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

6 Days till Christmas: A wonderful weekend

We had a great weekend and for once I don't have to be sad it's over because I don't have to go to work tomorrow! Today we slept in a little then went to breakfast and came home and just relaxed and watched a  movie and football.

We watched this...

and I loved it even more than the first time. It just makes me want to stay and cook in the kitchen all day long.

We just got back from our Christmas dinner with Rich, Tif, Paul and Ken. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and it was delicious! I had the BBQ chicken pizza and Michael had the fish and chips and we all shared a sampler appetizer. We all left with lunch for tomorrow and extremely full bellies. Here's some pics from our dinner.

Michael and I

Michael and Ken

Tif and Paul

7 days till Christmas: Dworianyn annual Christmas party!

Tonight was Michael's parents annual Christmas party. They've been having this party for more than 20 years! My parents came over to our house first to check out all of our Christmas decorations and the Christmas village they started for us (they loved it)! Then we headed over to Michael's parents for the party. I made cheese, pepperoni, and sausage pizza puffs for an appetizer. They are super easy and usually a crowd pleaser! We had a great time at the party and had fun seeing some of Michael's family we don't get to see as often.

Here's some pictures from the night.

Michael and I

Mom Dworianyn

Rich and Tif

We give the party 2 thumbs up!

8 days till Christmas: A well deserved break

I can't even begin to describe how happy I am today. I am officially off of work until January 4! The last time I had 16 days off I was on my honeymoon. I was supposed to be off for 2 weeks for Christmas last year but ended up working the entire break even Christmas and New Years. I am very happy to be able to take the break this year. It's been a very rough year of work. We have been so busy and there have been too many 65+ hour weeks to count. And believe me, I totally realize how lucky I am that I have a job with all the unemployed and struggling people out there. So, I probably shouldn't complain too much!

I don't really have any big plans for the break, I'm just looking forward to relaxing and taking it easy. I'll be able to workout everyday, cook dinner everyday, do some organizing and best of all be able to spend a lot of time with Michael!

I can't believe it's only a week till Christmas! I am so excited!!

9 days till Christmas: Not much left to do

Well with 9 days to go till Christmas, pretty much everything is done. I've received all my final packages in the mail and I just have a few left to wrap. It's so nice not to be stressed out trying to get everything done at the last minute. I enjoy just being able to celebrate all the fun events we have going on. It is definitely worth it to start planning and shopping early!

This week has flown by and I am so happy tomorrow is Friday and the start of my Christmas break. I'm really excited for this weekend coming up. I plan on getting all the final little Christmas details done and ready to go. We have Michael's parents annual Christmas party on Saturday that I am looking forward to. My parents are also coming out on Saturday to spend some time with us earlier and then head with us to the party. Sunday we are going to have a holiday dinner with some family and friends at the Cheesecake Factory. Hmmmm....what to have!!!

I will have lots of pictures from Saturday and Sunday to share!