Goodbye 1417 Redbud Lane

It was the end of an era in the Wallgren family...our grandparents moved out of their house a little over a month ago. We all have spent so much time in that house that I wouldn't even know where to start but I have to say that one of my favorite memories are spending Sundays there. Growing up, we used to go to grandma and grandpa's house every Sunday for dinner after church then hang out (cousins, aunts, uncles and all) for the whole day.

And of course the other favorite memory for all of us is celebrating Christmas there (starting with dinner on Christmas Eve, continuing with a huge family sleepover, then finishing with a Swedish pancake breakfast and spending the morning in PJ's playing with all the new Christmas toys). We will miss the house and the traditions that go with it but we also know that their house was just a place.

A few months ago (before knowing they were moving) I just happened to walk around their house snapping shots of some of my favorite vignettes...

And here are some pics from Christmas morning a few years ago...






Yes, that is "A Christmas Story" on in the background

As you can see from the above photos, my grandma has a great eye for antiques and has spent her life collecting them, too many to take with to their new two bedroom apartment, so she decided to divvy it all up between the daughters and granddaughters...and we were all happy to comply.

So after everything was sorted, we had a few days of "give-aways" where every one of us ended up with loads and loads of 'new' (old) treasures and great pieces. Here are a few pics of the piles of loot...

And all the women ready to pounce.

Before

and after

Here are some of the things that I brought home (and this was just part of the stuff from one of three days).

And some of my favorites (although its hard to choose because I love it all)...

A copper pot and tray that originally belonged to my great grandmother. She had the same initials as me (her maiden name, Elvira Martha Johnson, and my married name, Elsa Martha Johnson) so my grandma saw fit to give these pieces to me since her initials were engraved on the tray. The tray was given to her as a teenager when her family left her behind on a trip to Sweden and they brought it back for her since she couldn't go (kind of a consolation prize I guess).

Love this large glass jar

The special birthday plate

These dishes also belonged to my great grandmother.

I love this drawer piece (it was in one of their upstairs bathrooms). And the powder box was another one of my great grandmas from the 1920's.

This bench was in their basement and used as a coffee table by us kids on all those Sundays. Now I have it at our dining room table and just love it.

The bell that grandma used to ring when dinner was ready.

And one random thing that I got from their house that I love is this book "The Century Book of Facts". It is filled with facts about how things were in the world in 1900 and I could look at it for hours.

So we gathered together one last time to share memories, give thanks for our family, cry, pray together and celebrate many great years of traditions and many more to come.

And then the house was empty.

But like I said before, we know it is just a place. It's fun for all of us now to have some of the special pieces of their house live on in ours. And it has also been fun to see how my grandma has put together her new space...very inspirational for my own designing.

Thanksgiving 2011

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving this year. We were lucky to be able to celebrate with both sides of our family since Matt's family was able to come out here to Chicago for the holiday weekend...and our little one bedroom apartment was bursting at the seams with all of us Johnsons! We had a great time catching up, hanging out, playing pinocle and eating. It's always fun to have some time to relax and just be together. And it's great to have our families together once in a while since they live so far away from each other.

The Johnson clan

At Tre Konor

We're glad you were able to come, Mark, Debbie and Jeff! It was fun to have you and celebrate the holiday together.

Weekend in MN

I had a great girls weekend in Minnesota a few weekends ago. It was a short time that by way too fast but it was wonderful to have some solid quality time with some of my favorite people (it's crazy to think that we have known each other for almost 10 years now!). And we have to spend as much time as possible with Christine before she moves to the other side of the world...aka, Africa.

Love you girls! Ashley, Janine, Me, Carolyn and Christine at the apple orchard. How did we spend so much time in that random building?

Relaxing with some tea at Ashley's.

I could really get used to waking up to this view.

We did a lot in a short amount of time but we probably had the most fun with the viewfinders. "I can't even believe what I am looking at!" May the fun live on through Manu.

Thanks for hosting us Ashley! And thank you Carolyn for taking time out of your crazy schedule to hang out with us! It was great to be with you both and I only wish that we all lived closer to each other. I guess the distance just makes our time together even better.

25 weeks

It's been a while without pictures so I guess it's time for a new one, no matter how weird it is! 25 weeks...playing dress up with the 'treasures' found while going through old stuff at my parents house. It didn't quite zip up due to the belly bump. Oh, and my 5 year old niece Gwen took this picture. I have grown a lot since the last pic as you can see.

Vanilla Sugar

Do you know what? I think vanilla bean is too expensive, which is too bad because I would love to experiment with vanilla bean recipes. Awhile ago, I went to the Spice House in Old Town and tried some of their 'vanilla sugar'. It was so yummy and aromatic but also about 10 bucks...way too much for this cheap girl. I thought, I could make that for WAY less! It looked like it was just made with sugar, vanilla bean and cinnamon (there was also a version with lavender). The problem is that some stores sell one vanilla bean for almost 10 bucks which is why I was so excited to find it at World Market for only 3 bucks!

So I made my own version of vanilla sugar by combining the seeds of one vanilla bean, sugar and cinnamon and ground them all up together in my mini food processor. I have used it so much since I made it...on toast, bagels, in my coffee, in pancake batter, to sweeten whipped cream and to make homemade granola.

I would definitely recommend adding some vanilla bean to your cinnamon sugar...and also going to Spice House if you haven't...and World Market.

Spicing Up Waffles

I love making a good, yummy breakfast on Saturday mornings to celebrate a break from the week and give us a chance to relax a bit. (I would love to be the kind of person that makes a great breakfast every morning but that isn't going to start happening anytime soon...or ever.)

I was feeling a little bored with waffle mix one recent Saturday morning when making waffles and started to think, "How can I spice this up?" So I added vanilla extract and cinnamon to the batter and topped off the waffles with butter, powdered sugar and warmed raspberry jam instead of syrup. The changes were small but made a big, delicious difference!



And you can really add anything you like to spice up a simple waffle recipe...any extract or spice you like. For fall you can add pumpkin pie spice and top with apple butter or you can even make waffles savory by adding cooked bacon, cheddar cheese and green onion, topped with some sour cream (ooh, I'm going to have to make those!) The possibilities are endless.

Happy Saturday morning! What's your favorite waffle recipe?