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

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!