King of the Castle!

I took Zane to Michael's a while back because I needed something for a project I was working on.  When we go there he usually ends up conning me into getting something.  This time we saw these adorable little wooden unfinished lighthouses and right beside was this little bag of decorative shells we thought we could paint the lighthouse and glue some shells on...that is until we got looking around the store a little bit more.  In the section with all the wooden unfinished things, he found something that made him so excited he was dancing around and squealing like I have never seen before!

Even I had to agree with him that this is a pretty fantastic wooden unfinished fold up castle!  Normally I wouldn't pay the 29.99 it was tagged at, but of course I had a couple coupons that made it end up costing 13.95!  Perfect!  When we got home with it he was so excited to show his dad he was swinging it around and just beaming!  (His old man whispered to me that it is the equivalent of a dollhouse for boys which is so true but don't let Zane hear that!)

So on the weekend we took it with us to Grandma and Grandpa's house because we knew he would need something to fill all kinds of time.  And he did exactly that!  He must have spent a solid 4 hours over 2 days working on this thing!  He was ever so careful with it.  He drew a blueprint before hand of what he wanted it to look like when he was done and stuck pretty close to it!  Here are some pics of the process!

He had originally wanted every room to have every color, but after he thought about it for a while, each room ended up one solid color

complete with a lego table and bed he built because his lego men fit perfectly inside and can even hold their little guns up right between the turrets.  

painting the brick lines on the outside (yes I helped on the drawbridge )

Breakfast Bush Pies!

Staying at the cabin at the lake is fantastic.  The best part is eating whatever I feel like for every meal.  Case in point...bush pies for breakfast!  We made some with peanut butter and blueberry jam, some with just jam, some havarti grilled cheese, and (the best of all) Smores ones made with Nutella and marshmallows!  Sooooo good!!

Color Wonderful!

Right before Zane's second birthday (with the help of a couple friends) I tackled painting a mural in his bedroom.  It was complete with adorable animals and palm trees, however that was not my original plan.  The plan was to do vertical stripes on the lower half of the wall and it all went great until I removed the masking tape and half the paint came off with it!  I cried and cried and wanted to scream.  It took days plus hours and hours to scrape and sand all the leftover bits of paint off.  (I'm sorry but I don't even want to look for the pics of the disaster on my computer)  Then came the hours and hours of painting the mural.  It was totally worth it though, it looked great.  Alas, Zane is growing up and it was time for a new paint job.  I took him to Home Depot and let him pick a few colors to do test spots with before we made a final decision what to pick.  We ended up with 3 very vibrant colors and I was nervous.  We decided on a pattern and I went back to go get the full amount of paint I needed.  We were only going to need one quart of the orange color which it turned out was not available in the kind of paint I wanted in a quart size.  I asked the staff if it went on nicely like the other one and she assured me they were basically the same.  Boy was she wrong!!!  I love using Behr Premium Plus Ultra paint.  It goes on thick and covers great; I could get away with one coat if I wanted to.  This CIL Smart crap was HORRIBLE.  It took 4 coats for it to not be see through and it went on like I was smearing on dish soap.  When I sat and thought about it for a minute, all of a sudden a light bulb went off - I had used CIL paint the first time I painted Zane's room and had such horrid results!  Note to self and others:  CIL paint sucks so don't use it!

Before - cute baby boy's room

I have used this primer on a few things, and while I don't use it for the coverage (it is pretty transparent) It goes on nicely without drips and does it's job.  It was about $18 for the gallon at Home Depot

This is the paint I LOVE using.  It is thick and creamy and goes on fantastic.  I like using a flat finish with darker/brighter colors.  It is less intense.

This is the paint I will NEVER EVER EVER use again.  It was horrible horrible horrible!!

And there is his bed with the new Avengers bedding we surprised him with.  If you look just under the edge of the blanket you can see some of the fabric that I had recovered the box spring with about 3 months ago.  Funny, the colors are the same as the ones we put on the walls!  I might have to go use some scraps of that fabric and put them on something else to be all matchy matchy!

Still need the closet door on, but I love it!

Bookshelf was made by Grandpa for Christmas 2009, and I built the desk thanks to plans from Ana White - Knock off Wood.  She has fantastic plans for building things and it is all geared towards women and making things easy, cheap, and fabulous!

I guess they all love it!  The nightstand was something I threw together after I built the desk and had some leftover wood.

This project took a VERY long time.  Zane was displaced from his room for 3 days while I did this all.  The whole time I kept reminding myself how much I love my son or I would have stopped. Haha!  Bye-bye to the little baby boy's room and Hello to my little man's room!  If you are curious, the colors I used are in the Behr Premium Plus lineup:  Intense Teal: S-G-490, Opulent: S-H-300, and Green Acres: S-G-440

Happy purse day!!

New purse day is the best!! especially when you find a fantastic deal on ebay!

Pursey and I had a wonderful first outing to Taste of Saskatchewan this evening with the family :)

Powdered peanut butter? Yes, have some!

So a while back I discovered PB2 powdered peanut butter made by Bell Plantation on amazon.com.  I held off ordering some because I just wasn't sure if I was willing to try it.  Well, I finally got some and I LOVE it!!  It has all the oil sucked out of it so it has 85% less fat and calories than regular peanut butter!!  First I tried it reconstituted and was pleasantly surprised at the taste and texture of it (though I used just a touch more water than they suggest on the package).  I can't even take credit for Zane's idea to try making peanut butter cookies with it but I can completely take credit for the following recipe!!

PB2 Hugs cookies

PB2 Hugs Cookies

1 c. margarine
3/4 c. white sugar
1 c. golden yellow sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
2 3/4 c. flour
1/3 c. PB2 powdered peanut butter
1 1/2 c. Hershey's mini hugs

Combine margarine, sugars, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, salt and eggs and whip up until fluffy.  Add flour, PB2 peanut butter, soda and powder and mix well.  Add mini hugs during last few seconds of mixing.  Drop by tablespoonful or cookie scoop full onto non stick baking sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

p.s. this is what the PB2 powdered peanut butter looks like in the compressed brick

Wonder what peanutty creation will be next!! These sure turned out well!!

Have a "KOOL" summer!

Zane is a few days from the end of Kindergarten!  Not only am I feeling older now, I am also realizing Zane is really growing up too.  So much so that he wanted to give all his classmates an end of school year treat because it is the nice thing to do.  I had seen a while back on Pinterest several pins that had a pouch of kool aid drink mix and a crazy straw together tagged with "have a kool summer", but if other kids are anything like mine, they would be choked that they couldn't drink it right that second.  Hence, I bought kool aid jammers premixed drink pouches!  We tagged them with labels I printed, and for under 5 bucks we had a super end of year git for the kids!

I elected to make two separate labels, one for the front that says "Have a KOOL summer" and another for the back that said "From Zane".  The text ended up too small when I crammed it all on one label.

Concentrating so hard on getting it on there right side up and straight-ish.

Finished product!

So proud!

Might as well have some fun with it!

So on Monday, after a long long search, I finally bought myself a new (to me) van.  It is everything I was hoping it to be.  It has stow and go seats, so we decided it is like a transformer and is worthy of an autobot sounding name.

 I have christened her Optimus Pearl.