"Sometimes brightening up the outside of your store is just the thing to perk up business, yes?"

Day 126:

Conversation in the house recently has been heavy on the Animal Crossing. Since picking up a copy of New horizons a couple of weeks ago Opeie has been busy building his island and creating and it has been so much nicer hearing about that rather than Fortnite. While he was having a chat with his friends yesterday I decided to build him Nooks Cranny. His smile when he came off the phone and saw it was contagious and leaving the build empty means that that smile can continue tomorrow when we are building the furniture together. Another win for those amazing bricks.

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

Day 90:

Homeschooling (in our usual way) went out the window pretty quickly when all this crazy started. For most of us the days have all just merged into one big oddity, Ive lost all track of days and time and in my foggy head I'm now stuck at 'before Corona (BC)' and During Corona (DC). It's get harder and harder to motivate Opeie in the way I would have BC because he misses his friends so much. So I now just fully focus on what makes him happy. His latest idea for a comic has been keeping us busy in the LEGO department, focusing on set designs and letting our brick creativity flow. This should be a pretty awesome project, stay tuned.

"The greatest healing therapy is friendship and love." ... 'and LEGO'

Day 84:

Today was another one of those days that can just do one. When these days pop up you can guarantee that myself and Opeie always turn to the LEGO for a pick me up. Those magical bricks have some crazy healing power. 

Hoping for a few happy days please.

Building a better you is the first step to building a better anything.

Day 37:

This crazy lockdown kinda feels like its been sponsored by LEGO in our house because it has pretty much shaped every day of being stuck at home. Keeping our creativity alight is getting the both of us through this and in a much better headspace. Yesterday we built a tin robot for the word 'Vintage' on our #creativelockdownproject over on Instagram. 

If you fancy a bit of creative inspiration to get you through, head on over and join in HERE.

“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity."

Day 36:

As expected yesterdays miserable day was long gone when we woke up this morning. Shockingly I slept from 8:30 till just before 7:30 which is really unlike me. We got straight up and went for an hours walk which was lush. The morning was filled with LEGO creating for our #creativelockdownproject which today was 'Botanical'. Before heading out again in the car to make the most of the Pokemon Go community day (with no community 😥). Everything about today was happy and we're both hoping that the coming days are much the same, I need to hold on to this sunshine feeling.

"DOOM DOOM DOOM DOOM"

Day 17:

Hi it's Opeie, lately (while not being able to go anywhere) I have been watching Invader Zim, its amazing. My favourite character is G.I.R. he is so cute!!!!! I love his stupidness! so I ordered a plush of him which is coming on Saturday I can't wait! also yesterday while being stuck in I made a LEGO G.I.R.it is really strange not being able to go out. my favourite character used to be mini moose so I built him too. I love the DOOM song its so stupid.

If you are reading this I hope you are not too bored in your house. bye.

"The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind."

Day 3:

Ive not been in the greatest headspace today but the sunshine has really dragged me through it. After  a peaceful walk this morning with Becci and the boys, Opeie and I spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting in the garden building LEGO. I think those magical bricks may just help us through all of this.

If you are doing your part and staying home then stay creative, there's real magic in letting those creative juices flow. 

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.

'With great building power comes great creativity'

Back in June I wanted to write about fathers day but I really wasn't in the right headspace to be writing anything. I'm kicking myself now for all the things I could have documented from the last year or so because the blog has always been an online journal for the boys to remember all the fun things we have done together. When they do look back on this I don't want them to feel like I was completely lost during the time I wasn't writing. I may have not been posting anything but I was still crafting, adventuring and playing with those amazing boys every single day. 

Last week, while the weather was thrashing it down Opeie decided that he wanted to build the Daily Bugle from Spider-man, A scaled down, solid build that he could transport around backwards and forwards to his friends.

He made a baseplate the exact size floorspace that he wanted for the build and then we started building our way up. I love how Opeie and his friends play with the things that they are creating and the style of the build really reflects that. With something like this, with more than two floors, he really wants to be able to play with each floor in different ways so we built each level separately making it easy to unattached and placed side my side so that all rooms could be played with together.

It's the little quirky bits that Opeie adds to all his builds that really makes me smile. The golden bugle and the stone bugle player really gave Opeie's creation some character.

The great thing about this build was that it made me think about fathers day again and it gave me a chance to tie that build into this one. Opeie had given me the Spider-man kit with Ned in and was desperate to sit and build something together. When it comes to fathers day I just want to be doing something fun with the boys and when it comes to gifts my favourite ones are the ones that get us creating together, its the kind of bonding for us that you just can't beat. Opeie filled me in on his idea and then we sat down with a cuppa and got stuck in. It was the perfect kind of day for a 'dad celebration'.

We seem tone going through a bit of a Spider-man building binge at the moment and we're just finishing off something big so watch this space.

"...and of course he wanted his crayons to be happy. And that gave him an idea."

I can't ever see LEGO not being a part of our lives, over the years its been an amazing bonding experience for the boys and I and we have built so many fun things together during this time. I love putting our own spin on the Sets that LEGO releases but for me the real magic comes in those completely original and creative ideas. I love hearing Opeie's weird and wonderful ideas and then sitting down together and working out how we are going to make these things work is something pretty special.

Im not sure where the idea for this build came from, it could have been influenced by the Oliver Jeffers book The day the crayons quit, which was always a favourite of ours. Or maybe just one of those mad ideas that pops into our heads at times. Either way our mission was to create a box of crayons with a colourful story to back it up. Opeie has a thing for miniature play sets that he can carry around with him so the box had to have some form of scene in there too.

Anything Opeie creates has to have some form of backstory, sometimes the stories are deep and other times they are complete madness. This one was about an angry purple crayon, fed up with the restraints of being imprisoned in a box and having minimal outdoor time to let his creative juices run wild. He eventually reaches breaking point after being mocked by his peers for wanting more from life and goes on a rampage, melting his colourful housemates (poor light green crayon 😭).

For me these are the kind of LEGO builds that really get me motivated, giggling to ourselves as we talk about the story while creating is the best kind of bonding there is. I can't wait to get stuck in to the next crazy idea.

"Whatever good things we build end up building us."

I loved growing up in the 80's/90's. Childrens TV and Movies these days don't seem to have the magic that they had back when I was young and impressionable. I would get lost in Saturday morning TV, and films like The Goonies and Back to the future must have seemed to my parents like they were being played on a loop. One thing I would have loved from these days back then though are the LEGO movies. The movies are a constant flow of building inspiration and some of our custom builds have come from watching these amazing movies.

The LEGO movie opened up all sorts of building fun for us, with its series of fun mini figures and its creative kits to coincide. As soon as it came out on DVD it was nearly always on in the background while we sat building together. The LEGO Batman Movie came out and instantly became the top building inspiration movie (in fact we watched it this evening as we built). The Batman Deathstar came off of the back of this and ended up being such a great build. 

And now we are weeks away from the release of the LEGO Ninjago movie, With some interesting kits and an amazing Minifigure series to get us all inspired again. With the release of all these fun movies, this is such an exciting time for LEGO and I'm excited about what we could possibly end up building together after the boys have seen the movie.

While we wait for the upcoming release though we have been feeling up bags collecting the Minifigure series and building a couple of the kits. There's nothing quite like a great selection of products to get you revved up for a movie release and the Manta Ray Bomber (70609) and Master Falls (70608) have done just that as the boys are desperate to know how they fit in to the movie.

With a huge selection of new parts from both the series and the minifigure range, LEGO have again added to our ever growing brick empire at home and we couldn't be happier about it.

The boys have got their eye on the LEGO City 70620 kit, which as awesome looking as it is, is sadly another of those LEGO kits which is a little out of our price range. Thanks to the online instructions though I think we may build our our own but in a completely different style... watch this space.

The LEGO Ninjago Movie hits the cinemas on October 13th

"A true knight is fuller of bravery in the midst, than in the beginning of danger."

There used to be a time when I was a big part of a LEGO kit build, I'd sit there doing all the hard parts and when the boys had lost interest, because they were taking too long and they just wanted to play with the finshed piece, I'd get to finish them off. These days though the boys get so into building the kits and want to do it all themselves so I have been demoted to the guy that puts the stickers on straight. It's fine though I do get to do the occasional solo build when the boys are in bed, plus I get so much out of watching them work together as a team, building something awesome.

There are so many exciting kits out at the moment and even more due to be released this year, Opeie especially has really got into kit building recently and Seth has been his go-to guy when building custom pieces to go with the kits he is putting together. One range that has really got them both excited is the latest kits from the Nexo Knights range. Chapter 2 boasts some pretty amazing kits and as I stood in our local toy store ogling the boxes, I found myself completely hooked on all the new bad guys. 

The first to get my attention was Ruinas Lock and Roller, the kit is great and an evil looking jail cell wagon is always going to be of interest to Seth, he loves building holding cells. The fact that this one has a trap door though had the pair of them excited while they were building it. Being a collector of LEGO monsters and baddies though, it was the Ruina figure that I wanted to get my hands on most. 

I love all the bad guys from the latest range (Opeie is always telling me it's strange how Baddie and Daddy rhymes, clearly it was meant to be, mwahahaha). Rogul was another minifigure that got my full attention, how awesome is that rock base. Lance's Twin Jouster is the sort of kit Opeie loves, he's all about the good guys and Seth loves locking the good guys up so they play great together. Opeie is also a big fan of vehicles that split to become other vehicles, so being able to split the Twin jouster into a motorcycle and jet pack added another level to the boys play. The jet pack can also be added to battle suit Lance, if you purchase that set too. I love how well thought out these kits are and they are perfect for role-playing action.

I can't wait to see what the Nexo knights have in store for chapter 3 and after seeing this release i'll be keeping my eyes peeled for more interesting baddies.  You can check out the entire Nexo Knights range HERE.

"Why did you build this thing with only one seat?". "Uh, cause last time I checked, I only have one butt."

After watching a video on youtube a couple of weeks ago of someone installing RetroPie on to a Raspberry Pi and using a Mario/Duckhunt NES cartridge as the casing I was completely hooked and found myself wasting an evening trapped in a Youtube video loop, clicking from one video to the next (I'm sure we've all been there). I was fascinated by all of the things you could do with this amazing tiny computer. After chatting to my friend Steve who is my techy go to guy, I decided to pick one up from Maplins for the boys to have a play about with. We installed Retropie with lots of retro games on and I even shocked myself by watching some videos so that I could add in some coding to fix some bugs. There is that much literature out there that learning some tricks and programming should be easy for the boys to use.

As awesome as the Raspberry PI is to use, the problem we had was that it is just a motherboard, meaning that all the parts are exposed which isn't great when you have little ones using it, plus it doesn't look great sitting on the bookshelf in our lounge. So I did what I always do in this kind of situation and turned to those amazing bricks. I knocked a multi coloured case together in no time but as I got into bed that night I felt really dissatisfied with the outcome. As Opeie wasn't feeling great yesterday morning we decided to have a LEGO creating start to the day, as he happily sat and built an awesome police car for his LEGO Batman movie Barbara Gordon, I had another go at the PI casing.

Seth had made an awesome sofa for Lobster Lovin Batman and it was sitting on the side because he'd not used it for anything, so I used that as the starting block for my case. He had built it so well that I thought it needed displaying. The great thing about LEGO when it comes to a mini project like this is that there are so many different elements to choose from, you can build to fit perfectly. leaving all of the ports accessible, with an easily removable lid to get to the board itself. 

With the new LEGO Batman movie Minifigure range in the shops at the moment, it was inevitable that we would be using those as they are so much fun. Plus they are the most played with LEGO at the moment with the boys so it was definitely a fitting case for what they are loving right now. Anyway, that's enough waffling from me. Here's the strange looking Batboat that we ended up with...

Definitely a lot more interesting to look at than the bare motherboard and if Seth gets bored of it, we can just build a new one, that's part of the magic of those amazing, addictive bricks.

"My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard..."

Sometimes I just can't help being childish, after opening 'Fairy Batman' in our blind bags from the new LEGO Batman Movie range, Opeie set about making a ballet studio for him to work his stuff. Obviously, his lovely display got me thinking..

...and I couldn't help but add a little bit extra into the mix! I love LEGO!!!

"Much to learn you still have"

It doesn't happen very often but when I see the chance to have a solo LEGO kit building session I fully embrace it. The boys want to be a part of all the building but when it comes to LEGO Star Wars they are just not that interested, so I use that as 'me time'. I can fully appreciate why they are not interested in (probably) LEGO's most popular theme, as in many ways they are like me, they love building in as much colour as possible. The LEGO Star Wars range is definitely heavy on the black and dark grey but they are true to the movies so its understandable, I'm not sure Darth vader would have commanded the respect and fear that he did, if he were flying about in a pink and green stripey Tie fighter.

As much as the Monochrome ships are less pleasing to me visually compared to, say the recent Beatles yellow submarine kit or (sticking with Star Wars) the Ewok village (which I would love to get my hands on), there is something else that excites my interests with these kits, the shapes! As a custom builder who spends a lot of time lay down on the floor creating with the boys, I am fascinated by the design features of the Star wars range and the detail that goes in to recreating the obscure shapes of some of the ships.When I reviewed the LEGO AT-ST and the Tie Striker a few months back I couldn't wait to get into building the main body of the AT-ST and the wings and cabin of the Tie Strike (which by the way is an awesome build). Seeing how the pro's design these kits is a huge inspiration for my own building with the boys.

Last nights build was no different. As I started unboxing Krennic's Imperial Shuttle from the Rogue One range, I couldn't wait to see how they had designed the crazy shape of the main section of the ship and those huge impressive looking wings. One thing I always feel a little guilty about when I'm building kits alone is Opeie not being there to build the Minifigures, it is his favourite part of any build but this is the only chance I get to do it. The 5 figures and Droid that you get with this kit are great, Pao is definitely my favourite, I'm sure that face of his will come in very handy down the line.

There's something about LEGO building that really relaxes me and clears my head, Mrs M always jokes that LEGO to me is like a form of meditation. There is something so satisfying about watching a build take shape. I wasn't expecting the wings to be as big as they are, even though the measurements are on the box. Once they were on though I couldn't wait to build that impressive main body of the ship, it gave me so many new ideas for creating odd shapes, it was some serious LEGO schooling.

I slipped in to that LEGO trance as soon as I started building the shuttle and before I knew it it was 2am as I clicked the last few pieces in to place. I can honesty say, I have never had a LEGO kit that wasn't an absolute joy to build. It may be a space ship heavy on the black bricks but the structure and design of this kit is really interesting. With retractable landing skids, a main body that opens up from every angle and huge wings that fold up, this kit really is a perfect playable kit as well as a great display piece. You can learn a lot about brick placement from the LEGO designers and I was full of inspiration after completing this.

Much like the AT-ST and Tie Striker build (which I also built into the early hours of the morning), I couldn't resist taking the Imperial shuttle outside to photograph it in the moonlight. With a huge range of LEGO Star Wars kits available, Krennic's Imperial Shuttle is definitely a must for any collection.

To see the full range of LEGO Star Wars and Rogue One kits click HERE!