Today it's exactly 6 months since David and I got married!
Our dear friend Hanna took lovely photos of the day and I really want to show you all.
It was the most wonderful day and looking back at these photos makes me all teary eyed. And it was still summer! Gosh, how I long for the warmer seasons to arrive soon! Anyway, let's take a look at the lovely day 6 months ago, august 24, when David and I became husband and wife! Prepare yourself for the most photo filled post I've ever posted...

We all gathered in the garden to my parent's house and then walked together to the place where the ceremony was going to be held.

After a while David and I headed off in another direction than the rest of the party.

The guests had to climb a stile to get to the top of the hill.
Say hello to David's dad, Ulf!

David and I took a moment for ourselves halfway up the hill because all guests hadn't reached the top yet.
Lots of skirt for me to hold on to when the ground was covered in sheep poo and thistles.

Time to get moving again.

The ceremony conducted by our wedding officiant Else Beth.

It was very windy that day. Love how the ribbon in my hair gets caught in the air.

Jonas, one of our witnesses, with the pocket watches that we exchanged instead of rings. See and read more about our wedding pocket watches here.

David hanging my watch around my neck.

And then, after David got his watch too, we were married!

Look at my husband!

So married!

Looking fondly at the marriage certificate.

Gosh, I love these photos! Look at my parents and me! My mother and I are the same and just can't stop the tears when it gets emotional. It's happening right now, just looking at these photos.
David being congratulated by his parents, Agnetha and Ulf, and in the background, to the right you'll see my friend Johanna (who did my makeup and hair) in need of tissues too.
(Oh, and that's actually my three best and oldest friends hiding in the backround of this photo. From left to right: Becka, Lisa and Johanna.)

Us and everybody!

After the ceremony we stayed up on the hill for a while, drinking mojitos and mingling.

My beautiful mother!
She's made that gorgeous necklace and the earrings herself!

Becka with wind in her hair, looking all lovely.

Lisa and Björn! They got married just a couple of weeks ago!

My niece Hilda meets Claes.

When we got cold we walked down the hill again and went to Mandelmanns trädgårdar who owns the land where we got married and the beautiful garden where our dinner and party was going to be held.

Inside one of the greenhouses everything was ready for the rest of the celebrations to start. The flowers are from my parent's garden and we had collected twigs and grass and wild flowers around the village. The table cloths are a mix of fleamarket finds, my mother's stash and sweet neighbours helping out. My mother and our friend Inger made it all look this lovely!

The seats of the bride and groom.

That's me! Love David's illustrations on the place cards.

Oh, and the 3D glasses were for the little booklet...

Hehe...
My sister Sara to the upper left corner, my niece Hilda in the lower right corner and then Thomas and Inger who are dear friends to my family and the wedding witnesses at my parent's wedding!

Everybody finding their seats and admiring the beautiful greenhouse.
We are so happy that we got to have our wedding and reception there because it's the most wonderful place and just being there made the day feel all magical.

We had popcorn, because that is my absolute favourite snack. We also had a big bowl of the chocolate candy Polly since that's David's absolute favourite kind of sweets.
The sign is for our guestbook, telling people that we are going to take their picture with a polaroid camera and put the photos in the book later.

In action!

Jonas and Aili. Our wedding witnesses and dear friends.

The dinner was absolutely amazing! Everything we ate was grown and made on the farm we were on and it was the most beautiful and tastiest food ever! Lots of colourful vegetables! That's one of the things people who were at the wedding still talk about when we meet, how incredible the food was. I wish I could eat food like that every day.

Checking up on internet. Facebook was a mad house of congratulations!

My nephew Alfred, who had been born just a couple of months before, in the arms of Thomas.

Sneaky bride squeezes into the picture...

A very cuddly cat found it's way into Ida's lap in time for dessert. We had apple pie and custard and it was heaven!

Ulf gave a really nice speech.

Aili and Jonas were Quiz masters. They had made a really great quiz with questions about David's and my tastes in movies, music, books and all things pop culture.

The evening came.

My dad gave a speech and then he sang a few songs. One of them together with my sister Sara.

And then together with Thomas who is my dad's friend since childhood.

It was such a nice evening.

Applause!

And then it was time for the cake! A cinnamon bun cake! Inspired by a scene in my favourite movie Äppelkriget that actually took place in this exact part of Sweden!

Oh, and the following photos might be my all time favourites...

The bride gets to break the cake.

David is excited.

It's David's turn...and look at David's friend Fredrik, haha! That look he gives me! He is not trusting me with the cinnamon bun cake!

Appearantly it was some sort of law that the bride should feed the groom with cake.

Oh and yes, that is wedding Smurf and Smurfette on top of the cake.

And that was that wonderful, magical, lovely day.
It was THE BEST!
I hope we get to return to the scene of the crime when it's our one year anniversary.

So, monday you say? February?
Well, I'm still in warm august memories, let me stay there just a little while longer.

Tjingeling!
/Lotta

Yesterday started off with breakfast. This one, to be precise.

The kiwi fruit was exceptionally happy to be a part of my breakfast.

We were going to have friends over and David decided to remove some of the big snow lumps by the road to make it easier to reach the driveway. This house has no snow shovel so all he found was a regular shovel. I stood in the window taking photos and giving him thumbs up for the good work.

I felt like giving my face some makeup. Hello from tiny 70's style bathroom with sloped ceiling!

Had time for another cup of coffee before our friends arrived.

When they arrived we had (more) coffee and vanilla buns before we bundled up and went outside. The weather was EXTREMELY windy but we were brave.
Aili, Jonas and David took the lead with me staying behind to take photos. Like always.

The hen house. And look at the small house to the right, can you see the little face popping out from behind the hatch? It's the dog guarding the hens. She lives there and barks when someone passes. We yelled back to her until she stuck her head out to bark some more before going back in again. Haha, such a sweetie!

Aili almost blew away. Her scarf actually unwrapped itself from her neck and here she is fighting the scarf and wind.

Our tree!

The beautiful valley that you can see in this post from november last year.
Look at all that untouched snow! So pretty.

We decided to go up to the tree where we got married in august. Aili and Jonas were our wedding witnesses so it felt really nice to show them how the place looks now, five months later.

The hard journey up there. The snow was so thick in some places but that actually made it easier because it prevented us from slipping down the hill. Oh, and it was so windy here that I couldn't see if the photos were in focus or not so I just snapped away and hoped for the best. I still really like these photos because they show the struggle it was to get up (and later down) the hill in that much wind and snow.

Almost there!

Look how happy Aili was to have made it all the way up the hill!

David doesn't look too happy though. Because he left his hat and gloves in the house, and it was sooooo cold up there!

I think he thinks he looks cool.

Jonas covering Aili from the wind. So much love.

Heeeeej!

Aaaaah, I'm blowing away!

I really like this one. David took all three of these.

And now, prepare yourself for a little photo series...

Plopp! David got stuck in the snow!

Heeeeelp!


(Behind him I am laughing so hard I can hardly breath.)

Aili and Jonas: Huh!? What have you gotten yourself into THIS time?

Jonas and Aili skipping merrily over the fields

When we came inside we started working on dinner. We made butternut squash soup that turned out EXTREMELY SUPER DUPER EXTRA HOT! I mean it was insane. I usually make this soup and complain it isn't spicy enough but this time it was CRAZY. We added water and milk but it was still too hot. Very tasty but oh my, that was not how it was supposed to turn out.
After dinner we played Scrabble.

David thinking of his next move.

Aili contemplating.

David further into the game.

Jonas put the Galej in our evening. (Galej means party, but an extra festive and happy one, I would say.)

And that was yesterday. Aili and Jonas went home later in the evening and David and I sat in the sofa reading before we called it a night.
Such a great day!

Hello! I'm back with the promised Christmas post!
I have been sick for a few days and haven't left the sofa much so it feels great to be up and energized again.
I took a lot of photos this christmas, mostly of my nephew and niece since they are both adorable and seems to love the camera. When they grow up there are going to be so many photos of them that I can use as bribes and/or extortions. Can't wait!
Well let's get on with it then! Here's my christmas in photos:

David and I didn't have a christmas tree because we always spend our holiday in the town Jönköping where we grew up. My parents always have a very nice tree though so I get to look at that.

My nephew Alfred seems to be all about the working out. If he continues like this he's going to be completely made out of muscles in only a few years. Hope not, I won't be having anything to talk to him about if that happens. I'll be the aunt forcing him to the theatre, concerts and feeding him with cakes to counteract all this fitness madness.

Here he is posing infront of the christmas tree.

Mulled wine and gingerbread cookies at three o'clock when all of Sweden gathers infront of the tv to watch snippets from Disney cartoons. This is such a weird thing. Nobody really cares about it anymore but it's a more important tradition than christmas food so nobody dares question it. Well, no not really, my family hasn't watched it for years now but since there are wild kids in the house now it seemed like a good idea.

Then Santa came! Well, my dad really but don't tell Hilda and Alfred.

Astor the cat got ribbons. Oh, and Hilda turned into Pippi Longstocking.
(By the way, if you look closely you can see that Astor has a big birthmark inside his mouth.)

Hilda Longstocking was excited/happy/a bit scared.

Astor was looking with jealousy and longing at Alfreds ribbon. Or maybe he was just impressed with Alfreds ribbon skills. Who knows.

Pippi-Cat Longstocking with her Mamma Mu book in hand. Why stick to ONE character when you can be all at once?

Oh my. I need to have this photo on my wall.

Alfred laughing at one of my sublime jokes.

And this, as you can see, is what happens when you blow air into Alfreds head.

Then Hilda made Kladdkaka.

She had the bowl for herself.

Look. At. That. Face.

Heh, Auntie Lotta is one crazy paparazzi.

So that was my christmas!
Today I will actually get to see these two ragruts again since they are in Gothenburg for the week.
But before that I have one banana cake to bake and some necklace pendants to list in my shop.
Hope you have a nice wednesday, see you again soon!

Tjingeling!

It's been a while since I showed you what's going on in my life during just an ordinary day. I'm planning for a post like that soon, but because I've been so busy lately with the theatre and everything I have almost exclusively taken photos with my iPhone instead of my Nikon. Here's some glimpses into the last couple of months, seen through my phone camera.

Autumn came and the cemetery looked so beautiful on my evening run. I haven't had the time to run for some time now and I really miss it. I need to buy some better running clothes before I get out again though because the weather is getting too cold for my flimsy pants and hoody.

A bit fuzzy, sadly, but I love this photo! I desperately wanted to run through the leaf pile but I thought of the poor person that would have to rake it all up again the day after. I hate being a grown up sometimes. Children don't care about things like that! Or maybe they do. I don't now.

Can you think of a more beautiful place for running in the evenings? I sure can't.

One evening I spotted a spider web on the balcony.

I have edited a LOT of photos lately of my jewelry. The shop is looking gorgeous with all these new photos!

I bought a Jackalope brooch from the amazing etsy shop Hungry Designs. Isn't it so beautiful! It looks lovely among my other brooches as well.

The leaves started to look pretty and I spent most of my time outside looking for the brightest most colourful leaves I could find.

One evening the red traffic light painted David's face.

On our rehearsal weekend a couple of weeks ago I brought my lamp and kitchen chairs to the theatre as they were part of the set. Here I am waiting outside for the rest of Teater Esther.

It was a lot of work to get get everything in order but it is such a great feeling to know that we made all of it by ourselves with some help from amazing friends. Up on the ladder is Hanna, and Lisa is the one makeing sure Hanna won't fall down. On the stage behind is our light and sound guy Joel.

One morning I was all out of coffee filters. I had a Lelaina moment and used some toilet paper instead. For those of you who haven't tried this and wonder about the taste: it works surprisingly well! Especially if you use a non fuzzy toilet paper.

Lovisa updating Teater Esther's facebook page.

I made approximately 180 cookies for the play's intermission. It's a recipe from my grandmother and it makes the best cookies in the world. People went crazy for them, one man even went back to the kitchen just before the play was about to start again and knocked on the door because he just "needed more of those cookies"!
I have a post planned to show you more of that, if you're interested.

After opening night and everything felt AMAZING! It is the best feeling in the world when a play you're in is a success. It feels like flying!

Autumn is just perfect clothes weather! This over sized cardigan doesn't get used enough since it's white and only fits the weather a few days a year it seems but I think it's so pretty!

Feeling dramatic in my cape the day after opening night. Still a bit high on life and theatre.

My sister came all the way from Stockholm to see the play. It was nice to get to hug my niece Alfred again who, as you can see, is a penguin.

A selfie in the lounge just before the sunday show.

Intermission. Lovisa explains something really important to us. Lisa listens intently. I love the contrast between Lovisa's colourful clothing and Lisa's more neutral ones.

And this is from yesterday. I have started working on a new pair of shoes. I found a pair of plain white cotton shoes this summer and finally got to work yesterday. Sparkly purple and shimmering pearlescent. They look almost completely metallic today!
Love them so far, and just ordered a gazillion shoelaces on ebay. So excited to see how they turn out!

I'm soon off to work the evening shift but after that I'll be having a week off work and that is going to be just great!
Hope you have a lovely weekend ahead of you.

See you soon!
/Lotta!