Another Christmas present and Farewell 2011

As I had told you, one Christmas present from my boyfriend was still to come. A few days ago I could finally open it and guess what? I can cross one point from my wishlist because my wonderful Stefan got me the coat from F+F! I'm so happy, because it's gorgeous and perfect for the colder winter days!
Today I finally managed to take some pictures of it:

Wonderfully cute polkadot lining

With the cape

The fur on collar and sleeves is detachable!

Even the cape has the cute lining! And you can also wear it inside out if you want to ^^

 I love the coat and I can't wait for some snow and colder weather to finally wear it outside *___*


And today is New Years Eve so it's time to look back on the year 2011. Since I'm not in the mood to write a big essay about what I did and felt this year, this little questionnaire will have to do:

What did you do for the first time in 2011?

I've joined a dancing club, wore Sweet Lolita, went to wedding and ate Sushi.

What didn't you do at all 2011?

I haven't been swimming. But next year I'll do, I miss it ^^

Word of the year 2011

Love. There was so much love in the air, especially at Vroni's and Andi's wedding ^^

Beverage of the year 2011

Bubble tea

Food of the year 2011

My delicious birthday cake! (strawberry and coconut *yummy*)

Song of the year 2011

Woodkid - Iron. I just can't get it out of my head :)

CD of the year 2011

Katzenjammer's "A kiss before you go"

Book of the year 2011

The Harry Potter series. Stefan and I re-read the whole thing ^^

Series of the year 2011

Glee

Cosmetic of the year 2011

Mexx "Black" perfume (if that counts)

Accessory of the year 2011

My key-necklace

Project of the year 2011

Several sewing projects that I haven't finished yet :D

Best idea 2011

Giving Stefan an X-Box as a birthday gift. He was sooo happy about it ^^

Worst idea 2011

 Giving Stefan an X-Box as a birthday gift. He rarely does anything else than working or playing -.- 

(Kidding of course ;D)

2011 in one word

Up-and-down.

How was your year 2011? Tell me in the comments ^^

I wish you all a Happy New Year. And again: Party hard but safely ;)

The Post-Christmas-post

Hello again ^^
Sooo, Christmas is over and I hope you've all survived the enormous Christmas-feasts and tons of chocolate! I have, but I have the feeling I've gained tons of weight -.- Luckily we already went dancing today :D
And of course I also hope that you all had a great time together with your beloved ones and that you got maaany presents!
The days together with and at my parents' were fantastic. I love spending time with them, playing games and drinking delicious cocktails that my dear Stefan made for us. (Every evening, and for free! I was in cocktail-heaven :D)
Hurley also seemed to enjoy it, even though my parents' cats didn't like him as much as he would have wished. He's probably too young and active for them, because they are old and love to just lay around while Hurley likes to play :D But it was just too cute how he always tried to get their attention. And we also took him for some walks outside! On a leash of course, because he's not used to being outside, but still he enjoyed it very much. Have a look at some cute snapshots of him:

Stefan's not amused because Hurley leads him over hedge and ditch

Hiding under the couch

(I hate inserting pictures with blogger -.-)

When do you usually set up the Christmas tree? We always do that on the 23rd December and decorate it, and on the 24th in the afternoon, we placed all our presents under it. I love that moment when everything is ready and there is this silent excitement in the room. "Which ones are for me? Will they like what I got for them?"

The pic doens't do it justice. It was so much more beautiful!

I was incredibly happy that everyone liked my presents for them, and of course I was also happy about what I/we got. And it was so much! Have a look:

Tabu XXL (a funny game), pads for our new coffee-pad-machine that we'll get from Stefans parents, elegant candle holders, teal-coloured candles, room scent, tights and overknees, perfume, a teal-coloured shawl and jewellery.

Bad close-up of the jewellery

The blue robots and the golden apple are from my boyfriend and the rest from my parents.
Isn't that much? And I just realised that it's not even all! We also got the two "Black stories"games, new bathroom "equipment" and a cool gadget for easily and cleanly disposing of cat litter :D
I really feel spoiled... and there's even another present from my boyfriend waiting for me!
Am I nuts or is everyone else? How can I possibly deserve all this? O.o

Oh, do you remember that I won Mara's giveaway? My sparkling surprise arrived just on time at the 23rd! Thank you again, I love it! It is sooo cute! I love pearls and the snowflake made me have a small "white Christmas" for myself <3

Even though I love being at my parents', Dresden feels more like home to me now and that's why I'm pretty glad to be back. In particular since I can sleep in my own bed again, the guest couch wasn't really comfortable and now my back hurts :(
But hopefully Edland will sort it out ;)

I wish you all a good night and just in case I won't write anything before New Year's Eve: Party hard but safely and Happy New Year ;)

A Merry Christmas to all of you!

Although, before all those good wishes and all, just a few words about my last day.

Just in time I'm done with wrapping the presents. Did I mention that I love wrapping presents? I do *____* I should've bought more just so that I could have wrapped more XD
Anyways, here are those for my parents: (I won't show you those for my boyfriend because he reads my blog :D)

And I won the sparkling surprise at Mara's Giveaway *___* I can't wait to see what it is ^^
It's the first time that I won at a giveaway! Thanks again for that :)

And yesterday evening(/night :D) was the Christmas-party of our dancing club and it was really fun!
There was a lot of food and beverages (and even though I stuck to only one kind of beverage I have a headache and a kind-of-hangover) and it was great to meet our fellow "students" out of a training context. But still we did a lot of dancing, especially since every couple had to perform one dance in front of everyone. We performed the Jive, one of our favourite dances and luckily everything went well and they all liked it.
Later also Olga (our trainer) performed several dances together with her partner, which can be a little depressing XD It makes yourself look pretty bad in comparison :D
And then Stefan and I won the Lambada-Discofox-Freestyle-competition (even though we had the feeling that we just randomly threw our arms and legs around XD).
Oh, and we exchanged Secret Santa gifts ^^ I got Raffaello (my favourite sweets) and a cute pair of earrings. Thanks for that :-*
Olga also folded little hearts and filled them with sweets as a present for everyone of us, it was so cute >.<
So here are my "acquisitions" of the evening:

Sweets on the left, my new awesome earrings in the middle and our "gold" medals from the competition on the right ^^

Sooo, I don't know if I will be able to post when I'm at my parents' (which is where we're going today), so I wish you all a merry, merry Christmas! I hope you get lots of presents, have a great time with your beloved ones and enjoy delicious Christmas feasts ;)

Only one more week ...

...and then it's Christmas! Are you prepared? All the presents ready?
I'm happy to say that I have all the presents for my beloved ones and now I can start wrapping them *___* I love wrapping presents and making name tags for them <3
One is already done, the one for the Secret Santa of our dancing club:

That wrapping paper is so great! But I already used it last year, so all the other presents will look different ^^

For my birthday last week I also gave myself a treat and ordered a necklace at a Dawanda-shop that arrived a few days ago. It's wonderful, especially since it depicts one of my favourite things: Dancing!

You can't really see it that well in this picture... oh well...

But it's not the only necklace that I forgot to show you! Sophie gave the Gang early Christmas presents! Everyone got a necklace with the names of the other ones and a picture of a - have a guess!
A Manatee :D Such a great and cute idea, thank you so much!

And yesterday I had a belated birthday party with some friends and even though it was pretty unorganised it was really fun and I'm glad so many people came. As I had "ordered" (;D) I got a fantaaaastic cake from Sophie, she's just the master of  bakery. She made a strawberry and coconut flavoured cake, can you think of anything better??? I obviously can't :D

That's manatee for "Happy Birthday" :D

Luckily we didn't finish it at the party so that I could still enjoy some today *yummy* ^^

And now: Let's get wrapping presents! ^^

Presents of awesome

So, an older and wiser Anni is writing to you ;)
I turned 22 on Tuesday and it really was a great birthday.
Shortly after midnight, my boyfriend congratulated me and gave me my first present: a metronome :)
It was a really sweet idea that had come to him when he watched me counting the beats for Sophie and Erik when we taught them dancing. He thought that if I really wanted to become a dancing instructor I could use it to spare my voice the loud and constant counting :D I loved that he had put so much thought into his present but sadly I just had to admit, that I probably would not be able to put it to good use, particularly not at the moment. I was so sorry that it made me cry but we agreed that it would be best if he returned it and then he got me something else instead, which I'll of course show, but first, more on my day ^^
Unfortunately I had to stay at university reeeaally long, so we decided that instead of having a party right on Tuesday, we'd just go out and have some cocktails with my friends (at least those who could come, that is the gang and Janina) and throw a real party next week. ^^ And so we did and it was really great <3 When the waitress at the cocktailbar found out that it was my birthday I even got a cocktail for free and with a sparkler in it *___* Sooo nice!
And as it is tradition on birthdays, I got even more presents :D
My parents couldn't be there on Tuesday by the way, but they came on Wednesday and stayed overnight.
This is what I got from them:

A book about old Egypt, perfume and shower stuff, a scented candle, wonderful (teal) tights, overknees and socks and a bottle of Batida de Coco *yummy*

And this is what I got from my wonderful friends:

The beautiful belt in the front is from my boyfriend, Mia made this great bag for me (she also posted it on her blog), Vroni made the cute Nyancat-necklace (*NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN NYAN*  *coughs* ... just sayin'...) and Sophie got me the candy shells that I'm craving for and this wonderful charm that I tried to take a closer picture of, but it didn't turn out that well >.>

IT'S SCOTLAND!!!! And even with rivers and tiny city-names engraved in it *___*

And on Wednesday a huge package came in the mail that brought another present from Stefans family: A wonderful umbrella *___*

Hurley plaing with the golden and ornated handle

Doesn't it look nice? Even the inside is covered so that you don't have to see the metal frame *___* It's almost too beautiful to use it XD

So here once again: A huuuge thank you to all those who gave me these presents and who congratulated me ^^

Oh, I almsot forgot: Sophie and Mia had to leave earlier than the rest of us, but just as they did, we also stopped at the photo box:

Nina, Vroni and I on the left, and Stefan and I on the right ^^

And today it was about time for me to buy some winter shoes, so I bought a pair (that I'd never thought I would, but they are so warm and comfy!) and another pair of pumps, because they were on sale :D

Mara's Christmas Giveaway

Christmas is fast-approaching (only a little more than 2 weeks! O.O) and Mara decided to spread some love on her lovely blog by hosting a... *drumrolls*

You can win a "sparkling surprise" and that sounds just like my kind of thing ;D
Here you can find the details and the instructions for participation and even if you don't want to participate: Her blog is definitely worth the visit ^^

So good luck to everyone who gives it a try ^___^

Finally!

There are 3 reasons why this post is called "finally".
The first one: I'm done with my cross-stitching project! ^^
So this is how it looks when it's complete:

Now we have to find a frame for it, but that's easier said than done. Because I changed the design of the pattern a little (by adding the flag on top of the castle) its height doesn't really match it's width. In the frame that would fit best, we would have to cutt off 3cm in height. Since I don't want "Home" to be written directly under the frame, we would have to cut them off entirely at the bottom but then the whole stone-thingy under the castle would be gone -.- *sigh* Pretty frustrating...

Furthermore:

Yaaaay, I have my ring back! We were at Vronis and Andis yesterday and when we came back in the middle of the night, it just was there in the hallway. Who knows where Hurley hid it all the time :D

And now I finally have the right Christmas spirit. It's already the second Advent Sunday and usually I am already super happy and excited for Christmas on this day, but this year... I don't know, the weather just didn't bring me into the right mood and also it felt like all of a sudden it was December and now you HAD to have the Christmas spirit and it just didn't work on me. So what changed?
Well, today I watched this:

For those who don't know: It's an old Czech-German production of the story of Cinderella (slightly modified) and at least in my family it's one of the oldest traditions to watch it on each Christmas day (that is 24, 25 and 26 December). Actually this has always been holy to me. I never watched it before these days even though I love it so much that I know almost every sentence by heart. But this year I just needed it to get me into the right spirit. And now I can really enjoy the Christmas cookies, the beautiful decoration throughout the whole town and of course the hot wine punch ;)
So how about you, are you already in the right mood for Christmas?