Apple time!

Last month we took a family trip to Oak Glen for some apple picking, donuts, and cider; it was the best! Astrid loves being outside and loves nature. It was so fun to watch her explore and carry around the same apple for an hour. A month later, I finally get around to going through the pictures! 

A fun time was had by all!

A one-year old

You guys. My little girl turns one next week. ONE. How is that possible?! 

She's a little explorer, loves to read, just started figuring out the whole walking thing, and has the cutest little laugh. I am beyond blessed. 

 She loves to jump in this thing!

 Rocking her Swedish bonnet from Mormor. 

It's been a whirlwind of a year! Life is constantly changing and I'm still trying to keep up. Sorry that I've neglected this dear blog for so long. I can't promise to start blogging more, but I'll at least try to post a picture here and there! I hope all is well out there in the blogiverse with everyone! 

It's a GIRL!

We are so excited to welcome our sweet daughter to the world! 

Astrid Karleen arrived on 5/24/15 weighing in at 6 lbs 15 oz and 19" long.

We are so blessed and we love her to pieces!

Solvang / Santa Barbara Vacation

Over Ryan's spring break week last week, we decided to take a long weekend trip over to Santa Barbara and Solvang. It was so much fun!!!

One highlite of our trip: Ostrich Land.

It's exactly what it sounds like - a land full of ostriches. You could even feed them (albeit carefully to avoid them biting you). I love the expression on Ryan's face here, it's like he's having a moment with the ostrich. Precious. 

It was fun to feed them! They also had ostrich eggs you could buy and they were huge!

We stopped in Santa Ynez one morning and had this magnificent view.

This was on our way to Kalyra Winery where Ryan got to do a fun tasting and we bought a bottle that we can both partake in once the babe is born!

On the patio of Kalyra Winery:

And we of course hit up Solvang everyday for fika! We had some great treats everyday, my favorite was this almond-raspberry tart from Olson's Bakery. It was sooooo good. 

And another major highlight of the trip was going to this grand place: Village Spinning & Weaving Shop in Solvang. 

Guess what you guys....I bought my very first spinning wheel!!! This is my trying it out in the shop. I bought an unfinished one, so I need to stain, seal, and assemble it at home. It will be a work in progress, but such a fun one! 

Goodbye Solvang, thanks for the fun trip!

Baby Shower

Last weekend I had a wonderful baby shower with family and friends - thank you, everyone! Baby Sterrenberg is so loved already and we feel incredibly blessed to be so supported by so many friends and family.

Here are a few photos from the fun day!

My super talented sister-in-law made all the adorable decorations (note the Dala horses)!

So thankful my mother-in-law was able to come all the way from Texas!

Had a delicious Swedish princess cake along with scrumptious brunch food!

 My little sister, Maren, flew all the way out from Chicago! So much fun to have her!

We Skyped in Krista, my older sister in Seattle (we missed you!), and had to take a sister picture of us all together. My sisters did a bang up job hosting such a fun shower - it was the best!

It was such a fun day!

Thanks to all who came and celebrated with us from afar! We are so blessed!

Baked goods

Here are a few things I've been baking over the past month or so that have been worthy of baking again. 

First up on the list are Semlor (Swedish Lenten buns) for fat Tuesday, of course. IKEA used to sell premade marzipan for a good deal, but they've stopped stocking it for some reason, so I made my own from scratch this year for the filling. That was a first for me, but I'm glad I did because it was so tasty! These turned out really great and we ate them almost everyday that week. No regrets.

Often when I get home from work, I'll watch a little PBS. Typically, Martha Bakes is on when I get home and the other month I saw her make this delicious looking French Breton butter cake. I made it later that week and was not disappointed. It was extra delicious with some Swedish vanilla sauce on top. Next time I make it, I think I'll make a berry compote to go alongside. Yum.

And last, but certainly not least, was this Swedish cardamom cake. Love, love, love this! I love the crunchy pearl sugar topping and the flavor of cardamom in this not overly sweet cake. I'm going to try to bake it in a loaf pan next time, just to try it out. Somehow when I'm slicing a piece of "bread" it seems healthier than dishing yourself up a piece of cake for breakfast.

We took a trip

Ryan and I took a lovely long weekend to San Diego over President's Day. We had beautiful weather the entire time and had a wonderful time relaxing, sightseeing, and eating some fun food!

One of the highlights was going to the San Diego Maritime Museum on the water. It consists of 6 different historic ships you can tour, each with their own exhibits. If you've already toured the Midway in San Diego (and enjoyed it), then I'd definitely recommend the Maritime Museum.

Other highlights included eating fresh seafood, going to the outlet mall, seeing the San Diego Museum of Art, and walking and relaxing at the beach. It was glorious! We're considering this our babymoon, part 1. Over Ryan's spring break at the end of March, we're planning on taking the 2nd part to our babymoon over in Santa Barbara and Solvang. I can't wait!

It's hard to believe little baby Sterrenberg will be here in just 3 short months. This pregnancy has flown by! We still have a lot to do to get ready for Baby Sterrenberg (or SterrenSpawn as Ryan likes to refer to him/her), but next weekend we have plans to start tackling the baby room. If my memory allows it, I'll try to post some before and after shots of the nursery. I can't wait to meet our little nugget! 

All about food

I feel like Ryan and I have had some really good food lately and I just wanted to make a list of things so I don't forget them. Sorry this post will be boring and sans pictures. 

This past weekend we ate at the Pie Hole and wow. Such good sweet pies. The maple custard is a must get. I am drooling a little bit just thinking about it. The savory pie I had (curried veggie) was ok. But then again, I'm not much of a savory pie girl unless it's quiche. Ryan loved the chicken cornbread pie he had for lunch. I want to go back!

We also walked to this Italian restaurant in our neighborhood called Spumante. We've walked by it many times in the almost 4 years we've lived in our neighborhood, but always forgot to go back to it. I'm so glad we tried it out because it is so good! I had the cheese ravioli and it was the best cheese ravioli I've ever had. The marinara sauce was soooo good. 

Recipes we've been eating lately:

-This vegan queso is quite tasty. Even Ryan loves it - he even said if I hadn't told him it was vegan, he would have assumed it was cheese-based. Win! We liked it enough that I've made it a second time. 

- These pumpkin chocolate chip bars are delicious. I had a can of leftover pumpkin from Thanksgiving and decided to make these before Fall treats stop sounding good. They were a hit for sure. 

-Real Simple's chicken paella was so good. I used frozen chicken breast tenderloins (didn't even thaw them beforehand) in place of the chicken thighs, used a bit more smoked paprika, and upped the chicken stock to almost 3 cups. I love one pot meals and will definitely be making this again.

I think that's it for now. What are your favorite recipes or things you've been trying lately? 

Life in a nutshell

Happy New Year, everyone! 2015 is going to be great.

I can't believe my pregnancy is already over halfway done. What. How did that happen so fast? We've been slowly cleaning out our guest room and turning it into our baby room, and it's starting to come together. And by starting to come together, I basically just mean it's become a baby storage room. Definitely have a ways to go with all that, but we have time.

Maybe it's nesting, or maybe I'm just finally getting my act together, but I've been spending my weekends on all of the various apartment projects that have been on my list forever. Among them include this amazing, life-changing, rolling kitchen storage shelf:

[Apologies in advance for the poorly lit iPhone photos that follow]

I'm obsessed with this thing. We don't have a pantry in our kitchen, so many of our cupboards have become a pseudo pantry which just ends up taking away the cupboard space we actually need. This shelf is the best at maximizing the small space. It was pretty easy to assemble - I used this tutorial loosely. We made our version shorter, didn't use the dowels (they would have greatly limited what could fit on the shelves + we haven't had any problems with things falling out without them), and only used two casters on the bottom instead of 4. Now more things fit in our kitchen - it's amazing! It came together surprisingly fast, too. We put it together in a day, including painting and drying time. Ryan was the spray painting master of this project and he did a bang up job.

Another project Ryan and I tackled was installing these shelves above our couch. I think I've mentioned it before, but I have a hard time to committing when it comes to decorating/hanging art. These picture ledges are perfect. They let us change up the decor without having to leave gaping holes in our walls. Win.

And last, but certainly not least, I spent a good chunk of my day off on Monday repotting plants, propagating some succulents, and cleaning our patios. We have two small balcony/patio areas in our apartment but we haven't done much with them other than storing our plants out there. We finally bought a cute plant stand and I salvaged what plants were left. Plus I bought a hummingbird feeder! I've been wanting one for a while, but decided to bite the bullet. I'm so glad I did. I love watching it in the morning while I drink my coffee - it makes the morning a tad more enjoyable [for me, a non-morning person].

Well, I think that's all for now! Thanks for reading the book I just wrote. Hope your 2015 is off to a great start!

And then there were 3

Ummmmm we're having a baby!! A tiny little human! I still can't believe it some days. We are so incredibly excited and can't wait to meet our little girl or boy in May!

[Etsy]

There will be a plethora of baby-themed crafting items coming your way in 2015, so stay tuned! 

We have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving celebration tomorrow!

Back from the Motherland!

You guys! Scandinavia was amazing!!! 

We arrived in Stockholm and checked right into our hotel in Gamla Stan. And - oh. my. stars. Guess what our hotel had? A fika cabinet! That's right folks, an entire cabinet designated for fika! You opened the cabinet door just expecting a plain cabinet...then bam! Carafes of coffee and fika treats await! It was definitely a highlight of mine in Stockholm. Since we've been home, I've been trying to convince Ryan we need one for our apartment. 

We had a wonderful time in Stockholm and packed a ton into just the two days we were there! We then drove to Gränna and Jönköping and spent the night there. Then we drove to Växjö to see the glassworks (we saw Kosta Boda, Orrefors, and Pukeberg) and got to watch some serious glassblowing. Then off to Denmark we went! We spent 1 whirlwind of a day in Copenhagen before we flew to Oslo. We got see some sweet museums in Oslo and then took off on the Norway in a Nutshell tour to Bergen. It was one of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen - it left me in awe. We then spent a day in Bergen and before we knew it we were flying back home. 

Overall, the trip was amazing and went by way too fast. I'm so thankful we got this great opportunity to celebrate with my in-laws (40 years of marriage - woo!) on this fun trip!

I'm still working on uploading all my pictures, but in the meantime here a a few pictures of our trip. Here are me, Ryan, and his mom at the Brahehus Ruins in Gränna, Sweden

Bryggen Wharf in Bergen, Norway

Dinner in Oslo, Norway

The Round Tower in Copenhagen, Denmark

Me and Ryan and Drottningholm Palace in Stockholm (we are so jet-legged in this picture - awake for 30 + hours at this point!)

And last, but not least, a glimpse of our fjord tour in Norway (I have soooo many fjord pictures!)

The trip was perfect (with the exception of the airline loosing my luggage for 5 days...) and I can't wait to go back someday!

Prepare to DYE!

I had one heck of a good weekend. On Saturday, I spent my morning at Windy Hill Alpaca Farm taking a natural dyeing class called, "Prepare to Dye!". I loved it, and not only because of the pun in the class title. Ryan surprised me by finding this class all on his own and booking it for me. One of the best surprises ever! He knows me well.

My favorite dye we practiced Saturday was definitely mint [2 right skeins]. We dyed small skeins of alpaca yarn that started off as white/cream. I just love how the mint turned into a sage-y green color. I learned a lot, and am excited to experiment with other natural dyes - I'm even going to give dyeing with wine a whirl!

 

Since the class was on an alpaca farm, I naturally walked around and saw a bunch of alpacas. Including this 1-day old baby alpaca! 

I ended the day going to my sister's place with Ryan to babysit our nephew and niece. We had some serious bubble time.

Hannah was obsessed with blowing bubbles. Obsessed I tell you.

What a glorious weekend!