We had a great and relaxing weekend!
Friday while I was in the shower Bennett came to tell me that Buck was stuck under the chair.
I wasn't sure he was telling the truth since Buck hasn't started crawling yet, but I quickly finished up and ran out into the living room. Sure enough he had somehow managed to scoot under the chair all the way from the cube toy. I'm not ready for two mobile boys yet!
(Bennett was showing Buck some brotherly love by sitting on him)
After we all got ready, we went to Costco for groceries.
This was Buck's first time sitting in the cart:
(he loved it for half of the time then became whiney and tired for the rest of the ride)
Saturday night the boys stayed with Chris' parents and we went out for date night with Craig and
Lauren. We went to
Dick's Kitchen which was pretty good. I don't think I'd get the large kale salad again...I loved the topping combo
(blue cheese/cranberries/hazlenuts) but it was a TON of kale!
I also got a Coconut Bliss chocolate malt which was SO good.
Chris got a burger and some yam not-fries(weird name... they are baked and not fried).
I tasted both and they were really good.
My mound of kale:
After dinner we hung out and chatted at our house without having to worry about waking up the boys, so nice:
Sunday morning Chris and I slept in (hello 9:45!), ran a ton of errands then
we had brunch at
Por Que No. Their brunch is so good!
Before we picked up the boys, we stopped at IKEA to price out cabinets for our bathroom remodel!
We are pretty giddy to even be considering a big change like this, which is much needed.
Such a nice weekend!
Happy Wednesday Friends!
So after a whole summer of preparing to paint, we finally have a painted house!!!
Our friend Craig brought his sprayer over and helped out a ton.
It's crazy how much work goes into prepping and the painting portion lasts only a few hours.
Before:
Old/new:
The finished product:
We love it so much!
This makes our door look orange but it's definitley red.
I just wanted to show you guys our awesome exterior fixture:
(Our fancy new light up doorbell is awesome too but you can barely see it.)
While they were painting, the boys and I went to the zoo with Chris' mom.
Bennett decided that instead of stopping to look at each animal, he'd like to just run past them all.
This was our view the entire time:
Except that he stopped to sit on the animal statues:
and to watch the tractor bring sand into the elephant area:
(Buck wasn't too into it either)
Saturday afternoon we went to Bennett's friend Lucy's 3rd birthday party.
He had never seen one of these cars before and he thought that it was broken because it wouldn't go.
He kept getting out to push it then quickly hopped back in as if he were giving it a push start.
"This car doesn't work guys":
I also did a lot of cooking and baking this weekend!
I feel like I haven't baked in a long time, so it was nice to get back to it.
(I've tested a lot of chocolate chip cookie recipes trying to find the perfect one, this the the one I always go back to.
I love to eat them frozen!)
I tried recreating Portobello's Beet Tartare:
(We agreed that I got pretty close! I made the whole thing in my vitamix...it was fun seeing what it could do. It's a vegan recipe but is so full of flavor. It's cashew cheese on the bottom with chopped beets mixed with a carrot aioli. It's incredibly filling, we both split this for a late dinner.)
I also made
this cashew pesto veggie pizza, which was also SO good:
(I don't think I'll ever make pesto with those expensive pine nuts again!)
and we made lots of smoothies with the vitamix.
Best purchase ever:
mmm smoothies:
Happy Wednesday Friends!
This weekend felt like a long weekend, which is always nice...
Bennett and I hung out on the hammock:
Bennett went to the Children's museum with his friends Lucy and Pearl.
He especially loved playing the bucket drums:
(his name Bennett Tabor means "blessed drummer"...how cool would it be if he actually became a drummer?!)
He also did some shopping in their little market:
(Chris didn't approve of his coffee choice)
He played with the giant lite brite:
(he had crazy hair all day, but I didn't bother to fix it for some reason)
Thursday for date night Chris and I went to the Cornelius Pass McMenamins.
They have tons of outdoor seating that is pretty much in a forest lit up with strands of lights.
I could spend so much time out there:
Friday night we walked up to the park to swing before bed and some nice old ladies invited us into the community garden and let Bennett pick a bunch of their fruits and veggies:
(Proud of his onions. The little stinker always closes his eyes on purpose when I ask him to smile for a picture.)
His bounty:
Saturday morning snuggles while Chris was on a run:
Chris' awesome brother
(who helped build the nursery) came to help install windows in/put up the new door.
(we finally got rid of the original door which was a hollow-core without a deadbolt...yes this house pretty much had an interior door for the front door for 60 years...that's safe right?)
Bennett went with my mom to her company picnic and came back with Cookie Monster and Elmo painted on his face:
Sunday morning we made zucchini bread pancakes:
And Chris' dad came over to help cut down the fallen apple tree limb:
And also helped redo some of the siding:
We finally got our front light fixture:
(The house isn't painted yet, I was just holding the light up against the swatch we painted to get the full effect. Me likey.)
(Imagine this with a red door next to it...pretty sweet huh?)
And that was our weekend.
I can't believe it has been a year since we bought our house! When we bought it we knew that we would paint the interior right away. A couple of coats of
bright white paint went up everywhere soon after we moved in.
We also knew that we would convert the den space into a third bedroom
(back to the way it was originally). That
project was completed a couple of months before Buckley arrived
(though I have yet to show you the completed nursery).
The next project on our list is to paint the exterior. It sounds like a huge job, especially when you add in sanding down a majority of the house because the current paint is in such bad shape.
When we pictured what we wanted the house to look like, we both agreed that we wanted a dark house with a bright door. We wanted to take our mid century ranch back to its roots, and the time has finally come!
These houses were ones that we used for inspiration when we picked our house colors:
house pictures found via google
These are the colors we chose:
We also ordered
this doorlite kit to go into our new bright red door.
When it's all finished it will look like this:
We have already painted the red on the Dutch door in the back to get a feel for how it will look, and when we have the top open it gives us a pop of red in the house:
(I kind of love it)
I can't wait to see it all come together!
Our homeowners association makes you ask all of your neighbors if they approve and then the HOA has to approve it. I really hope we have no hang-ups and that we can stick with our original colors!
Yes it's Thursday and I'm just getting to filling you in on last weekend.
Bear with me as I probably blog less and less for a bit while I nest/take care of stuff before little brother gets here.
We're in the home stretch and HE FLIPPED!
There is an 80% chance that he will stay head down now, so please pray that he does!
I will definitely post a picture at least letting you guys know once he's here.
Anyways, onto our fun/relaxing Easter weekend...
Thursday we had a playdate with
Ashley and James at OMSI.
Bennett got soaking wet in the water area, and I of course forgot a change of clothes:
(it didn't seem to bother him one bit)
Thursday afternoon someone figured out how to lock doors...
unfortunately I was on the other side of that door painting in the garage:
(luckily Chris was on his way home and B was watching a show on tv, so I don't think he even noticed I was gone.)
( By the way, picking locks with paper clips is a joke)
Friday night we had a very fancy date night dinner at Chipolte:
(we wanted to save a good amount of our date night allowance for dessert...)
I had been wanting to try out
Fizz for a while.
It's a cute little soda fountain with a ton of fun/retro/hard to find candy and bottled sodas.
This whole case consisted of just bottles of root beer:
Chris ordering his handmade soda:
My frozen hot chocolate, chris' handmade honey cream soda and some goodies to take home:
Saturday morning we got up and headed to the zoo for their easter egg hunt:
(Apparently everyone else in Portland had the same idea. This is right after we got on the shuttle to take us a half mile down the road, and it was also B's first time on a school bus. He was incredibly excited!)
(We literally could have walked/waddled to the zoo from our house, but Chris found $5 on the ground when we were getting back in our car which paid for coffee the next morning, so we didn't mind much after that.)
Family of three...soon to be four!
The "egg" hunts were on the amphitheater lawn with different areas sectioned off for different ages.
Bennett isn't 3 yet so we went to the 2 and under section. It was kind of a joke. There were so many parents hovering over their kids in this tiny section trying to grab pieces of candy that they threw on the lawn. They threw out about 5 eggs total, one of which B stepped right over. He ended up with 4 pieces of candy because everything was snatched up in about a minute.
The "egg" hunt was kind of a bummer but it was a warm sunny day so we decided to enjoy it!
We walked around and looked at some of the animals:
B got to pet the softest bunny ever:
We had a picnic:
Sunday morning somebody woke up bright and early.
I heard him run out into the living room and then a long silence.
I knew he had found his easter basket so I grabbed my phone and headed out there.
He was pretty excited about what he saw:
(yes, I'm that mom who doesn't put candy in her kid's easter baskets, but toothbrushes instead. I knew he'd get a ton of candy from the egg hunt later on in the day...and it was a Thomas the Tank engine electric toothbrush people!)
For breakfast we made chocolate chip pancakes:
(and decided that it is now an Easter morning tradition for us)
Then we got ready and headed out the door for our day of family Easter festivities:
We had a tasty lunch and played a bit with Chris' side of the family but for some reason I didn't take any pictures.
Afterwards we headed out to my aunt's house in the middle of nowhere.
Lots of land= a giant egg hunt.
The kind with eggs.
Paparazzi :
B madeout like a bandit in the candy dept...once we got home we checked out all the treats he got and the candy almost filled a gallon sized ziplock bag! It's safe to say that he will need some help eating all/most of it...probably the last year we'll be able to get away with that!
My aunt also has free range chickens on her property and B loves chasing them.
The whole time he kept yelling out "chickens where are you?"
He also wanted to hold one, though I was afraid it would peck his eyes out or something:
All of the guys (and some ladies) practiced their sweet shooting skills.
Chris included:
(B and I watched)
Usually it's pouring on Easter around here, but not this year...
We spent most of the day outside in the 60 degree sunshine for a change and it was SO nice!
Around the house, we have been working hard to paint all of the doors and installing the new hardware we bought a while back. It really makes a huge difference when all of the doorknobs/hinges/etc. match!
B helped out a bit too:
And I had to include this picture of B finally holding a chicken at our friend's house on Tuesday, though it was a baby chick and I'm pretty sure he didn't mind.
I think he wanted to take it home:
(and I can't say I'd stop him...sorry Echo!)
Happy Thursday friends and have a great weekend!
