The wedding day is finally here…!

After months of waiting and preparations, the day is finally here, our wedding day! I’m about to go and get myself ready (hair, make up, putting on the dress and hoping I won’t ruin my make up by crying, ha ha).

We’re getting married at 12.00 and then have a reception till 4.00 pm. After that our friends will bring us to a hotel nearby the airport where we will take a plane on Saturdaymorning to New York. I/ we can’t wait!

Blog to you soon, hopefully in New York!

Cooking & Oatmeal

Yesterday my dear friend Paula came over and instead of working on wedding preparations (we’re getting married in one week!), we decided to bake cookies the whole afternoon!

We both love a Dutch blog Bakparade in which you can find reciped of ‘healthy’ cookies, cakes, etc. So we decided to give it a try. First, we made the sugarfree peanutbutter-banana-oatmeal cookies. They were ok but they tasted like nothing, probably because of the lack of sugar.

So we tried the next one, muffins this time: banana-gingerbread muffins. They tasted really good but we couldn’t get the wrapper of the muffin… Weird but it least it tasted good. and the healthy part is that this way you can’t eat the whole muffin!!!

And finally we made a batch of Speculoos oatmeal cookies. Speculoos is a gingerbread spread and I find it highly addictive! Couldn’t stop eating the stuff yesterday! I don’t know if you can buy it outside of the Netherlands and Belgium. but if you can, buy it because it’s easy to use in dessert/ cookie recipes!

So at the end of the afternoon, we had a lot of sweet ‘healthy’ food! Don’t the fooled by the how many cookies on the photo, by that time we already ate quite a few!

The good thing about oatmeal is that it makes me feel full so around dinner time, I wasn’t very hungry and just ate an arugula salad with lentils. No photo to show you there but it tasted amazing! I went to see the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel with another dear friend. The movie was so funny, you really should see it!

Favourite Blog: Kath Eats Real Food

A while ago I discovered the foodblog Kath Eats Real Food. It is written by Kath, she’s an American who writes three times a day and usually about food. She’s a registered dietitian and writes and eats normal food and not the crazy diets that you see so many times. Oatmeal is a favourite subject on the blog and that was the reason that I went and tried several kinds of oatmeal and toppings!

I love reading about her life and how she combines eating real food and exercising. When reading this blog, you really come to the conclusion that food and excercise really belong together to create a balanced, happy live in a healthy body. You don’t have to be suppy skinny or fat and this blog helped me to realise that and have helped me to love the combination food & excercise.
Kath is pregnant at the moment and created another blog, babykerf, where she talks about her pregnancy journey and how to balance this and not grow to big from eating like a crazy person.
Take a look and hopefully be as inspired as I am!

I love me some oatmeal

Most of you know by now that I love oatmeal! A while ago I read the blog of Kath Eats Real Food and she wrote a piece about her tribute to oatmeal. Kath talks to great about oatmeal that I tried it as breakfast and it got me hooked on the stuff! I was looking for a breakfast that would fill me and would get me through a few hours without craving something bad. and oatmeal does that for me.
So in no time I assembled an oatmeal shelve and this is hoe it looks like!


I also bought a sign from Wood & Wood Stool which says Havermaud. This is a little joke and difficult to explain in english. The easiest way to explain is that the Dutch word for oatmeal is Havermout. And because my name is Maud, and II used to get teased (and people still do!) because my name sounds just like the word Havermout. So now I just created the word Havermaud to express my love for oatmeal and get a laugh out of it all! Ok, it mays sound a bit silly but my friends and family laughed when they saw the sign and immediatly understood the reason why! I have also created another blog Havermaud where I write in Dutch about my love for healthy food and try to give suggestions how to life healthy.

I have to say that this shelve & sign has brought a personal touch in our kitchen and made it more us. I bought another sign at Wood & Wool stool but that one will be revealed after the wedding!

Busy times but now I'm home

How was your week? Did you have some time off and enjoyed every minute of it or have you been working? I have been busy working and it has been a busy week, both professionally and private. In two weeks time, I'll be married and off on our honeymoon but before that happens, We/ I have a lot to do! There's no time sitting still for this girl, ha ha!

S. bought a new, smaller, camera to bring with us on holiday. He bought a Samsung camera and this one is smaller than the one we have. This camera fits easily in your pocket so it's perfect for when we're in New York. I played with it and made a photo of our front- and back room. The quality is very good, don't you think?

Tonight I have no further plans than to sit on the sofa and read blogs and going to bed early. We have an early appointment tomorrow with a woman who will marry us to talk about the ceremony. i'm looking forward to it. Two more weeks and then I'll be mrs. S.!! Love it!

Have a great evening everybody!

Finally on Twitter

Well I've finally done it! It took a while but now I feel I'm ready and have enough to share with the world! This week I spontaneously created a Twitter account and now I'm up and running! Mostly in the morning I have time to tweet and it's about my favourite time of the day: breakfast! But also my preparations for the wedding (in three weeks!) and all the wonderful things that are going on in my life. So stay tuned and if you like it, please follow me on Twitter!

Bachelorette & Queens day weekend...

What a weekend I had... Last Saturday my friends and family surprised me with a bachelorette party! I already had a suspicion that it would take place this weekend. But when the morning passed and S. and I went to the gym and came back, there was nobody there so I thought that I had it all wrong. and then the doorbell rang and there they were! I don't have any pictures yet, only these two that we made after we were finished with wild water rafting.... I am not kidding you! The whole day was wonderful: first a lunch at restaurant Het Heden, then wild water rafting and we ended the day at the nice restaurant in Schevening nearby the beach. It was wonderful and I was totally tired when I got back home. But I'm sure that I will never forget the lovely day!

This is me with my niece Ruby, look how tired we were after our water rafting experience! They made me wear a tiara and a sash that said "The world most beautiful bride". The sash kept falling of my shoulders so this proves that I would have been a terrible beauty queen, haha. On Friday, my friend Paula and I baked cupcakes for her and a banana cake for me. Luckily, when the girls arrived to get me, I could give them all a slice. they loved it!

Today we all had the day off in the Netherlands to celebrate the birthday of our queen Beatrix. And that means that you start the day with orange pastry and tea!

We celebrated the day with S.'s family in a small village named Wateringen. The weather was nice, the temperature was nice and we all had a great time!

Well, I'm totally worn out and ready for bed. Have a great week and talk to you soon!

Favourite blog: Wood Wool stool

Good morning everyone! Hope you had a great week and are ready to start the weekend, I know I am! I had a busy week, filled with work, finishing my project for school, exercising, baking and cooking!

Yesterday I had another baking friday and this time with my dear friend and neighbour Paula. We made cupcakes and banana cake, I made pictures and will show you later this weekend!

In the Netherlands, people are having a three day weekend because on Monday we're celebrating the birthday of the queen, also known as Queens day! In almost every city or town there's festivities, markets and people are dressed in orange. S. and I will spend the day with family and I'll be sure to make lot's of pictures! The rest of the weekend remains to be seen but it looks like it's going to be a calm one!

To start the weekend with some inspirations, I want to share a great blog with you: Wood & Wool Stool. I've been reading this blog for a while now and am loving it! The lady of the blog, Ingrid, runs a small company Wood & Wood Stool and sells stools, frames, signs, christmas trees that are made of old wood and wool. furtermore, you can find the most beautiful pictures of her home, it's really inspiring! I have bought a christmas tree of her last year and loved it! I would also love a stool but we already have so many stools around here. But then again, what is wrong with another stool around the house, ha ha!



Coffee & quiche

Today turned out to be a great day, both weather as activity wise.

I went to the gym, did some weigth training and then took a spinning lesson. I don't take spinning lessons often but I really enjoyed myself and got a great work out. I think I'll take a few more classes starting today as it is a change of the cardio training I normally do which is the treadmill or running.

When I got home, I ate another bowl of oatmeal because I was really in the mood for it, got showered and changed and met my friend Paula to go to the city centre of The Hague. We walked around and went to Eko Plaza, another organic supermarket and bought sugar free licorice and a jar of almond/hazelnut butter.

Then we went to the Coffee Company to sit down and have a coffee. The Coffee Company is like a Starbucks and every big city in the Netherlands has one. Now I'm a relatively new coffee drinker and like to experiment to taste the coffee in various coffee places.

I ordered a latte macciato which is warm milk, 3/4 of a cup and than add espresso coffee. It was delicious! Paula had the same but added coconut syrup and I had a plain one. The atmosphere was really good and we sat at a large tables with different people next to us. It all looked very trendy! You could also buy all sorts of pastry but we passed on those because before we left, we ate a few of the oatmeal cookies I made.

When I got home, I baked a quiche. I made a vegetarian one with zucchini, red pepper, eggs, non fat French yoghurt, tomato sauce, goat cheese and salt & pepper. I put it in the over for 45 and this is the result!

The sides were a bit burned but other than that I tasted really good! I had a simple salad on the side which made it a nice dish for dinner.

Well, I'm going to start my tv evening and wait till S. comes home. I expect it will be a short evening and be in bed soon! This week is going to be a busy one!

Have a great evening and talk to you soon!

Oatmeal sunday

Hi Everyone,
And good morning on a dreary sunday here. The weather forecast says that it remains rainy and greyish all day. But yesterday it started rainy and grey but ended with sunshine and blue skies! So I have my fingers crossed!

I spent the day at my computer, as promised, and actually finished the whole assignment! I send it to my teacher for a last check before I hand it in and then that's done! And maybe start with another course but what, I don't know!

So today will be a more relaxing day, but still enough to do around the house. But first... breakfast!

I made oatmeal along with a tablespoon of chiaseeds, a little bit of vanilla extract, a bit of cinnamon and topped it of with Turkish yoghurt, almond butter and coconut. it was, as always, delicious! Along with my dear friend, sliced apple, it was a great start to the day.

I bought Turkish yoghurt for the first time. I saw it at the supermarket and read on the label that it only had three percent of fat and Greek yoghurt normally has ten percent of fat. I have to say that it was nice but I need to try some more to give it a real opinion.

S. had a great time at the bachelor's party but has to go to work today so he'll be gone soon and I'm going to the gym. Haven't been there in a week and I need to get back there! Have eaten a lot of good, good food but still a lot, and I need to get in bridal shape! Still five more weeks to go! It's going really fast all of a sudden and we're ready for it!

Have a great sunday!