Christmas Wrap-Up

Daryll and I had another busy Christmas season this year. We headed up to Burbank a week early for a Christmas celebration with Dad, Melanie, and George. We had a lovely brunch at the 94th Aerosquadron before going back to Melanie's for some cake and presents.


Daryll had to head back to San Diego for work, but I spent the week before Christmas up in Burbank visiting family and friends and shopping and baking. Daryll joined me on Christmas Eve to visit wiht my Mom and Pete, Grandpa, Uncle Rod, Amy, and Conor. One of the highlights of the evening was seeing Conor model his new footed pajamas!


Christmas Day we ventured to Daryll's large family gathering in Pasadena for more visiting and merriment.

Brandon and Meagan came down to San Diego to visit for a few days after Chrsitmas and it was so wonderful to see them! (But too brief, in my opinion!) The entire Christmas season went by entirely too quickly, as per usual, but now I'm looking forward to 2010 and a new and better year!
One more thing... even more Christmas pictures can be seen here.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

Today is my blog's first birthday! We've had some tremendously good times in its first year of existence and I'm looking forward to many more! We've gone through times of a lot of posts, and times where the posts were few and far between (see: recent months). But my blog's roller coaster pattern mimics real life and I'm still proud of all the posts from this past year! I have a lot of goals for my blog in 2010, such as a blog makeover (even I'm getting tired of the blue polka dots) and more frequent posts. We'll see how each of these goals are accomplished (or not) in the coming months! Until then, Happy Birthday Blog!

Home at Christmastime

I just love my house at Christmastime. I think we have the perfect house to dress up in Christmas cheer. I love the banisters wrapped in garlands, the stockings hung from the chimney with a pinecone garland draped across, our beautiful tree with all the ornaments from my childhood and today (and Daryll's lone ESPN ornament), the 4 wreaths that adorn our doors and staircase, the vintage sheet music window hung behind our couch, the bells that jingle when the front door opens, the cards that crawl up the holder on our wall, the cookie jar that is seldom empty this time of year... The Christmas season always goes by way to fast in my opinion. I love the feeling of this time of year, and this year especially we are trying to get back to the real meaning for Christmas. That means spending less money on fewer gifts, spending more time enjoying time with each other and our family and friends, and remembering how truly blessed we are. I am so blessed to have a wonderful family who gives me a ton of love and support through everything. I hope to continually repay all that they have given to me, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to catch up!

This year I decided to make most of my gifts for Christmas, which means everybody is getting at least one thing handmade by me. (Pictures will be shown when the gifts have been given!) The idea came about initially as a means of saving some money, but it has grown into more than that. It has truly been a challenge to come up with unique but (hopefully) likable gifts for everyone on our list. It was an experiment in finishing. So many times I thought it would just be easier to go buy gifts from the stores, but now that I'm finished I feel so rewarded. I can't wait to see everybody's reaction to their handmade creations!

Tonight is my last night at home before Christmas and I'm going to relish in every second of it. The tree is lit, Daryll's playing Christmas music, and the puppies are cuddled up sleeping next to me. Life really doesn't get any better than this.

Thankful...

My house is all decorated for Christmas with the swift change in the season, temperature, and month, but I haven't had a moment to reflect on our Thanksgiving experience yet on the blog, so I thought I'd take a moment tonight to recount the lovely day. Thanksgiving was everything that it should be this year; a day of peace, family, good food, and a spirit of thankfulness overwhelming. This year I personally have a lot to be thankful for: a good job that I love, a supportive husband and family, an inner peace and joy that seem to be overwhelming my spirit recently... As I prepared to host our first Thanksgiving, I tried to keep this feelings at the forefront of my mind and allow the spirit of the season to dictate my actions. Many people asked me if I was nervous or overwhelmed at the thought of hosting my first Thanksgiving, but I didn't feel any anxiety. On the contrary, I was excited to have our families gather at our home to share a meal and each other's company. Throughout the weekend we were delighted to have Daryll's parents, my Mom and Pete, my Grandpa, and Dad and Melanie visit with us. We started a new tradition this year of asking each person in attendance 2 questions for them to answer on camera, which turned out to be my favorite part (Daryll might still go with the turkey dinner as his favorite...) We took turns recounting our favorite past holiday memories, life lessons, and hopes for the future. And I am so thankful to have not only "survived," but to have relished in our first hosted Thanksgiving!

I recently wrote down some thoughts that I had on potential scrapbook journaling that sum up the logistics of Thanksgiving. Here are the "Numbers of Thanksgiving" for your viewing pleasure:

7-The number of people who gathered around the table for Thanksgiving dinner (Don, Andrea, Mom, Pete, Grandpa, Daryll, and me)

6-The number of side dishes that were served: green beans, twice-baked mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, corn casserole, sweet potatoes, and roasted garlic and Italian sausage stuffing (and garlic cheddar biscuits too!)

5-The number of items on our Thanksgiving menu that I had never cooked before (turkey, creamed spinach, stuffed mushroom appetizer, roasted garlic and Italian sausage stuffing, and garlic cheddar biscuits)

4-The number of hours the turkey cooked for

3-The number of days we had visitors over Thanksgiving weekend

2-The number of questions each person was asked on camera for the new Thanksgiving tradition we started this year

1- The number of times we dropped the turkey! (Before we cooked it, of course!)

KA Thanksgiving

Today was the first day of our first ever KA Thanksgiving program! And boy am I wiped out! When I left work on Friday we had 29 kids signed up (I'd say successful since we just posted the camp 2 weeks ago), but when I arrived today I found out that 11 more kids had signed up over the weekend for a grand total of 40 today! Success! It's so rewarding to see the camp continually expanding and thriving! We had a fun day of classic KA games, gymnastics (my first time going to gymnastics EVER in my time at KA, if you can believe that), some lego engineering, and more KA games! At the end of the day one of the parents asked how the day was and I replied that it was great, but I'm definitely not in camp form right now! (Meaning that it's hard work keeping up with those kids!) I might be sore and sunburned tomorrow (ok, definitely sore and sunburned tomorrow), but I'm enjoying every minute of it!

Chock Full o' Surprises

Daryll and I shared a very eventful weekend, chock full o' surprises. Friday night we traveled up to Burbank for a much anticipated surprise party for my mom's 50th birthday. It was such a success! My mom was so genuinely excited...that she cried (sorry Mom, you probably won't read this anyways)!
We had about 30 of her friends and family members there, including my Uncle Rod who jet set in for the evening event.

There were even more surprises in store for my mom that evening with some wonderful gifts. Amy and I gave Mom a gift that will love her back... a new Australian Shepherd puppy!!

More pictures from Mom's party can be seen by clicking here.

Saturday brought a new day and another surprise party... this time for Uncle Joe's 80th birthday.
We enjoyed good food and a good time with the family at Buca di Beppo's.

After the party, we drove up the hill to Dad's cabin near Arrowhead and enjoyed a restful evening and relaxing morning the next day. More pictures from Uncle Joe's party and the cabin can be seen here.

We finally returned home Sunday evening, tired but content and happy that everything went off perfectly without a glitch!

Some Random Fall Shots

Just thought I'd share a few pictures that I haven't shared yet from this fall...

Daryll and me on our 1st Anniversary

Anniversary stroll at Mission Bay

The pups love each other too!

Lulu dressed like a fire hydrant at the pug meet-up

George with the pumpkin he carved for us...yummm, pumpkin seeds!

Stealing a kiss at the pumpkin patch

Amy's Gift

Q: What do you get when you take an old window, a few hooks and screws, and a vinyl decal?




A: THIS!!


Conor picked up a bunch of old windows for me after my last project so I had to come up with a new idea for this batch. Amy asked me to make one specially for her, so I came up with this cute little wall hanging.


I was so in love with it, she almost never knew of its existence. I might just have to come up with one of these for my own house. And luckily for me, Conor picked up even more windows! I'm just that inspiring. ;-)

A Wickedly Delightful Halloween Weekend

Halloween held more treats than tricks for us this year with Amy and Conor visiting for the weekend! Saturday was a completely packed out day that we decided to spend at Sea World. We spent a few hours there enjoying the shows and Halloween festivities (including watching a bunch of cute little kiddies in costume). One of the highlights of the visit for me was when a dolphin allowed us to pet it for a minute in the area where you can touch them.

We enjoyed a delicious lunch in Old Town before venturing to the thrift store to pick up some last-minute Halloween costumes. We got back home about an hour before dusk, anticipating all of the trick-or-treaters arrival. We were disappointed in this regard though. The doorbell only rang 4 times the whole night! The last kids were heard leaving our front door saying, "they gave us a lot of candy at this house!". Well, at least they were happy. :-) With all the free time we had, we put togehter our costumes. Daryll and Conor dressed up as Mario and Luigi from Mario Brothers and they were quite the dynamic duo.

Amy and I had planned on being nurses together, but the scrubs I got from the thrift store didn't fit, so I had to fall back on ol' faithful, my American Gladiator costume.


Even Ella and Lulu got in on the action for a while, dressed up in style as peanut butter and jelly (and then as little country bumpkins).

After dinner, we headed out to the Blarney Stone, a local pub, for some Irish tunes and general merriment. Overall, a top evening and day indeed!!

Productive Monday Evening

Don't you just love those evenings where it seems like you have enough time to finish everything you wanted to do? Me too! Tonight was definitely one of those nights. And it's only 9:30 and I'm still saying this!

Tonight I...
-Cooked spinach and cheese stuffed chicken w/ broccoli
-Baked 2 loaves of pumpkin bread with crumbly topping
-Took a neighborhood stroll with my wonderful husband
-Started and completed a scrapbooking page
-Caught up on an episode of Flash Forward
-And right now, I'm updating my blog to let you all know about my amazingly productive night!

Love it!

I Have Not Been to Starbucks ONCE this Week...

Yep, you read that right! I haven't been to Starbucks (or Coffee Bean) a single time this week. Pretty amazing, I know. Even more amazing, I'm not suffering for it! You might be wondering what the secret is to my new found ability to resist the calling. Well, I'm about to share it with you...




This week my sister bought me one of these babies!


Dun nuh nuh nuh!!! An espresso maker!!
I've been making my lattes every morning ever since! I can't get an almond latte at Starbucks (they don't carry the right syrup), but I can have an Amaretto Latte from my own home. I think I'm in love....

Don't let this fool you though, I still might have to swing into the Bux every once in a while for the psl (you just can't replicate the goodness), but for my everyday latte my homemade concoctions can't be beat!

p.s. This is my 100th blog post! Go me!

Off to the Pumpkin Patch...

Saturday Daryll and I were off to the pumpkin patch with Ryan and Rebecca. We had a bunch of fun taking pictures all over the patch. I really love pumpkin patch pictures most of all... Too bad you can't really use a pumpkin patch picture for your Christmas card...

More pictures can be seen here.

The rest of Saturday was spent watching sports and remembering why it sometimes sucks to be a sports fan. First of all Ohio State suffered another loss...to Purdue no less. Then we watched the 2nd half of the ND v. SC game with Greg and Jen only to be disappointed in literally the last second of the game. Finally we wasted away nearly 5 hours of our life watching the Angels failed attempt to even the series with the Yankees in an extra innings game...

...sigh...

It was not a good weekend to be me. Or rather to be my husband. :-)

Anyways, I still got to go to the pumpkin patch, so I can't complain toooooo much. (Just a little.)

Today was a nice, slow, and productive day. We each crossed several "tasks" off of our lists, fun or otherwise and finished off the day with a stroll around Mission Bay and beef and broccoli dinner. Overall I am very content with this weekend and looking forward to another productive week!

Food Update

I meant to mention in my post yesterday that I have so far been successful in my 90 day challenge. This weeks meals included Chili Chicken and Veggie Soup and a German Sausage dish (for Oktoberfest! Daryll and I are really going to miss this one for the next few months!). I also had my first "never gonna make that one again" dish, Pumpkin Cream Penne pasta. Much too rich for my taste. Anyways, just wanted to let you know about my progress.

The Start of October...

I know that fall doesn't really begin in San Diego until October (if it makes an appearance at all...), but I still would say that September is my favorite month. I love fall, I love September. I'm not too crazy about all the Halloween festivities, so October just doesn't really do it for me. Although I do love pumpkin patches. And you can't really visit those until October...

Last weekend Daryll and I went to Mike and Megan's wedding in Fullerton. The quick ceremony took place with a beautiful fall backdrop and we were able to hang around after the ceremony and catch a few pictures. We enjoyed visiting with Jeff & Lindsay, Greg & Jen, Frank & Kellie, Jared, and Grant during the reception.



Sunday was a nice day of relaxation and football. We went to a local restaurant to watch the Rams play the 49ers because Kyle Boller got the start, but the outcome was a little disappointing. Ah well...ya can't win em all...

This week we're just trying to soak in all the fall weather while it still lasts. (It's supposed to be back up in the 80's this weekend, bleh!) The good news is that I at least had a reason to take out my sweaters, even if I haven't yet had a reason to wear them.

Welcome Home, Fall!

The rumors are true...fall has officially arrived in the Dorman Household! And it is definitely a welcome visitor. I started decorating at the end of last week and I'm feeling pretty satisfied with how it's all coming about. And I've only spent $1 on fall decorations! Even better!!

Here's a sneak peek at the decorations so far:

Pumpkin and leaves in the entryway

Zoom it out a little...aww aren't they cute?

I have big plans for these little $1 finds from Michaels

My fall entryway table

That pitcher was up in my kitchen cupboard and just begging to have some fall foliage put in it!

Little Guys

On the dining room table...need a candle for that middle one.

I just stuffed some leaves and a pumpkin scented tea light in these and they're good to go

And now for the best part... Pumpkin Banana Bread!!

Now my house even smells like fall!!

And here's the recipe if any of you want to "fallify" too!

Pumpkin Banana Bread (from Country Living Magazine)
Makes 4 small loaves or 2 large loaves (or in my case 2 small loaves
and 1 large loaf)

Ingredients:
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup cooking oil
4 eggs
3 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbsp. apple-pie spice (I used pumpkin pie spice b/c I didn't have
apple pie spice)
2/3 cup apple cider or water
1 15-oz can pumpkin
1 medium ripe banana mashed
1 6 oz pkg dried cranberries (optional-I didn't have any so they're
not in my bread)

Grease loaf pans. In a very large mixing bowl with an electric mixer
on medium speed beat sugars and oil.
Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each.

In a large mixing bowl combine flour, soda, salt, and pie spice.
Alternately add dry mixture and cider to sugar mixture, beating on low
speed after each addition just until combined.
Beat in pumpkin and banana. Stir in cranberries.

Spoon batter into prepared pans.
Bake at 350F oven for about 45 min for small pans or 50 to 60 minutes
for large pans or until wooden toothpick comes out clean.
If necessary, cover with foil the last 15 minutes to prevent overbrowning.
Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 min.
Remove from pans. Cool Completely on wire racks.
Wrap and store overnight before slicing. (Yeah, right...this so did not happen.)

Here's to a happy fall home!

p.s. For those who are following my 90 day journey, I made baked "fried" chicken with skillet corn and green beans last night for dinner. It's a keeper!