Follow the Lego brick road

Opeie's really been getting in to the Duplo recently which is great because its building him up to the inevitable Lego building that goes on in our house and i'm really looking forward to him building with me and his big brother. Opeie loves playing with mini figures and will sit quietly changing the heads and hats etc but he's not been to interested in the bricks (yet). He has started putting coloured bricks in to sequence and is now starting to understand the colours a little more. a couple of days back he was putting the two shades of green brick in a pattern so i thought we could build a yo gabba gabba character together. As he was using the green's we made brobee. although the larger bricks make i harder to make an exact replica i think we did an alright job. Opeie was happy with it anyway...

"A tree skirt, a tree skirt. A tree skirt on the Christmas tree"

The boys have had some great things from Santa this year, clearly they must have been very good. It's great having new things to play with and handy when trying to keep the boys entertained over the Christmas holiday. Both boys have their favourites and Opeie was very excited when he opened a few of his presents. Santa brought him some Yo Gabba Gabba Mega Bloks sets and they have been the most played with toy so far.

Were huge Gabba fans in our house, its such a great programme and is so much better than many of the other children's TV shows. Ive had problems finding toys from the show for Opeie as they are all released in the US so i was really happy that Santa had been so thoughtful. Mrs M loves playing with these which is great as she does everything she can to avoid Lego play.

The boombox plays songs and on Christmas morning Opeie sat for about an hour and a half pressing the same button over and over while dancing. The dancing was very cute but the continuous Gabba noise started to annoy us after 20mins but as long as the boys are happy then that's all that matters.

There are a few other sets that you can get and were missing Toodee so I'm going to have to get on tracking them down over the next month or so ready for Opeie's birthday. I'm not usually a fan of Mega Bloks but these are great and i love playing with them with Opeie. Their a great first step for getting him into the world of Lego that he's not really going to be able to get away from.

"A flower cannot blossom without sunshine, and man cannot live without love."

We bring the boys up to be as open minded as we can, well Opeie doesn't really understand but we try our hardest with Seth. Unfortunately outside influences are damaging our good work. Last week while we were in Toys R Us Opeie picked up a Toy Story Barbie doll and Seth said those words i hoped i would never hear come from his mouth 'Opeie you cant play with that, those are for girls'. That's what starting school does to you i guess, Seth instantly became that little more Macho. I took Opeie to Toys R Us about 6 months ago and he picked a doll to take home which personally i thought was really nice. There's loads of action figures in our house and for him to choose a doll over his beloved Spider-man was really sweet and showed us that he's not growing up to quickly (which I'm sure makes Mrs M very happy).

Changing the subject completely, although we will come back to where i started, Opeie has become a nightmare with his feeding. He's going through an 'i don't want to eat, bath or brush my teeth phase' everything seems to just send him into floods of tears so we thought we would change around his plates and bowls etc to see if that might spur on some proper eating. I was so impressed with the I Monster range from Nuby when i wrote my last post about Opeie's eating habits that i decided to give the flower child range a try, this was also spurred on by Seth's macho comment (told you I'd find my way back to the start).

The great thing about this range for us is that as you know if you've been reading the blog a while Opeie loves Yo Gabba Gabba, in fact we all like it and the range looks a little like Foofa which Opeie loves. She's a flower child herself...

 The plates went down great. He didn't eat loads but the fact that he ate some if his food today was a bonus and means Mrs M can rest that little bit easier. It can be a little worrying when he just refuses to eat anything but he is still milking Mrs M dry so at least we know he's getting his nutrients. 

I did actually prefer this range over the I Monster range, first and foremost because I'm a sucker for anything pink, but also because of the soft rubber around the base. When eating with the I monster range if Opeie was in an excitable mood meal time would turn into a mini game of air hockey.

Thank fully we didn't hear a peep out of Seth about them being girly`and hopefully after me talking to him we wont hear anything like that for a while at least. I think its really important to let your children play with what they want in terms of colour etc. There's no need for macho behaviour when it comes to your toddler, their going to go for things that are bright and colourful, i still do myself. If Opeie wants to play with dolls, wear mommy's shoes, push a pushchair around or have a tea party with his toys then obviously I'm going to join in with him

We tried the Flower child feeder too as i loved the monster one that we had brought. It had lost the Flash Gordon feel (if you remember my previous post) but Opeie loved it just as much. I think that anything that he has to push his hand in to find out whats inside is going to be a winner.

Im really impressed with the whole range and would definitely advise people to give them a try. I still looking for some tableware with suckers on the bottom to try so i will be keeping them peeled for them. If you have any idea's then please let me know. I'm sure there will be many more post's about Opeie's eating. He's now starting to use cutlery more so I'm sure thats a post ill be writing soon.

Now its time for me to try and get Seth wearing something pink...

"When a father gives to his son, both laugh; when a son gives to his father, both cry"

Mrs M says that Mother's day is her favourite day of the year and i totally get why, it's Fathers day today and although birthdays and Christmas are fun, having a day that celebrates everything i love about my life is amazing. When i was younger i didn't get it and selfishly thought it was unfair that 'dad's got a second birthday every year'. Needless to say i completely understand now.

Presents are definitely not important its more about the acknowledgement of what us dad's do on a daily basis, but saying that i still woke up to a pile of presents from the boys and Mrs M. My favourite was my Yo Gabba Gabba Muno "Mustaches are important" tshirt. Because they really are.

 I also got 2 boxes of Super Hero Squad Iron Man Boxes for my collection, it made a super geek very happy. My ever expanding collection for Opeie is coming on quite nicely. See you were expecting maybe squirrel girl and Odin wept! Not... wait for it... the Santum Sanctorum!.

 

Im always saying im running out of new backgrounds for my toy photo's so Mrs M and the boys brought me these new posters which have already come in handy for the super hero squad pic. I know that these days you can just photoshop an image in but i love that all my pics are used with things around the house.

Well its only midday now and Opeie is fast asleep on Mommy's lap shattered from all the Fathers day excitement. I love this day so much but if im completely honest both Mrs M and the boys treat every day like its Fathers day and i hope that Mrs M feel's exactly the same about us. I feel so lucky to have the three of them in my life. I have never felt so loved and they make every day the most amazing adventure.

"Don't bite your friends"

I seem to spend so much of my day watching Yo Gabba Gabba with my 9 month old that I thought it was about time I wrote a post all about it. Take this morning for example, Ive been up with him since 4:30 and I think we have got through about 6 episodes so far while we've been playing. It was so difficult to find something colourful for backing noise that didn't involve characters making stupid noises like the Teletubbies.

I  think its a really great show for kids but there's bits in there for the adults too. Some of my favorite bands have been on there, Jimmy Eat World, Weezer, Band of Horses, Taking Back sunday and many more. Plus some of my new music to listen to is because of bands I've heard on the show.

The Aquabats are featured a few times throughout the show with paintings of the band members on the wall in other sketches but there's no surprise there seeing as the lead singer is the co-creator of the show.

The most watched episode in the house is "New Friends" but this is because everyone loves Jack Black, he's really rocking that orange jumpsuit.

My little one always looks most interested when Biz Markie does his 'beat of the day' i think he likes the crazy noises. (haha he just came on the telly and my son stopped what he was doing to look), Apart from the bands ive been quite impressed by some of the quests that have been on there, i was quite shocked to see Tony Hawk Skating and Mos Def as Super Mr Superhero.

The toys are a bit of a pain to get hold of as there's not much choice of things that have been released in this country but luckily were off to florida in a few months so ill be taking full advantage for toys for the boys (and myself of course). Being a huge fan of lego in the house i think my first YGG purchases will be the Mega Bloks sets for when the little one is a tad older.

Any way i will leave you with this very important message "Don't bite your friends"!!!

Added 4/1/12

Today my afternoon was as usual taken up by Yo Gabba Gabba and this is how i entertained myself.