"This used to be a funhouse but now it's full of evil clowns. It's time to start the countdown."

For those of you that were not tracking my daily updates on the Facebook page during the 25 days up to today then i thought i would write a quick post with all the Batman figures i had collected for Seth's advent this year. He didn't seem as excited as i had expected in the first few days but as the days went by he got more and more into it. I had loads of fun tracking down figures from carboots, charity shops and ebay and although it took me most of the year to collect them it was well worth the wait.

I'd have loved an advent like this when i was younger, maybe with He-man figures though. Opeie has been loving all the new figures and has been happily running around the house pretending to be either Batman or Superman. I love that the boys are so into their super hero's. I know it wont always be this way and I'm dreading them getting into football or something like that as ill be completely out of my comfort zone, but ill just have to adapt.

I on the other hand will never get fed up with action figures, it's something i have loved since i was a child and have never grown out of it. Even when the boys are all grown up i think ill still be collecting something. The toys that the boys have now will all go into storage for future generations of our toy obsessed family.

I'm not sure i would make an action figure advent again though, i think next year its going to be something completely different which I'm sure i will come up with very soon.

It's boxing day now and due to the opening of the presents yesterday and so much going on the boys forgot to open their advent. I'm assuming they will remember today but you guys can have a sneak peek at day 25 and know how the story ends before the boys do.

I'm sure the end of the story will be loved as after a good battle the boys like to make their figures kiss each other. That's the way it should be.

'Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.'

Its got to that time of year again when you start opening your advent calender's. Seth has been very excited about this coming round and we wanted to make it that little bit more exciting for him and Opeie. I was really disappointed last year when we brought Seth a Lego Star Wars advent calender, i was obviously expecting a lot more and really wasn't impressed with what you got for the £25 asking price. I did write an email to them letting them know this and to be fair they did send me a freebie, which was nice but unfortunately for them i vowed never to waste my money again.

If you have been reading the blog for quite some time then you will probably remember that last year i made Mrs M an advent calender after spending the year collecting rare Dick Bruna books for her collection. It went down a treat and i thought this year i would do the same for the boys. You can guarantee that the boys will end up being brought a calender by someone else and i didn't think it was necessary to get them more chocolate.

Ive spent the last 12 months buying Batman figures for Seth from eBay, charity shops, Carboots and anywhere else i can get my hands on them for cheap. I wasn't sure what i was going to do with them but as it got closer to Christmas i decided that i was going to make a Batman advent. Me and Mrs M talked about it and Mrs M thought it would be nice if we made Opeie one with books as he is a little book fiend. So again i started searching the pages of eBay but this time for books.

Rather than just wrap the Batman figures up Mrs M thought it would be fun to write a story to go with them in short parts which was a great idea as it meant that Seth would have something to practice his reading too. I got cracking on the wrapping of all the days presents and writing a short story and Mrs M made some beautiful fleece pockets for the boys presents to go in. I thought about mounting them on the wall somehow but then Mrs M came up with the idea of hanging them all from the ceiling in Seth's bedroom which turned out to be a great idea and it made the room look amazing.

Seth wasn't with us yesterday so when he got home earlier the boys got to open their first two advent presents. Seth was very excited when he saw his room decorated but also a bit confused as to what it was that was hanging from his ceiling. Once he realised he was desperate to get down the first two so he began his search for number 1 and 2.

Once he had found them i got them down and the boys opened them together which was really cute. Here are what the boys got for day one and two:

 

And Opeie's first two books...

Opeie was all over the Lego Batman figures (no surprise there) and Seth didn't get much of a look in but he was really excited about having new characters for the Lego Ice Cream truck, Helicopter and of course our Jokers Fun house that we have built in the last few months. Seth has been saying all night 'i wonder whats in the others? i cant wait to wake up tomorrow morning'.

Well it all turned out really well and i know as the days go by the boys will get more and more excited. I'm not going to write a post about them every day as I'm sure that might get a little boring for my readers but if you are interested i will be adding them to our Facebook page so please click the link below and while your there please 'Like' the page.

https://www.facebook.com/GiftsFromThePiratesBlog

The great thing about the fleece pockets that Mrs M made is that they can be packed away and reused again next year. Its got me wondering what the boys will be into next year as I'm going to need to start my searching a few months into the new year.