Your friendly neighbourhood... fairground vendor?

Over the summer holiday we didn't venture out anywhere near as much as usual and ended up spending a lot more time at home and surprisingly I absolutely loved it. During term time we're all over the place, adventuring and visiting interesting places but as soon as the holidays arrive we tend to shy away and keep ourselves to ourselves, It seems to be common practice among many home edders. The erratic weather helped with the 'parent guilt' of not doing much but I think Opeie  got as much out of the rest as I did. Because of the hermit like behaviour our weeks ended up being heavy on the LEGO building and we were been busy creating all sorts. The building of Opeie's upside frown made him realise again that a little time and effort with the building goes a long way.

So after that was finished we were having a discussion one evening about where to go next with those magical bricks. I asked him if there were any other of the larger kits that he liked the look of for a bit of inspiration. We had a little mooch through the LEGO site and Opeie decided that he really liked the look of the Ferris wheel but had a much more 'Opeie fitting' theme to base the build around.

So the following afternoon we went on a piece finding binge In hope that we had the parts for the main structure before we started putting our own spin on it. Aside from a few technics parts and some pieces for the main wheel that we had nowhere near the quantity needed, we were pretty much good to go. As expected Opeie had no interest in the start of the build, as building the main body is "Boring", he's all about the cosmetic flair. So I got a chunk of the 'boring part' out of the way while he was in bed over the first couple of nights and got the build to a point where I knew he would be excited.

While I carried on with building the main posts and the big wheel Opeie got to work on the kiosks and as you can see, the 'Opeie fitting theme' was of course Spider-man (which is why I was so excited from the get go). A Spider-man themed Ferris wheel got us talking about all sorts of creative ideas to follow up this build and the the more parts we connected the more the ideas were flowing. I could never get bored of the great ideas that Opeie comes up with, his imagination is amazing.

In no time at all we had the main structure completed, the base of the wheel filled with Spider-man themed things and we were left with the part of the build that Opeie was most excited about. We had decided early on that the twelve Ferris wheel carriages were each going to based around a different character with colour schemes matching their costumes or personalities. This part was really fun because the carts themselves were pretty basic to make and we didn't want them to be too heavy and affect the way they moved, so we had to be creative with the parts etc. My favourite was definitely J. Jonah. Jameson's carriage with his Daily Bugle desk in and Opeie's was Sandman's bumpy looking sand carriage.

Unlike other things that we have built recently there was the added satisfaction of adding the power functions in to make the wheel spin. The fact that Opeie could have it remote control made the whole thing more exciting, and there was nothing quite like the look of pure happiness on Opeie's face being the first to push the button and watch our creation spin.

Another act of kindness from the loving big brother.

Its Opeie's second birthday in a couple of days and we're all getting very excited, when it comes to that little cutie i am always blown away with how kind and caring Seth is. He's always sharing and always does kind things for his little brother. A few weeks back Seth came to me and said that there was something specific he wanted to buy Opeie for his birthday, he wasn't sure how much it cost but he wanted to know whether he could sell some of his old toys on eBay so that he could buy it for his little brother.

We had a good mooch round his room and i got listing on eBay. We sold a couple of things which made us enough for Seth to buy what he wanted and when it arrived a couple of days back he was very excited and now cant wait to give it to the birthday boy. While Opeie was in the bath tonight we wrapped it quickly so its all ready for the big day.

I think its adorable how much he loves Opeie, i would never have done something like that for my sisters at that age, he's a very lovely little boy. Hopefully Opeie will be exactly the same as he is brought up with the same values and will always be told how important it is to take care and do nice things for the people that love you.

"Alright squaddies, time to hero up!"

When i first started writing the blog i planned on it mainly being about toys and what me and the boys collect but as time has gone on its become a lot more personal and although i do write about toys on many of the posts there is a lot of posts about the general things that we get up to. A few of the earlier post were taken up by a collection i started for Opeie before he was even here with us. I'm a huge Marvel fan and on finding out about the Super Hero Squad range and how many characters there were available i knew i wanted to start collecting them for that boy of mine.

It's been over two years now but for the last 6 months i hadn't brought anything to go with the collection. To be fair they have been in a sealed crate and basically i had forgotten about them... that is until last week when i decided to have a look on eBay and noticed that quite a few had been listed (strange because apart from the 3 special Amazing Spider-man boxes and the 3 Avengers boxes they haven't released any for a while). I purchased 2 boxes but that afternoon i realised why they had re surfaced on eBay. I had popped in to our local B&M to buy some tea light candles and as usual i had a quick look in the toy isle and there staring back at me were a couple of boxes i needed for my collection.

Obviously i made the most of my find and as i was writing a post about them i thought i would also include the pictures from all of my previous posts. I wanted to get them out of the crate and retake the photos but the boys don't know about them and i didn't want to risk them being seen. These are this weeks purchase...

Finding these has really catapulted me back in to my collection and ive been looking on eBay every day since. I'm still desperate to get hold of the three Avengers boxes from the movie but no luck yet. The main problem is that many of the waves of figures that were released were not released in the UK (story of my life!) the US gets all the best toys. Ill start the pictures with the three Amazing spider-man boxes from the movie...

Rather than just waffle on about them as I'm sure that might just come across a little boring here is the photos from the rest of my collection and the previous posts. I really hope that Opeie continues to be into super heroes or these are just going to end up sealed in that crate until i get my own room for my toys.

"You're a wanted man, Peter Parker. "

Since i started the Super Hero Squad collection and wrote my First Post i have found myself really obsessing about certain packs of them, at the moment its the Captain America and Avengers Movie sets as i don't have any of them. These have only moved in to first place of my must have list today as i had a delivery this morning and now finally own the Amazing Spider-man movie sets that were pretty much dominating my eBay searching over the last few weeks.

I'm still surprised I'm so into these as Ive never really been that interested in smaller action figures but its still the fact of the variety of characters you can actually get. Plus Opeie really loves playing with Seth's ones that arn't boxed away. I think when i wrote my Second Post was when my obsessing was at its worst. i was literally searching eBay 10 times a day for 'Super hero squad' in hope that a rare find would pop up for 99p or something. I think this was mainly fueled by the fact that Mrs M had managed to find 4 hulk boxes and won them in one lot for 99p. yes she's a legend!

Since i wrote the Third Post my compulsive behavior has died down a little but this in only because were saving for a holiday and other things. Most of my items are brought with money i make on eBay selling unwanted bits around the house so its not to bad, i very rarely use our money. Both me and Mrs M are Hoarders so there's always something to get rid of.

Seeing the film made me want to get hold of them even more, these will be great toys to own in years to come and Ive managed to get quite a collection together so far.

I'm sure there will be many many more Super Hero squad posts as I'm always looking to bulk out my collection. i cant wait for Opeie to start really getting into all the other characters so i can explain who they all are, but then again there's always the chance he wont be as excited about them as Seth was when i first introduced them to him. Time will tell on that one i guess. It does work in our favour that he always wants to get involved in what were doing though. and he's desperate to get into some super hero costumes. Plus so far he's Spider-Man and Hulk crazy so it should keep me in the toy purchasing for at least a few more years.