In a Week and a Half

• I will be able to speak English and not feel bad in every conversation I have.

• I will understand every conversation around me.

• I will be home surrounded by friends and family I haven't seen in a year and a half.

• I shall ride in a car where ever and whenever I want, instead of riding public transportation or trying to find a ride.

• I will feel comfortable making friends with strangers again.

• I can finally get a haircut by my awesome sister Annie.

• I will be able to celebrate my birthday and Christmas traditions with my family. I haven't been home for Christmas in two years!

• Emma will be able to meet four of her aunts for the first time! She will also meet two of her aunts and grandma and grandpa again... she hasn't seen them since she was a newborn!

• Joel and I get to party with all our friends! I have missed them SO much.

• I will be able to see some kind of sun. Even if it will be super cold, I miss the sun!

• Emma will be able to finally meet her great grandma she was named after.

• We're gonna go on a shopping spree and it is going to be AWESOME.

Anyways. Those are some of my thoughts about coming home!! I seriously can't wait, coming home to the states is all I think about. Now for an even more random post about what we've been up to as of late:

I'm pretty positive every Swede has an Amaryllis flower in their home during Christmas time. Even though we won't be here for Christmas, I couldn't resist buying one! I love that deep red color.

I tried working out with her, but it didn't go as well as I had hoped. Wrong exercise to do with a wiggly baby! She did like it though. Eventually I put her down to focus on the rest of the exercise, when I looked over and she was about to eat the camera. So, if you want to experience Emma almost eating you, you'll want to watch this ;)

My little buddy helping me during my workout. Kind of.

Emma is now a scooter. She hasn't learned to crawl yet, but she definitely scoots and moves around now! Which results in her getting stuck. A lot. Like under chairs.

Seriously though, she loves books.

Also I cooked the other day, so I am documenting this occurrence since it doesn't happen all too often.

I look over and see Emma getting into everything now. I'm definitely not ready for this!! Nothing is baby proofed.. haha oops.

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Last Friday we had an early birthday party for Joel! He will be 27 on the 28th of November :) We had fun decorating the apartment full of balloons! Emma enjoyed it too, but we scared the crap out of Cheeto:

We played a game where you put some kind of a cookie on your forehead and without using your hands, you must get the cookie in your mouth! I won by the way. Hehe.

HAPPY 27TH BIRTHDAY JOEL!!!  WE LOVE YOU!!

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This past Saturday I received a call from my in-laws asking if we'd like to join them for a trip to the amusement park (called Liseberg) and see the Christmas lights and an ice skating show! At first I was hesitant to go because of Emma's sleep and eating schedule, but we ended up having SO MUCH FUN. It was nice to spend time with family and just have fun together! I attempted to take pictures of the ice skating show (which was AMAZING BY THE WAY) but the skaters were all over exposed. I decided to put them in the blog anyways ;) Just trust me when I say the whole production was super cool!

Herrey family "selfie"

It was COLD

We like to kiss. Mwahahaha.

Soooo many treats all over the place!!

We bundled up Emma so well, she was even sweating a little bit ;) This is how happy she looked the whole night

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There are some part of Sweden that have only seen the sun for a total of 2 hours this whole month. And I believe it. It has been ridiculously gray outside and extra dreary. While I was getting ready to feed Emma lunch yesterday the sun was shining in our windows! After I was done feeding Emma I got really excited so I grabbed her and threw her in her stroller and we went to the playground! I think Emma is appreciating the swing more and more, judging that big smile on her face:

Later that day there was a beautiful mist everywhere, so of course I had to take a picture.

I was doing laundry when I looked over and spied a little baby trying to find me! This whole scooting/moving thing is so much fun.

I'm going to end this blog post with this teethy smile. Hopefully she'll be done teething for a while! These 4 came in together, poor girl!

Jul På Tjolöholms Slott

For all you Americans that don't know Swedish, here's a little Swedish lesson for you all ;)

Jul: Christmas

På: on/at

Tjolöholms: the name of the castle

Slott: castle

My mother-in-"love" took Emma and I to the castle (about twenty minutes away) that was dressed up all Christmas-y and there were TONS of little boutiques. People mainly made their own things from what I saw, and I loved the feeling there! So festive. Unfortunately we didn't have time to try the food samples, but we did walk through the cute boutiques and the castle. The castle and boutiques are open for about a week I think, and about 25,000 people visit throughout that week! Very well known on the west coast of Sweden.

Here are some of the pictures I took if you'd like to see! It was dark and waaay hard to take pictures, but I figured I'd try so I can have memories, even if they turn out blurry ;)

Emma made some friends that adored her

I know this picture is blurry, but I just love how this lady was selling these jackets for some reason.

Emma was such a champ. She never cried once! In fact, she was laughing and giggling at people the whole time. 

My father-in-law signing books

I think someone has him wrapped around her little finger ;)

These are his two books he has written. On the left is the childrens book and on the right is the book for adults (that will actually be a trilogy)

She laughed through all of dinner and made lots of friends. Yep. She is definitely my baby!

I love the outside of this castle! For Christmas Swedes put lights in all their windows to help brighten this dark country we live in.

See? Lights in the windows ;)

Emma met Santa for the fist time! I feel like such a parent now ;) She was never scared, just a little nervous and cautious

I know Santa looks a little creepy but I promise he was super nice!

A fireplace inception? A fireplace inside a fireplace? Also I have no idea what that boy was doing there...

How cool is this ceiling?!

I ended the awesome day with a delicious Belgian waffle! Seriously soooo good.