A few little things

I have been keeping myself busy while Athen is at school or Crew is asleep. I have finished up most of the touch up painting in the house. I went back around and painted (several) walls that Crew took a pen to. I finished up caulking the new trim and painting that. I finished building my planter boxes and painting them. I painted the door windows on the inside as well as the mantel. I then moved on to the outside of the house. I painted the shutters, the windows and the door. I think it looks much better. We still need to do some more painting outside but it is slowly getting there.

Here is what it looked like when we moved in. The ugly arbor and white fence was rotten and falling apart. We ripped that thing out pretty quickly. It was hideous.


This is what it looked like after the fence and arbor were gone. I think it looks better. It opened up the yard a bit.

Here is a closer look at the white shutters.

 Here is what it looks like now. Six black shutters and a red door. It is kinda hard to see in this picture but I think the black shutters look so much better. I will try and get a better picture and post again.

I was looking for Athen today while Crew was asleep and I found him in my craft room. He seems to think it is his craft room. He had gotten down his project box and some supplies and was going to town with the glitter glue. He was "making cards for the family." What a sweetie.

A few days ago I found my peg board like this:

Athen had put a bunch of hearts and cards on my magnet board for me. I loved it. He is such a thoughtful little guy. Notice my little plaque to the left? It says "When you are as great as I am, it is hard to be humble." I got this from my grandma's house a few months ago when we were moving her out. It makes me laugh and puts a smile on my face. My grandma and grandpa use to have little plaques and saying like this all around their house growing up so it reminds me of them which puts a smile on my face. It makes me laugh because it is SO Oustad, the sense of humor and the prankster in all of us Oustads.

Easter

We had a fun Easter weekend. We started off on Saturday afternoon by having Grandma & Grandpa, Uncle Josh & Sara, cousins Alyssa & Blake and Uncle Jesse over to our house for Easter dinner and an egg hunt. We had a nice dinner in the backyard and let the kids run around and play on the bikes. We then had our egg hunt.

Here is our Easter dinner in the backyard.

I am loving my new lemonade stand it is perfect for entertaining and dinner parties.

Here are the little ones watching all the craziness outside. Cousin Kylie is one month older then Sutton.

 Here are the kids ready to start the Easter egg hunt.

 Alyssa trying to reach the egg in the tree.

 Hunting for eggs.

 Crew was a little slow at finding the eggs. He was distracted by the egg in his hand, filled with candy rather then finding more eggs.

 This is the one and only picture of Sutton on the grass with her Easter egg where she was not screaming and trying to crawl away. She does NOT like the feel of grass and starts screaming bloody murder when she feels it.

Happy kids with lots of eggs.

Crew with his chipmunk cheeks filled with candy.

On Sunday morning the Easter bunny came to our house. This was the first time he came to our house in the morning when the kids woke up. The Easter bunny left candy trails from their room to their baskets as well as hid some eggs. It was interesting to see the difference in the boys and how they collected their goods. Crew, a lover of all things sweet started scooping up his candy trail as fast as he could and didn't pay too much attention to finding the eggs. Athen on the other hand walked up and down his candy trail and was very specific picking out the few candies that he liked and wanted. He then started looking for the hidden eggs.

Gathering their candy trail.

 Crew's red mustache.

After church we headed to San Jose to have our traditional Easter BBQ and egg hunt with Grandpa mustache. Of course Crew had his mouth and cheeks full of candy all weekend all and they both had the time of their lives.

Our Easter tradition is to dye eggs at grandpa mustache's house. This year we made golden eggs.

I love this picture of my beautiful blue eyes.

Athen trying to reach the orange easter egg in the tree.

Athen likes to use the dump truck as his easter basket. It is quicker and bigger.

Spring Break

Rick's parents came for spring break. It is always fun to have them visit and this time they actually had their own room and own bathroom rather then staying on the living room floor in our old apartment.  We put them to work on the house while they were here. Our original plans were to do a cement brick front porch and patio,  painting the front door and shutters and some yard work and pruning. When we discovered that the whole time they were going to be here it was going to be raining we had to change our plans at the last minute. Friday night (the night they came in) Rick headed to Home Depot in Concord to pick up some trim. We did new trim in the family room, dinning room, living room and hallway. We also wallpapered the hallway which I was so excited to get done. It was good to make a little bit of visual progress on the house. I feel good about what we got done and it is finally feeling a little more put together. Someday we will actually put things on the wall and do a little decorating.

In this picture you can see the new trim we added. It is a wide 5.5" trim. You can also see my new yellow ogee curtains that I had made. I am loving them.

Here is my new wallpaper down the hallway. I am loving it. It is temporary wallpaper which will be nice when we want to take it down. I bought it at CB2.




We see Seafood City just about every weekend when we go to Home Depot. We have been wanting to try it out for awhile now so we decided to take his parents there. To my surprise it was an Pilipino supermarket as well as a bunch of Pilipino restaurants. I was pretty excited to eat dinner there. I ordered for everyone the basics, we had lumpia, pancit, chicken adobo and fried chicken. We also bought pilipino snacks from the bakery. We then ended the night at Jollibee's for some Lanka Banana & Peach Mango pies. I had flashbacks. It was fun.



Of course Sunday was the nicest day of the week so we headed out for a walk/bike ride on the trail and to the park for a little picnic.


Family bike ride along the trail.

Playing at the park across the street.

Rope swing across the street.

On Wedenesday we headed into the city to have lunch with Rick before they headed off to the airport. It was the only day of sunshine. We packed a picnic lunch and ate at the park down the street from his building.

Rick just recently got a big promotion. Along with his promotion he got a nice new big office up on the 23rd floor with large windows looking out at the bay bridge. This was our first time seeing his new office. The kids loved the view.

This is his view. Can't beat that. Not too shabby.


Here is Athen standing on the air conditioner in his office looking down on the park.


Here is grandpa sitting on the back desk and Athen standing in the window.


We had a fun time with grandma and grandpa and love having them visit.

Over the weekend we took a little family hike behind our house.  It was beautiful.  We are loving the California green.  Here are the boys sitting on a hay stack.