Scarecrow and Bane dress up.

Hello its Opeie. i made a cool lego police car and i wanted to write a blog post because i was not feeling very well. i hope you like it.

'The Dark Knight Rises' and takes over most of our day.

It seems that today has been pretty much dominated by 'Batman'. The caped crusader pops up on a regular basis during our week in many different ways. This time last year Seth was building an extensive collection of Fisher Price Batman Imaginext which we started after trip to Smyths, It's all he talked about and the collection grew and grew. When we were in Florida back in November we stumbled across lots of them in Target that were 'Target Exclusives' and it rekindled the boys love. Santa also included one of the toys that Seth didn't have. We hadn't taken all of the Imaginext out at once in quite some time so i was pretty shocked when Opeie asked for it all out today and i realised the extent of the boys collection.

As far as younger children's Super hero figures go, this is one of the best ranges released. Boasting a great selection of characters, vehicles, buildings and accessories. The action figures are cute and unthreatening with happy faces and bright colours, perfect for younger super hero entusiasts.

"Well you can't teach the poetry, but you can teach the craft."

There's only 1 week left of the summer holiday and both me and Mrs M are starting to get a little sad. It's so nice having Seth at home and i know Opeie is going to be unhappy when his brother isn't about during the day. As i mentioned in my last post the summer holidays can be a pretty expensive time of the year. 

We love craft in our house, you cant beat a bit of cutting and pasting. I started looking about for something interesting to keep Seth occupied especially as we have had an abundance of terrible weather this summer. An then Bat-Blog posted an article about some fun card craft.

These were great for Seth as they were pretty easy to cut out and put together (well after printing them out again when Seth cut off all the tags), they can be found on http://www.squatties.com/. Seth's going through a batman phase at the moment so he picked two of the characters and i printed them out...

I only had beige card in the house at the time so they came out a little dark so if you do decide to have a go yourself make sure the card is white. I wanted to try something a little more detailed and obviously Marvel so i found these at http://www.cubeecraft.com/genre/pop-culture/ ...

I clearly got into these far more than Seth, they are so addictive and the end result is great. There are plenty of characters to choose from (and not just Marvel). Theres lots of Star Wars characters, Ninja Turtles, Ghostbuster's and even Muppet's (That's right Chris you can even print out Kermit).

As you can imagine these have kept me pretty occupied on many an evening, even though they were meant to be for keeping Seth busy (I'd say he's more of a cutting and gluing kind of child). The great thing about these is there is no need for any glue or tape. all the tabs slot into the holes made. The instructions and the 'cut lines' are very clear so there's little chance of error.

Since making these Bat-blog added another post with print out card craft at mypaperheroes which i have just started. These are going to take a bit longer to make though and you need tape/glue for these. I've been having issues with my double sided sticky tape. The finished item does look amazing though so watch this space. If i can find time i would like to make all of the Avengers.

I'm always on the hunt for interesting craft idea's so if any of you guys out there know of any then please message me with ideas and me and the boys will have a go for you.

"There's a magical place, were on our way there"

When your a nerd like me its a great feeling when your children get into something that you love yourself. Myself and the boys have been through quite a few toy ranges over the last few years, playing with them until they have lost their appeal, but the Batman Imaginext range by Fisher Price is the one that has stood the test of time (so far). Seth has loved batman for about 2 years ever since i introduced him to the exploding shark...

This is definitely one of our most watched things on the TV which is great because we are no longer subjected to episode after episode of Ben 10 (Thankfully that phase passed pretty quick). Its always great as a child when you see a great film or series that there is a toy range to back it up even if it is not directly based on it. The Imaginext range does just that.

After buying Seth the Batcave a while back we have slowly been building our collection based solely on good behavior which luckily for him he has a never ending amount of. Today was no different, Seth had been exceptionally good with watching and playing with his little brother and impecable manners so off to Toys R us we went.

I'll leave you with Seth to tell this part of the story...

"Today we went to Toys R Us and on the way there i was hoping that we could buy the Batboat when we got there we went straight to the batman aisle. We looked for the Batboat but it wasn't there, so instead we looked for all the things that i don't have already. I was allowed a new toy because i have been a good boy, it made me happy. There was a Batcopter and a submarine there but i decided to get the superman figure that came with his dog and some krypt...something, oh i cant remember. Kryptonite (Seth proceeded to repeat Kryptonite about 10 times in different ways). 

We had a look round the rest of the shop and found some batman gloves and mask. I'm going to try and be very good so that i can ask Mommy, Pauly or the pirates for them. I like looking at the batman Lego to see what minifigures they have to go with the Jokers funhouse that pauly built for me.

 He made me a Mr Freeze figure out of my minifigures and it was pretty funny because it didn't have a proper head it just had a see through Lego bit that was round."

Well Superman met the gang and fit in very well (Seth was happy at the extra good guy as he has lots of villains and they keep taking over the batcave so the caped crusader could do with the extra help). The great thing about the DC Imaginext range is the variety, there are a great selection of different characters and vehicles. which has been great for educating the boys on the characters backgrounds etc. Also you know that you can safely leave your children to play with these toys as they are made by Fisher Price (which is great for the many worrying parents out there). The range is really well made too which you expect from Fisher Price. There's nothing worse than children's toys that fall apart and it can be very upsetting for them.

Toys R Us has been great for getting hold of the sets although Ive been a little disappointed that they haven't had the Jokers Fun House in as me and the boys really want to get hold of it. I wrote recently about the Two Face van and Mr Freeze Ice cave also purchased from our local Toys R Us during their 3 for 2 range which i took full advantage of. I find that Toys R Us tend to have much better offers on than any of our other local toy shops, and the staff are always really helpful.

Ive got some great memories of my parents taking me to the Oldbury store in Birmingham so Toys R Us has always been special to me and I'm glad i can now share it with my boys. Plus i once had a Christmas temp job at the branch in Chester when i was younger, it was only for 2 months but i was in my element surrounded by toys. Its not changed that much over the years too with Geoffrey popping up on the adverts.

One of the things that Seth really likes about these toys is that they go with Opeies Batman little people range, the colours used are the same on both collections which is great. They put their Batcave's together and it's really sweet. Seth also likes playing with them as he thinks their little fat bellies are cute.

I think its great that Fisher Price have released the batman ranges to appeal to 2 different age brackets and has worked out really well for us with Opeie, he doesn't feel left out when Seth is playing as he has the same characters. Anything that can get the boys playing together is great with us but they do love playing Batman together its so sweet to watch.

Playing with the toys aside, they have also been great for Seth's arty side, he really enjoys drawing his figures and because of that his drawing gets better and better each time he sits down to draw, Ive had some really great comments about Seth's sketches and we will soon start framing them for his room...

If your as passionate about your toys as we are or if you just love seeing that excited look on your child's face then Toys R Us is definitely the place to go, even if we don't find what were looking for we never come out of there empty handed and we are never disappointed, "There's toys in their millions, all under one roof".

"Who cares about the clouds when we're together? Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather."

There was always something quite magical when i was younger about taking my action figures outside and playing with them in the grass, especially if the grass was a little longer than it should have been. I used to tie string on the handle of my bedroom window and peg the other end into the grass outside so that i could get my Star Wars figures to zip wire out it was so much fun.

Once outside i would dig holes and put my figures in them and fill them back in, leaving them only visable from the waist up and sometimes just the arm, leaving the garden looking like a battlefield of fallen soldiers. This i only did with the few figures i had duplicates of or ones that i wasn't emotionally attatched to. Seth has a collection of Action man dolls for doing just that which i have brought from various charity shops. Theres always action men in our local Charity shops, Seth's not bothered about them which makes them great for playing with outside and perfect for targets when we have the Nerf guns out.

We had brought Opeie and Seth an Imaginext van each from Toys R Us which we had put away for Christmas but it seems that now Mrs M is more impatient than me about giving the boys their toys. So after some VERY good behavior from Seth including always looking after his little brother and being generally lovely, Mrs M decided we should give him a treat from the pirates, So we put the van somewhere in plain sight and Mrs M said "i think i just heard the waves" (this is how we let Seth know that we think the pirate ship has been) so excitedly he ran off round the house searching for his booty.

Well as always Seth was very appreciative of his gift and looked up into the sky and said "thank you pirates" in a very jolly voice. The weather was lovely so we got a blanket and took all the Batman toys out in to the garden, and due to some lazyness on my part the grass was slightly longer than it should have been... Excellent.

I always think that when your playing with your toys outside it makes the role playing more realistic and who doesn't love sitting out side when the weather is nice. Plus you have the added bonus of random vines and plants that can wrap around figures stopping them in their tracks, great if your playing as poison ivy. Everything in the garden can be part of our play. climbing frame, slide, the figures can even grapple to the washing line and then crawl across it. The possibilities are endless.

When Seth wrote his last post (allow me to break the ice my name is freeze...) he mentioned his hammer car which i realised at the time he had had for a while but it hadn't been mentioned in any of my imaginext posts. He is right though it does look a little like a shoe. Its great for beating down the caped crusader though (it always seems to be the good guys taking a beating).

Opeie really enjoyed playing outside with all the toys although he has a tendancy to throw things about so when we packed up to go in i was left hunting around the garden for figures. As usual the Batcave had been taken over by villains and Batman and Robin had been locked up in Arkham Asylum. I have a feeling Seth is going to end up being a fan of the baddies like me. Especially when it comes to DC as the villains have so much more depth to them. 

When we went to see Batman live last year the Joker completely stole the show and Batman was left just looking like an extra in 'Joker Live' but that's a post for another time.

I'm quite sure there will be another Imaginext post soon as its all the boys want to play with at the moment, although i am waiting for star wars to rear its ugly head again. I'm hoping i have a few weeks before Seth's back at school and Williams Jedi talk starts influencing Seth again.

Previous Imaginext Post's:

"Allow me to break the ice. My name is Freeze. Learn it well. For it's the chilling sound of your doom."

"Still they cry out for him... for their hero and savior... but he is broken... and Gotham is mine!"

"Don't adjust your sets. Welcome to the Oswald Cobblepot school of driving. Gentlemen, start your screaming!"

 

"In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play."