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.

Porkchop's new digs!

Well after almost 2 months of waiting, Porkchop's new bed came today! It was supposed to be a Christmas present, but it's been backordered since November. I got the bed from a company called Frontgate. They are more of a home decor site but they have some pet beds and accessories as well. The bed is super plush and comfy and I just love that he has his own customized bone pillow. Here it is!

Here he is getting comfy in his new pad!

From Blog to Book

When I first started our blog I didn't know how much I would keep up with it or if I would like doing it, but I have really enjoyed it. I've been an avid scrapbooker for a long time but I don't have a lot of time to scrap every single thing we do. Blogging is such an easy way to document snippets of our everyday lives on a regular basis. I have to upload the pictures to my computer anyway so I might as well hop over to our blog and say a few words to capture the moment of the pictures.

The only thing I don't like about the blog is that you have your posts online and scrapbooks you can hold in your hands. Well luckily now I can have both. I found a great site called Blog2Print. In just a few clicks you go from blog posts to book. All you have to do is type in the web address of your blog and they download all your posts and pictures and put it in book form. My book is over 80 pages long and it was only $30 including shipping. I should have my book in a week or so. I think it would be great to do this every year so we have volumes for each year to look back on. I only blogged from July through the rest of the year, but I wanted just a 2009 volume. Let's hope the 2010 volume is much longer with lots of pregnancy posts!

Back to reality...

Well...all good things must come to an end. After 16 fantastic days off, back to work I must go. It was a wonderful break and exactly what I needed. Today we got up and went to breakfast at our favorite place and then went to the movies and saw this.

We really liked it. It wasn't a traditional Sherlock Holmes movie by any means but it had a great story and I thought the characters were really well done. After the movie we came home and put our furniture back in place in our living room/dining room after having our carpets cleaned yesterday.

We are going to spend the rest of the night relaxing. I am making a yummy Sunday dinner of herbed turkey breast, mashed potatoes with boursin cheese, asparagus and biscuits. I also made turkey meatballs today that we'll use for 2 dinners this week. I'm predicting it's going to be a rough work week so I thought I could at least get a head start on some dinners to make my life easier.

Here is our menu for the rest of the week:
Monday: Spaghetti and turkey meatballs
Tuesday: Slow-cooked bbq turkey legs and salad
Wednesday: Chicken quesadillas and spanish rice
Thursday: Turkey meatball sub sandwiches
Friday: Date night

Meet Watson!

Today was the big day! My parents got to go pick up their new Yorkshire Terrier puppy, Watson! It's been a long wait since they put the deposit down on him 7 weeks ago, but he's finally here! I took over a hundred pictures, but here are my favorites. He is so ridiculously cute and as you'll be able to tell from the pictures, we are all hopelessly in love with him already!

 

 

 

 

 

Menu Monday

We did so well with cooking at home last week. We tried some new recipes and ate really healthfully. It's another week and another menu.

Sunday: Pesto Presto Italian Flag Chicken (a new recipe, it was so good!)
Monday: Hash Brown turkey tenderloins and salad
Tuesday: Garlic and panko crusted shrimp with baked potatoes
Wednesday: Michael - burger, Sara - pad thai
Thursday: Cheese ravioli and turkey Italian sausage
Friday: Take out

Hello 2010!

Well it's a new year and a new decade! When I think about everything that has happened since 2000, it's dizzying! Since 2000 I've done everything from graduate high school and college, got my first real job, bought and sold my first condo, met Michael, got married, bought our first house, and got our dog Porkchop!

2009 was a great year for us but I'm really looking forward to all 2010 is shaping up to be. Last night we celebrated New Years at Ken's place with a bunch of family and friends. We had a really good time. Here's some pictures from the festivities last night!

Michael and I before going out

A group shot

Michael and I just after midnight

Ken and Liz

Kristin in her holiday sweater!

 Michael and Paul doing some dancing!

Here are things we are most looking forward to in 2010:
1. Our 2nd Wedding Anniversary
2. Arla and Teddy's wedding
3. Becoming an aunt and uncle for the first time (Rich and Tif are expecting in June!)
4. Getting pregnant and starting our family!
5. Vacations and getaway weekends

I don't really have any resolutions this year except for getting pregnant by the end of 2010. I definitely want to continue my weight loss before I get pregnant as well. I'm at 42 pounds lost right now and my doctor wanted me to lose 50 before I go see him in March or April before we start trying. I'm hoping to be down 75 before we get pregnant.

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