

Sunday we don't have any plans besides working out, breakfast and grocery shopping. I'll have a full weekend recap on Sunday! I hope you all have a great weekend!

Working out with Wii

Since November I have been trying to eat healthier and workout consitently. When I told my doctor last August that we wanted to start a family in 2010 he said it would really be in my best interest to lose 50 pounds prior to getting pregnant. He said it would increase our chances of getting pregnant quickly and would help me have an easier pregnancy and delivery. When we went to Disney in October, I came home and got on the scale and was 8 pounds lighter which was the boost I needed to get my butt in gear! Since then I have been eating really well and working out 4 times a week. I am only 5 pounds away from that 50 pound goal and it's really exciting! I've now made my goal 75 pounds before we get pregnant. I figure this way if I gain 20-25 pounds while pregnant, I'll still be ahead of the game once I have the baby!

It honestly has not been that hard. I'm not hungry and do not deprive myself of something if I want it, I just have very small quantities of it. I feel so much better not eating crappy food and if I have something that's not good for me, believe me, my body lets me know! It's not even worth it. With working out, once I get started, I really enjoy it and feel so good afterwards. Since I know I will have little motivation during the week after a 12 hour day I only work out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's much easier working out on the weekends than during the week so I workout both Saturday and Sunday.

One of my favorite ways to workout, especially since its the dead of winter is using our Wii system. I have several different programs I use regularly.

First is EA sports Active:

I've had this for over a year and used it a lot last winter and then like most thing the newness wears off and it starts to collect dust. When I started working out again this fall I went right back to this and started getting results pretty quickly. It is a really good workout. You can choose one of the preset workouts or you can design your own based on what you want to do that day. There's also a 30-day challenge that you can do as many times as you want that takes you through almost every excercise the program offers. My only complaint with this program is that the resistance band is pretty weak and you need to get another one and having to hold the Wii remote and nunchuck plus the resistance band can be a pain in the butt sometimes.

A year later they made EA Sports Active even better with this:

I started using the EA Sports Active More Workouts this December. It is basically a next generation of the first program but I love this one even more. They added warm up and cool down stretches which I thought was beneficial as well as 35 new excercises. It also imported all my other workout data from the older program. The things I like most about this new program is they included an aerobics class, a kickboxing class, ab excerises and some cool obstacle courses. I like this one better because I have more fun doing these activities. I love the boxing and kickboxing, it's a great way to relieve stress! This is definitely my favorite and go to program of anything I have for my Wii.

The last program I use is Your Shape:

 

I got this program for Christmas so I have only used it 5 or 6 times but what made we want this was that you don't use the remote or nunchuck. I thought it would be nice to not have to be holding on to the remotes and a resistance band like in EA Sports Active. This program uses a camera to detect your movements. The camera works really well too. Some of the reviews online talk about how the camera doesn't work, but I just think people can't follow directions! I set it up exactly like they tell you to and it worked. I must admit seeing yourself on your 50" plasma working out is quite an experience; you might not eat the rest of the day! The other aspect I like with this program is that you can tell it that you want to use hand weights or an aerobic step or the Wii balance board and it will integrate those things into your workout. My only complaint with this program is that the workouts are a little boring. It's like taking the same aerobics class everyday and there is little variety. I don't think this will be my everyday program but it will be good to go back to when I need something different.

So these are the things that are keeping this rump moving and sweating and hopefully they will help sweat off those last 5 pounds to reach my goal!

Weekend Recap

Well the weekend is coming to a close. This picture of Porkchop pretty much sums up our weekend. We had a very restful and relaxing weekend. We really needed it. We are both still struggling with our colds, but seem to be getting a bit better. On Friday we had a date night out at Bonefish Grill. It was delicious as usual! After dinner we did some shopping and then headed home to relax.

On Saturday, we headed out to Oak Brook mall to do another Christmas return and do some shopping and then had lunch at Wildfire. After running around all morning we were totally wiped and stayed home last night. I took a nap in the afternoon and just had some chicken soup for dinner.

Today I got up and worked out. I don't know how I was able to workout 4 days this week with being sick, but I'm glad I did. We went to breakfast and then did our grocery shopping. We tried going to Whole Foods for our produce and to get some organic products this week. Their produce is amazing! I have been super frustrated with the produce at Jewel lately; especially when it goes bad only 3 days after buying it. It was defintiely worth the trip to get all my fruits and veggies for the week. We are going to spend the rest of the day relaxing before we have to go back to work tomorrow. We are making ribs for Sunday dinner which should be delicious! I hope this week goes by fast and hopefully it will be a little warmer too. It's 4 degrees outside right now! Spring please come soon! 

Our Menu for the Week:
Sunday: Baby back ribs, potatoes and salad
Monday: Buffalo Chicken Bake
Tuesday: Turkey Burgers and salad 
Wednesday: Brown Sugar Pork chops (new recipe!)
Thursday: Parmesan Chicken Pesto Pasta
Friday: Date Night

Baby Bucket List

A bucket list is a list of things you want to do before you die (kick the bucket). Hopefully its going to be a very long time before I have to even think about what will be on that list! However, it's no secret that we're hoping to add a baby chick to our love nest. We are hoping to start trying to start our family within the next 6 months. Everyone knows that once you have a baby, everything changes and baby becomes priority one. We are completely ready for that, but while we still have the times of just the two of us, we might as well accomplish some things we've been wanting to do.

I thought it would be fun to put together a baby bucket list of all the things we'd like to accomplish or do before we have the pitter patter of little feet running through the house!

1. I want to learn to sew. I got a sewing machine 2 Christmas's ago and it's still sitting in the box! My mom said she would teach me this winter. I want to be able to make my kids Halloween costumes so I should probably know how to thread a bobbin first.
2. Renovate/decorate our master bathroom. Everything in our bathroom is still builder's stock and we want to make it ours. We need to paint, put a new counter top on and fixtures in, new lighting, etc.
3. Go on some more fab vacations! Travel is definitely one of our favorite things we love to do. Right now we're looking at a weekend away in Lake Geneva, possibly a cruise and who knows what else.
4. Take a cooking class. Michael and I love to cook together at home all the time, but would love to learn some new culinary skills. We have an awesome gift certificate to the Viking Cooking School from last Christmas and we still haven't used it! We have to use it this summer!
5. Continue our weekly date nights. We are really good at this one and we will need to continue our date nights once a baby is in our lives. Luckily our parents are close by so that will help having babysitters available!
6. Take a camera class for our Nikon DSLR. I am light years ahead where I was 2 years ago in understanding our camera but I would love to take a formal class to learn more. I think it would be great to be able to do my own photo shoots with our kids and have them look professional.
7. Enjoy our lazy weekend mornings  now because they will come to a screeching halt once a little one arrives!

That's the list as of right now, there might be changes or additions as the months pass and there's also no guarantee that all of these things will get done. I just think it's something fun to think about. Me being crazily obsessive, a total planner and list maker might have a little something do with it as well!!!

The weekend is finally here!

Well, we made it through our first week back to work. It was really long, especially with both of us being sick, but I'm glad it's over! We have no plans for the weekend, so that makes it even better. I'm hoping we can just relax and recover from being sick. I am hoping we can at least get a date night in and maybe a movie too. I'll have a full weekend recap on Sunday!

The snow has finally stopped and we are left with about 10 inches of new snow on top of the 8-10 inches we already had. Here's a picture from outside our front door. At least we got to see the sun today!

Sick/Snow day

Well the Dworianyn Love Nest has been infiltrated with a cold bug. Both Michael and I are not feeling so hot. We both started feeling a little bit of a cold coming on on Tuesday, and now we have full blown head colds. Michael is feeling it a little worse than me, so I get to play nurse for the both of us. I see lots of kleenex, blankets and chicken noodle soup in our weekend's future. I really thought I would escape the fall/winter cold season since I have been taking such good care of myself eating right, working out, taking vitamins, etc., so I blame Michael!

We are also getting hammered with another 12 inches of snow today as well, so maybe its a perfect time to be cuddled up on the couch since we can't really go anywhere. Both Michael and I came home early from work today and I am working from home tomorrow as well. I'm hoping this cold doesn't keep us down for too long, both of us are not very good at being sick!

My love for Etsy

Do you Etsy? Do you know what Etsy is? If you don't you should! Etsy is one of my absolute favorite shopping websites! Etsy is basically an online marketplace for people to sell things. 90% of the items for sale are handmade and the rest are cool vintage finds. If you are looking for a unique or personalized gift, I would highly recommend checking Etsy out. I wish I had come across Etsy earlier in my wedding planning process because I would have been able to utilize it a lot. My sister is planning her June wedding and has gotten everything from her invitations, hair accessories and favors from Etsy.

I have made over 20 purchases on Etsy and have been really satisfied with everything I have ordered. I've had custom dresses, bags, and jewelry mad along with lots of accessories purchases. I love that everything can be customized and most sellers are so willing to work with you so that you have exactly what you want. I have been on the headband trend lately and I've gotten some really cute ones from Etsy.

I just ordered 2 new headbands this week and I can't wait for them to arrive. I got this one for Valentine's Day!

I got this purple flower because I've been wearing purple a lot lately and I thought it would look great with my hair color.

I can't even begin to describe how cute all the baby stuff is on Etsy. Our future son or daughter will definitely have some awesome Etsy originals! I mean how cute are these for a first birthday?!

They have custom baby bedding, blankets, clothes, toys, the list goes on and on! The best thing too is that all the prices are really reasonable, there's no tax and shipping is usually really cheap as well. It's so much fun just to look at everything there is on the site, there are literally millions of items to choose from.