"Dad! don't you think it would be cool if batman had an AT-AT? He could call it the BAT-AT!"

"Dad! don't you think it would be cool if batman had an AT-AT? He could call it the BAT-AT!" was pretty much all the motivation I needed for a couple of nights building while the boys were in bed. I don't like Star Wars at all... but I do like Batman and if I can have some fun giving those boring Star Wars kits a DC twist to put a smile on the boys faces I'm all over it.

Turns out that having a quick flick through the instructions, I had pretty much every part in our LEGO collection, it was just a case of rummaging and finding every single piece (in black of course).

In great Opeie style, Not being completely satisfied that I made his crazy BAT-AT comment a reality, his usual critical self explained that it was far too black and needed a little something extra. I was informed that there needed to be a disco in the back with Batman DJing (that kid always needs a bit of glam). So being the LEGO lovin' Dad that I am, always aiming to please, I added a disco in the back and a mixing desk into to the front (My dad points have gone through the roof).

I'm not sure that Snuffy likes his new friend though!

Look, it’s the Batsub!... the Batzeppelin!... the Batkayak!... the BatMicroScooter?

While watching The LEGO Batman Movie last week, Dick Grayson was walking through the batcave spotting all of Batman's obscure vehicles (the Batzeppelin, the Batkayak) and Opeie was left thinking there should have been a BatMicroScooter and asked me I'd make one for him. You know me, I don't need my arm twisting when it comes to LEGO so got building. I'm not sure he'll outrun any villains on this but he definitely looks awesome on his new wheels.

"Oh, you see this? It's the Time Stone. If you take another step, I'll send you all the way back to the Big Bang."

There are some amazing big LEGO kits out at the moment and honestly, I would happily have every single kit released if I could. Sadly we just don't have the disposable income for that level of Lego obsessiveness so I have to put self-control into action and reign it in.  It seems that everyone I know's children adore those addictive bricks in some way and each one pining after the same huge kits. One thing that always used to frustrate me was the variety of super hero figures that were only available if you purchased the larger kits. I imagine in many households these bigger kits are completely out of reach financially but last year LEGO did something to change that which I thought was really awesome.

I've been saying for a long time that I would love LEGO to make a Marvel minifigure series, filled with all of the obscure characters. At £3 per pack these are accessible to pretty much everyone (and who doesn't love LEGO at pocket money prices). With the release of The Lego Batman movie, there was a step In the right direction with the minifigure series to accompany the movie (and those figures are pretty amazing). Although I can't ever see the same thing happening with Marvel comics characters (unless of course there was a LEGO Spider-man movie), LEGO did something else last year to offer Marvel super hero characters at an affordable price to all of their super-hero brick lovers.

Mighty micros revved their engines and exploded onto the toy store shelves in a blaze of glory and I was instantly hooked. Not only were 6 new figures available, with interestingly fun facial expressions and mini legs but they also had matching vehicles for speeding around the floor. To top it off though, and what really had me excited, was the price. I've spent an obscene amount of money on LEGO over the years but the price of the Mighty micros as I said before has meant that Spider-man, Batman and their friends are available to everyone.

Last year the three Marvel sets were snapped up straight away and it was clear that the vehicles were here to stay (I'm kicking myself now that I didn't pick all of the DC ones up from last year, The Lego Batman movie has turned Opeie into a HUGE DC fan).  You can always tell in our house how much the boys love the kits they have built as sometimes after being built and played with they are taken apart and the parts are used for new custom builds. Other times though the kits stay built and are lovingly displayed in our LEGO room (yes we have entire room devoted to those super bricks), or they get their own box to be stored in until their next outing. The mighty micros got their own box, so when wave 2 was released they were ready for action.

I can't wait to see if there is going to be a third wave of Mighty Micros and there is a list as long as my arm for characters I would love to see included. These awesome little kits are one of my favourite newer releases from LEGO and I'd love to see the range opened up to possible other themes, like Adventure time, teen titans or powerpuff girls from the new LEGO Dimensions kits.

"Why did you build this thing with only one seat?". "Uh, cause last time I checked, I only have one butt."

After watching a video on youtube a couple of weeks ago of someone installing RetroPie on to a Raspberry Pi and using a Mario/Duckhunt NES cartridge as the casing I was completely hooked and found myself wasting an evening trapped in a Youtube video loop, clicking from one video to the next (I'm sure we've all been there). I was fascinated by all of the things you could do with this amazing tiny computer. After chatting to my friend Steve who is my techy go to guy, I decided to pick one up from Maplins for the boys to have a play about with. We installed Retropie with lots of retro games on and I even shocked myself by watching some videos so that I could add in some coding to fix some bugs. There is that much literature out there that learning some tricks and programming should be easy for the boys to use.

As awesome as the Raspberry PI is to use, the problem we had was that it is just a motherboard, meaning that all the parts are exposed which isn't great when you have little ones using it, plus it doesn't look great sitting on the bookshelf in our lounge. So I did what I always do in this kind of situation and turned to those amazing bricks. I knocked a multi coloured case together in no time but as I got into bed that night I felt really dissatisfied with the outcome. As Opeie wasn't feeling great yesterday morning we decided to have a LEGO creating start to the day, as he happily sat and built an awesome police car for his LEGO Batman movie Barbara Gordon, I had another go at the PI casing.

Seth had made an awesome sofa for Lobster Lovin Batman and it was sitting on the side because he'd not used it for anything, so I used that as the starting block for my case. He had built it so well that I thought it needed displaying. The great thing about LEGO when it comes to a mini project like this is that there are so many different elements to choose from, you can build to fit perfectly. leaving all of the ports accessible, with an easily removable lid to get to the board itself. 

With the new LEGO Batman movie Minifigure range in the shops at the moment, it was inevitable that we would be using those as they are so much fun. Plus they are the most played with LEGO at the moment with the boys so it was definitely a fitting case for what they are loving right now. Anyway, that's enough waffling from me. Here's the strange looking Batboat that we ended up with...

Definitely a lot more interesting to look at than the bare motherboard and if Seth gets bored of it, we can just build a new one, that's part of the magic of those amazing, addictive bricks.

"I saved the city again, it was off the chain!"

It's that time of year again where me and the boys can be found standing around in toy stores for extended periods of time feeling up small plastic bags. We love a new LEGO Minifigures series release, for the boys it means new characters and for me, it means new parts and the recent LEGO Batman Movie Minifigures are the best yet. After receiving a surprise package over the weekend of two of those saute after blind bags it has kick awakened that 'got to have them all' feeling that I get with every series.

We are all really excited about the release of the new LEGO Batman Movie (the trailer is amazing) and the Minifigures and kits that have been released alongside the movie have got the three of us pining (not something we need this soon after Christmas). With Cave Batman and Arkham Joker toying with me from the shelf (I love a good Pun), I rang my mate Steve who works at our local Smyths to make sure that they definitely had lots in because I knew where I was heading first thing Monday morning. 

 For me it was all about Vacation Batman and Lobster-lovin Batman, but the entire series is a must have. As expected that evening the boys began their plans on what they think our next big build is going to be so that should be interesting over the next few weeks.

Right before the boys went to bed they had decided that Vacation Batman needed a pool so while the boys were off to bed, I clanged around downstairs rooting through the LEGO (very zen), finding parts to build them a bat-shaped pool, worthy of the dark knights awesomeness. One of the things I love most about a new Minifigure series is the inspiration for building that comes with them.

Today we couldn't come home from our trip out without swinging by Smyths for another bag feel up session. I must have felt up 150 bags and I still can't find Pink Power Batgirl or Glam Metal Batman which was very disappointing (there's always tomorrow though).

 If you haven't seen them yet, the new LEGO Batman Movie sets are definitely worth looking at. I'm desperate to get my hands on all of them.

"I live underground y'all are just tourists."

I love it when the boys get into making up a LEGO story and this one was all Opeie's idea.  He was desperate for the Killer Croc sewer Smash kit for quite some time and is so excited about the new LEGO Batman movie kits that are being released in 2017. It's going to be an Awesome LEGO year for super hero kits.

I'm sure we'll get kidnapped again soon, so stay tuned!