"It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life."

I love it when a toy inspires the boys to do something creative, which is what happened this week. The postman played his lovely tune on our letter box and me and Opeie rushed to the door excited. It was a package we have become quite accustomed to over the last 12 months and each package as exciting as the next, but this one a little more exciting as it was the final stage of this years Play patrol applicants. Opeie did what he does best and destroyed the outer packaging to get inside, 'Bigjigs' he shouted, he knows that packaging and logo better than anything.

Inside was the Wooden Safari Animal Building Blocks And Opeie's initial response put a huge smile on my face "ooooh... a Gilaffe". Opeie pronounces all his words so clearly but I can't bring myself to correct him with giraffe as it's so cute, I'm still gutted he no longer pronounces dinosaur 'Di Si Yur'.

So the 'Gilaffe' came out with all his friends and we built some lovely creations. The quality as always is exactly what you would expect from Bigjigstoys, the fact that they are made of soft wood means they are perfect for a long life with enthusiastic children. The colours and design are timeless and classic and one of the great things with them being wooden is that if you child moves on to the Bigjigs rail products you can have a zoo built along side the track, the toy can grow with your child's development.

As I said at the start of the post the Wooden Safari Animal Building Blocks Inspired Opeie to get his craft box out as he said he wanted to look like the lion. So our afternoon was than taken up by making Bigjigs inspired masks which was great as the toys had Also helped Opeie to be creative and use his imagination.

Good luck to all the other bloggers x

"I think all great innovations are built on rejections."

 I think that it was only fair that i get Seth to write this review, the truth being that i really didn't enjoy playing with it. maybe i have become a bit of a building material snob but i just wasn't happy with anything that i made and i sat playing with Seth for quite some time. I'm the sort of builder that gets an image in my head of what i want the finished piece to look like and this was never going to happen with plus plus. I found only having one shape very restricting. It would have been unfair of me to write the review when it is aimed at children so i will hand you over to Seth who surprisingly didn't agree with me at all....

"Hi it's Seth, when we ordered the pirate dress up we were sent some Plus Plus too by the nice lady at The Toadstool. I had never seen it before and I was excited about playing with it. When I opened the box I thought it was good and I wanted to build lots of objects. I told Pauly I was broken and needed him to make a key to wind me up. I had fun making spaceships. I thought they connected really good. Then we made a pair if glasses which was funny.

Pauly made an Incredible Hulk and a Muno (from Yo Gabba Gabba). I wish they made curved bits so that I could make some different things. Opeie likes to empty them out all over the sofa and then we have to save the pieces from getting lost. I also wish there was gold and silver pieces. The pieces were really easy to connect together which was good because sometimes i find some building things hard to do. I will play with these loads."

"I did it! I finally killed Batman! In front of a bunch of vulnerable, disabled kids!!! Now get me Santa Claus!"

The weather was pants yesterday which pretty much threw a spanner in the works for going out anywhere, plus Mrs M had had an awful night with Opeie and id got up with him quite early so we were both shattered. So a day in the house it was. We asked Seth what he wanted to play and he said Lego  so off we went to play closing his bedroom door behind us (Mrs M cant stand the noise of the Lego being rummaged through). 

Ive been trying to get hold of the Jokers Funhouse for Seth's imaginext collection but they just keep going for crazy money on eBay and you cant buy them anywhere in the UK so i decided that instead i was going to build one out of Lego for him. I thought maybe i would regret my decision but i really enjoyed it and Seth was really chuffed with the outcome.

I made it in the style of the imaginext one as it appeals to younger children, i had a look at the Jokers funhouse kit that was released recently and although it looks great i wanted Seth to have something that was a one off. I love Lego its such a great toy that never loses its appeal because there is so much you can do with it. The kits are great and i do love to snap up as many as i can but my heart is really in designing our own things. Seth always seems more satisfied when we have built something ourselves

I made the Ha's lift up so that Seth could get his little hands in from both sides. I get so carried away when I'm building something, Mrs M always says Ive got loads of patience but playing with Lego is one of my favourite things to do with the boys.

After i had finished making it i decided that it looked a bit grim without any characters, the only Official DC villain we had was Catwoman so i got rummaging again through the Minifigure boxes and managed to pull together a Mad Hatter(luckily i had a leprechaun), Killer Croc (although he was a bit rubbish), Poison Ivy and Manbat(i used the werewolf). I was a bit gutted i couldnt manage a Joker but oh well Seth will be happy when he see's them in the morning, they did kind of make the build.

Putting in the checked floors to the rooms really added to the funhouse and made it look a lot more like somewhere the Joker would hang out. I am now planning on building a batcave next as i think Seth will really like that plus there will be somewhere for his batman minifigure to live, so keep a look at for that one.

Seth got really excited towards the end of the build as while he was rummaging he found a small brick with playing cards on he could barely catch his breath, bless him. I found some Lego money so i decided to have the villains round a table of cash, playing cards, knives and guns. (probably not suitable for children but luckily Seth's not aggressive).

I wanted to get my Seth and Opeie minfigures involved in the action so while Opeie talked to other members of his tactical assault team Seth kept a look out through his binoculars on the riot van. Any moment now they will be storming the Funhouse and making their arrests.

If your interested in seeing more of the build then please check out my YouTube video that was made by my very beautiful lady earlier this evening. Now i better start thinking about that Batcave.

Until next time...