Preps

Today I went to Westend to get a few last minute things for the wedding. At Debenhams (love their kiddo clothes) I found some cute leggings for Selma, since it dawned on me the wedding is in Sweden and this time of the year it's already cold there. Brrrr. I also found some stuff to scrap up a card for the happy couple!

Peter and I made the gift ourselves, it's a poster with the newlyweds names among a bunch of famous love couples! One of Peter's acquaintances put some finishing touches to it and printed it for us. It turned out great!! Hope they like it!

I also finished my toast, and I feel pretty good about it. Hopefully it will bring down a massive flood of tears, that's really my only goal!

Hot wheels

..just got to brag a little.. about Mom & Dad and my mom's hot wheels.. this was just featured on an interior blog.. scroll down to August 26..

http://herbretantik.se/

Baby steps

Hi y'all! Why are parents so obsessed with getting their baby to walk!? Hey - I'm not saying I'm any better! I keep placing baby S on her feet, part begging, part threatening her in order to make her take those damned first steps.. I mean, the baby is eventually gonna walk. All by herself. All babies learn how to walk. Sooner or later. So what's the big fuss about? Three weeks ago baby S suddenly took five steps. Just like that. And never did it since. It was like she knew how bad we wanted it. Such a tease.. She would just look at me, begging her to walk, smile a mischievous smile and slowly sit down and start to crawl instead. Until yesterday. She just started walking towards daddy. Stepping up with confidence, 7, 8, 9, 10 steps. Maybe this was the breakthrough. And from now on we will never be able to fully relax again. What the heck were we thinking!?

Now I will go back to writing a wedding toast for one of my dearest friends who's getting married this Saturday. Hooray!!

Weekend in Vienna

My last post was kinda dull..  so today I'm gonna cover a more pleasant topic. VIENNA! Love love love this city! Since Monday was a national holiday here in Hungary, I packed up my little family and went across the border. Vienna is only a two hour drive from Budapest, so it's perfect for a weekend getaway. Such a beautiful city, and the shopping is to die for. Except the prices. Since I moved to Budapest I've become used to the lower prices here, and I find all other countries to be expensive.

We arrived in Vienna Saturday by lunchtime. We stayed at the same hotel as last time, a beautiful hotel with good location. After checking in we headed to the famous Figlmeuller to see if we would be so lucky as to get a table. No way José. The line went on for days.. But hey, we ended up getting us some of that schnitzel anyway, just at another resto. And then it was time for some serious SHOPPING. I always become a shopzilla when I know I don't have unlimited time for shopping. Poor P, I stress the living hell out of him, running from store to store, my eyes wide open and with a crazy look in my eyes.  To keep him sane and me happy, we usually split up. My darling man had his mind set on surprising me with a new wallet, a replacement for the beautiful one that got stolen. This would prove to be a difficult task. At one point, he snuck off to a tiny store on a backstreet. He had just asked the lady in the store for some assistance, when all of a sudden I stood outside of the store, staring through it's window with a hollow look in my eyes. At first I didn't even see him, I was focused on the nice bags in the store. But then I someone quite familiar standing there. So no wallet from that store. A few hours later he tried again, going back to buy a wallet that I had fallen in love with. This time he pulled it off, but upon leaving the store he saw me walking in! As I was walking around the store, looking at more bags, my hubby was hiding behind some shelves. When he finally made it to the exit, the alarm went off, and a security guard asked him to come back. Whispering, P asked the man for discretion.. Despite all this, I never noticed him, and was very surprised when he gave me the wallet! Such a darling, my P. I love surprises, especially thoughtful one's like this! My crazy day of shopping resulted in a fantastic pink purse! Love it!

We had dinner at this amazing thai restaurant called Patara. We had a tasting menu, so the tasty dishes just kept coming and coming.. yumm..

Sunday everything is closed in Vienna. I mean everything. But that gave us plenty of time to wander about and explore the city. We had brunch at Die Wäscherei. On the walk back to our hotel we stumbled upon a jazzperformance at a square, so we stopped and listened for a while. After kicking it back at the hotel we went out for dinner. Italian food at "Limes", so goooood! We said our salutes in some sparkling prosecco, mmmmm..

On Monday we went for some last minute shopping. I surprised P with a gift, and he surprised me with an early birthday gift from a very special jeweler...

Our weekend in Vienna was fantastic, can't wait to go again!

Thieving ladies

Long time no see! What happened..? Did I lose interest in blogging so soon!? No, I was pocket-picked, that's what happened.. There I was, roaming the mall like any good housewife should.. when a thief dressed up as a pretty lady kneeled down beside my stroller, carefully opened my purse (yes, I know it's stupid and naive to keep the purse under the stroller and expect people to leave it the hell alone) and took my iPhone and wallet. I saw her kneeling down but I didn't think much of it, since she appeared to be looking at some baby clothes on the wall. When I discovered what had happened, my first thought was "I must call P"! But I haven't memorised his number! So I rushed home, well, took the very slow Budapest bus home and then rushed the streets down to our house. I then called P on Skype to let him know what had happened. It didn't occur to me I should have stayed and report the matter to the security. P came home and together we went back to every store I'd been to.. and they were quite a few.. After that we went to the police to file a report. Even though I'm furious, I'm most of all grateful that nothing happened to baby S or me. Those are just material things and you can replace them. From now on I won't waste any more energy on the matter.
The thieving lady is not worth it.

I believe in..

.. making every day count. I really try to live by it. Then again, since one of my favourite things to do is chill out at home, making every day count comes easy to me. ;) Jokes aside, I've had a happening week! On Thursday for instance, I was at the playground with my friend Sandra and her adorable girls. We had coffee at my place afterwards. And on Friday we went to Margit Island for a great day by the pool! Baby S absolutely loves to go swimming in the pool. She tries to swim, kicking and waving her arms in a frenzy! So cute! Sunday we went to Sandra & Karsten for a BBQ, we had a great time! Yesterday I had the lovely ladies from our "playgroup" over for a coffee & chat with the kids. Great times! The older kids were running around the apt, chased by an "awful monster"(no, not me), the little ones were on the floor, playing and doing babystuff. We had some cake from the fantastic and famous bakery down my street, the"Daubner". Chocolate & blueberry soufflé on chocolate cake. YUMMIE! It's so nice to get together with this group of ladies, I really enjoy sipping coffee and talking about everything.

Also, I've been catching up with some of my dearest friends.. ever since I got pregnant I've been MIA, and I really feel bad about it. I just can't seem to find the time or the right moment to sit down and make those calls. There really are no excuses, but I hope they still like me enough to not call off our friendship, even though I suck at keeping in touch right now. Well, in the past few days I've talked to no less than four of those dear friends! I feel so good about this! Talking to them really gave me a much needed energy boost! One of my besties is getting married soon! So happy for her! And another one is expecting her third child in only a few weeks. So exciting!

Today I took S for a walk, and stopped by our mall to do some grocery shopping. After that we've been mostly doing everyday stuff.. oh, there's a knock on the door - hold on!

It was the german lady upstairs. I've been taking care of her cat while she was out of town, and now she had bought Selma a super cute swimsuit to thank me for the help. So sweet!

Morning glory

Lady S woke me up at 4.30 this morning. She's teething, poor thing.. After giving her the bottle and playing with her for about an hour, she did however go back to sleep. So this turned out to be a great (if maybe a bit early) morning after all.. Now I can enjoy my morning coffee and just relax.

I bought this pretty bouquet yesterday. They are dog-roses with mint! Smells amazing!

So if you're not up yet; wake up and smell the flowers! Or coffee.

Daily update

Alright.. since this blog is about me keeping a diary so I'll have some memories stored for when I get old.. I will make a daily update.. I always buy new diaries, thinking this time it will be different.. this time I will keep a journal of every single day.. write down small stuff  like the weather and important stuff like my baby's first steps.. and it always ends the same. I will write for a few days and then get bored and forget about it. And I'll feel bad for not writing. So, I thought that maybe a little pressure from the public is what I need.. If I can at least pretend that I have a few followers out there (hi Mom) who'd be disappointed if I went MIA, well then maybe I will keep it up.

Yesterday was a great Sunday. P and I were invited to our friends house for a BBQ. Nice red meat went right down my tummy.. yummm!! I can tell you, it's almost impossible to find good red meat here in Budapest. A nice juicy steak.. forget it Barbie! So we have desperately been trying to find a butcher somewhere who sells some tender meat and not just shoe soles, but no.. until one day, you hear about the Magical Meat Guy over at Mom park.. Like an urban legend amongst expats throughout Budapest. He exists thought. Apparently. P and I still haven't made the trip, but it's about time. I'm getting tired of all this pork and chicken.

Mama wants her some MEAT! Roaaarrr..

Right now, little S is sleeping. Mama is having coffee on the balcony, searching the internet for.. well, I don't know exactly.. Roaming for dresses for the upcoming wedding, random gifts for P, and oh yes - my latest addiction: japanese fabric! LOVE THEM!! Will I ever buy anything..? Probably not, but this is just like window shopping from home. I have nothing on my agenda today. Mondays are mostly about cleaning up after the weekend. Gonna have the girls come over for coffee & chat tomorrow, so I better make the mansion look presentable.

Have a great day y'all!

No 1 candy

This is my favorite candy here in Budapest.. Chamallow smurfs.. I mean, how often do you get to decapitate a smurf!?!

Moahahaaa (evil Gargamel laugh)

Love sTORIes

This picture perfectly sums up some of my greatest loves:

* Starbucks
* Glossy magazines
* Tori Spelling 

Yeah - that's right! I said it! Tori Spelling! And I'm proud of it! Well, yeah, sort of.. ehhrr.. (sorry Tori). I confess. I am addicted to Tori Spelling and everything about her (not in a psycho-stalker manner, just in a "the-baby's-sleeping-I-might-just-as-well-watch-daytime-TV" kind of way). It all started when I was pregnant and spent my days roaming the internet for The Perfect Baby Blanket (yes, I actually did that, took me forever and I ended up not buying one anyway) and watching "Tori & Dean - Inn love" on TV. The show is basically about nothing, like most reality TV-shows are, but I got totally obsessed (again, not in a crazy way) with Tori. Now I have seen all of her TV-shows, bought most of her books and I find myself anxiously checking Apple TV for a new season of "Home Sweet Hollywood".. ahhrrgg..

Well - I think I am proud, and I'm gonna say it out loud: 

I LOVE YOU TORI!! (call me sometime, will ya!?)

Here we go!

This is it..    Numero uno..    The very FIRST post..  No pressure.. 
Just have to write something super witty yet smart while at the same time memorable and eye-catching.. gggggg..

Oh friggity frick - I'll just throw in a presentation instead! 

Who am I? - If you're reading this you're probably either a relative or a friend (and you probably use this blog as a sign of my very existence since I suck at keeping in touch). But if that's not the case you might just want to know a bit about me! 
My name is Emma, I'm a thirty-something swede, currently living in the beautiful city of Budapest, Hungary, with my man and our sweet little daughter. Since I'm currently on maternity leave I spend my days caring for my little one, shopping, gossiping with friends, sightseeing, sunbathing and eating croissants. 
You know - just average housewife stuff! 

Why a blog? I wanted to start a blog mostly to keep a diary of this exciting time in my life. And I wanted my mom to know what I'm up to. Keeps her less worried.. ;-) 

In this blog I will write about my life in Budapest, about being a mom and a desperate housewife, about my likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, glitter and sparkles, 
sugar and spice and everything nice!

Come rock with the Hula Hoop Honey!