"Being a father is the most important thing, if you ask me. It changedme as a person and gave me an all new life."

Selfishly, I love this time of year. I spend so much of my time doing thoughtful little things for the boys to make sure they are as happy as they can be. so when it gets to Father's Day it's all about me and my relationship with the boys and it will always be a special time of year. Maybe that sounds bad that I love a day for me, but when there is one special day every year dedicated to dads everywhere then I don't think it is at all bad to celebrate the one thing I am proud of the most, parenting two very special little boys.

Each year during the weeks before the big day, Im asked if there is anything I would like and each year I give the same (always grateful) answer "something I can do with the boys". A 'world's greatest dad' mug would be lovely but what I really love is something that me and the boys can do together, that's what Father's Day is all about, right?

I think that subliminally when I say 'something I can do with the boys' it must come across as 'LEGO please' because the boys usually wake me up on Father's Day with something LEGO related. I am quite clearly an ENORMOUS fan of those amazing bricks but more importantly, Lego brings so much creative and educational play and bonding time for me and the boys. So what's on my Father's Day wish list I hear you say? Well... I think that the Spider-Man Web warriors ultimate bridge battle kit is aiming a little high and may be deemed a touch greedy but all of the new marvel kits are definitely high up on my list, The LEGO City volcano exploration base and City people pack have also just been brought to my attention and they look really interesting too. there are some great LEGO kits perfect for Fathers day for us dads to drool over in the lower price bracket like the Hoth attack And the Droid escape pod From the star wars range.

If you want to go for a kit from the lower price range then you can't go wrong with Micro Fighters, these little kits are amazing and I loved them so much that I included them in the Hoth scene in the LEGO arcade. These little ships are very cleverly designed and each one comes with a great Minifigure. Star Wars not your thing? The Super Hero Mighty Micro Racers Micro Racers are also great little kits for the price.

I image there are countless dads worldwide who would be over the moon being given the gift of LEGO, not all of them though are fans of Star Wars and Super heroes. One sure way to appeal to those dads is LEGO Technic. I would love to build the new Porsche or Remote control Volvo with Seth as I think he would get a lot out of building something technical that size. Whenever I am custom building I very rarely use Technic parts but I love to get the occasional technic kit to build because I find it fascinating that you can see how the moving parts are going to work as you are putting each piece together. These are the sort of kits that I love to build with Seth because he asks a lot of questions when we are playing and from an educational point of view, being able to see the mechanisms built is the kind of learning resource that you don't get with most children's toys.

LEGO with continue to be my favourite way to spend quality father/Son time with the boys. Being able to watch them build and develop their creative thinking is amazing to watch and as a doting dad I am so proud of the way they are both turning out.

I hope all you amazing dads out there have a fantastic well-deserved fathers day.

"droids don't pull people's arms out of their sockets when they lose. Wookiees are known to do that."

Today is William's brother Matthews birthday bowling party and Seth is very excited. I love going to the parties and seeing how happy the kids are. When your older you tend to forget how simple and care free life used to be. I went to one a few weeks ago and the kids looked so happy dancing to the Hokey Cokey and the Superman song.

I asked Matthew's mom what to get him but i obviously knew it was going to be Star Wars related, i just didn't know what. It seems that William likes the more aggressive characters with the blasters and lightsabers etc but clearly Matthew has a more sensitive side as he favours the Droids and Wookies.

So me and Seth looked about and decided to buy him a large 13" Chewbacca figure, hopefully when him and William are having a battle, over sized Chewbacca will give him more of an advantage over the smaller lightsaber wielding characters.

Seth thought it would be a good idea to cut up one of his Star Wars comics to use as wrapping paper and he was right it looks fab, and what star wars birthday would be complete without a message from Yoda himself?

Any way Happy Birthday Matthew, were really looking forward to your birthday celebrations.




*Note to self: Don't let your 1 year old play with the box of someone else's present! packaging looks like its been kicked around a car park!!!

“You’ve never heard of the Millennium Falcon? … It’s the ship that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.”

It's time to get over the Star Wars sadness that has occured over the last few months and embrace it fully. Seth lives and breaths the force and there is nothing this super hero fan can do about that. So let the Galactic heroes collection for Seth's Birthday and Christmas commence. Its not been that long since i wrote the last post including the pictures of the figures he already had but Ive already managed to get my hands on all of these and ended up with a second Millenium Falcon (which is useless to me). It seems that these are far easier to get hold of than the Super hero Squad figures, which for Seth will be great news but for me and Opeie its a bit frustrating.

I may not be into Star Wars much but i do love these little figures, the main problem i have though is that apart from episodes IV-VI, i have no idea of the names of most of the characters making it very difficult to keep track of the collection. This will probably mean somewhere down the line i will end up buying characters i already have. Obviously multiple storm troopers would be a bonus but who wants 1 jar jar binks let alone 2???

Collecting these has reminded me of all the figures i loved of mine, my favourites when i was younger were Max Rebo the leader of Jabba's house band (the blue elephant looking thing with the trunk playing the crazy circle piano) and the Gamorrean Guard (the Green Pig Faced fellow wielding an axe from my last Galactic Heroes post. 

I was always playing with my Star Wars figures and now I'm thinking about it i dont think my love of marvel really got properly going until my mid teens so i guess i see why Seth is so into it. As much as he goes on about Star Wars if i ask him what he wants to watch on the TV, 9 times out of 10 he will say Spider-Man so maybe there's still hope. 

 

" Only a Sith Lord deals in absolutes."

Ive been a fan of the Fisher Price and Playskool comic figures for a long time, even before the boys were a part of my life. I had collected the Spider-man and friends Marvel range when they were first released (Kinda hoped id have a son to give them to and when i finally did he was very excited about them). A year or so ago i spotted the Playskool Star Wars range and knew that i had to have them for Opeie even though at the time he was probably the size of a peanut unaware of his dad's obsessive compulsive collections.

Even if they brought out a new range of these when the boys were older i think i would still buy them for any future grandchildren we may have. Probably sounds a bit mental but i want to be prepared (i wonder if i would be cool grandad or just weird old grandad that still reads comics and loves Spider-man?). I think that these toys are great for getting your kids into the things that you yourself love and more importantly, being made by either Playskool of Fisher Price you know that they are safe for your little ones.

Seth would be all over these if he knew they were in the house, He really like's the chunkier figures, i think its because their more robust, so many of the action figures you get these days are flimsy and have so many joints a younger child could easily break them. I sometimes get these out of their box for Opeie to play with while Seth's at school and he nearly always goes for C3P0 (I think he must be part Magpie).

The X-Wing for this collection is great, making noises and playing the theme tune etc. Only problem is the size and heavyness of it, i wouldn't say it was great for the younger kids. I'm assuming Seth will end up playing with this more and Opeie with the smaller Galactic Heroes X-Wing. I like how with many of the boys toys each of them have their own version of their toys so they can play together.

Well im still missing two of the characters which i will get round to tracking down eventually. Unfortunately with Star Wars i have a lot less motivation with completing a collection. Not that the boys would even notice, their just happy of the new toys.