"He's going to build a supernatural entourage"

The Yo-kai watch buzz is still going strong at chez Pirates. Since the boys started playing Yo-kai watch 2 Fleshy souls a few weeks back, Opeie's watch has been permanently attached to his wrist and he has taken to carrying a big bag of medals everywhere with him (I'm guessing in case he needs to do battle). Seth has even picked up a watch of his own too. It's great seeing the boys roleplaying together. The Yo-kai excitement has had Opeie asking whether we can get a Yo-kai pad from anywhere. After looking online it seems that you can only get them in Japanese, so I decided to give my phone a LEGO upgrade for his Yo-kai play with. I love those awesome bricks.

"Gotta Catch 'Em All!"

I'm not usually one to get caught up in the latest craze so when the boys started talking about Pokemon GO they didn't really sell the whole concept. But being the kind of dad that I am I knew I had to get involved or I wouldn't hear the end of it as I had an excited Pokemon fan who wanted to play. After some reading and writing today I figured I should take him out hunting, so we headed out looking for Pikachu and his friends.

It didn't take long for my inner geek to come out when Opeie said 'Dad! I can't catch this Zubat!'. From the moment I flicked that first Pokeball I was hooked. I was a big Pokemon fan back in 1999 I even shamefully gave myself a Pokemon name and had it tattooed on the back of my neck (no I'm not adding a picture). We've just got back from an after tea Pokemon hunt and over the past 2 days Opeie and I have walked roughly 15km looking for these adorable little creatures, above everything else it is great exercise.

The reason for the post though was the raised concern of a 5 year old walking around with an expensive phone. We've already had to replace two laptops because of child related accidents and I didn't fancy being without a phone, so while I had a spare hour and the boys were playing with their friends, I turned to my old friend, (LEGO) and built a Pokemon case fit for outdoor Pokemon fuelled adventures.

The boys, as expected loved it and while we've been searching we've had some interest from other Pokemon hunters out and about. As happy as the boys were with the case, Opeie had his own idea and informed me that it needed the word 'GO' on the back in blue. I love the extra little ideas the boys come up with so I was happily oblige.

If you've not played Pokemon GO yet, get it downloaded to your phone. Its very addictive, its great exercise and overall it gets you out with the children, fun, FREE, outdoor family bonding! Perfect for the summer holdiays.

"Creative collaboration is awesome."

Last year while we were at the LEGO Golden Brickies event we met a really interesting chap called Mark, an interesting an eccentric gent that the boys refer to as the 'Hamleys LEGO guy' We hit it off since then and have chatted on and off. While Mrs M was working in London a few weeks back she popped in to Hamleys looking for something fun for the boys and bumped into Mark who invited us to an event for the release of DK's LEGO Awesome ideas book at Foyles bookshop.

In preperation for the event, knowing that Mark has the same phone as me I decided to make him a custom phone case. If you've been following us for a while then you will know that I like to accessorize and create relevent LEGO cases for each event so it was nice this time to be making one for someone else. It had to be a Hamleys themed one and Mark's awesome ringmaster outfit was definitely going to be star of the show. Needless to say the case was loved and it was great to put a smile on his face.

Now on with the event. It was awesome to meet four of the builders from the book and we got to see some of the models that were included. These books have been great for me and the boys for our building inspiration and its always interesting to see how other builders use those bricks that we love so much. You cant beat a LEGO event where a huge box of LEGO is dumped on your table and you are told to be creative. The boys were set a challenge to make models from the themes in the new book. Seth chose the city catagory and built a town clock and Opeie chose the space section and with a little help from daddy he built an alien spaceship...

It was a great way to spend a grotty, rainy Sunday morning and the event gave us a few ideas for some future builds, so stay tuned.

"Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that man doesn't have to experience it."

In a world controlled by technology I spend a lot of time worrying about the amount of 'screen time' Opeie has and the effects it may be having on him. I try and limit my own usage during the day as i don't want it to seem the norm to him and i would rather him be playing outdoors or doing creative things. As i stood in the kitchen a few days back and listened to him talking to my phone though I realised as far as technology is concerned, he can take it or leave it...

It's a metaphor you potato with eyes"

It seems to be all about the events at the moment and I'm loving every minute of it. The blog has opened so many doors for us as a family and being able to work with companies I love has been a dream come true. It seems that before attending these soirée's I have made accessorising my phone with a relevant theme my thing and this weeks event is no different.

Since trading in our depressing TV license for a much more entertaining Netflix subscription many years ago my evenings have been filled with all manner of great shows, documentaries and countless movies. Having that sort of choice at my fingertips and not having to channel flick to find it means my evenings are so much more relaxing, whether I'm fully concentrating or just have it on in the background while I write.

The list of Netflix originals has been getting bigger and bigger over the years and we're hooked on quite a few of them. The new series of Orange is the new black starts this week though and after being glued to the first two seasons I've been really looking forward to it starting. As I said at the start of the post it's been a week of events and after being invited to the Orange is the new black launch party it was clearly time to to start creating my accessory. After my dinosaur case this weekend I was looking forward to building something colourful, clearly the colour scheme was obvious.

Most people that know me wouldn't believe this but I'm quite a shy person at these events. The phone cases serve as a bit of an ice breaker, although this is the first I've made for a none LEGO event. It'll be strange not having my other accessory with me this time though, Opeie (my wing man). I'm not used to this whole 'doing things without the boys' so it's going to be interesting.

Anyway Orange is the new black series 3 starts Friday and if you haven't watched it yet it comes highly recommended.

"Well, here we are: a thief, two thugs, an assassin, and a maniac, but we're not going to stand by as evil wipes out the galaxy. I guess we're stuck together, partners."

I'm a big kid at heart, but I like to think I'm a grown up where it counts. I love playing with the boys, they come up with amazing, fun ideas and act out all sorts of interesting role play. There's never a dull day here. By 8pm everyone's in bed though and it's time for me to flip back in to grown up mode.

Some nights though we'll have been playing with the LEGO and after they've dropped off to sleep I can't seem to switch my LEGO brain off. I love building fun useful items and recently me and Mrs M upgraded our phones. I'm not one of those people that are really in to my handset, the exciting part for me With a phone upgrade is 'new phone, new LEGO case'.

You may remember the custom jobs I built for my last handset, these included aquaman, the cat in the hat and the storm trooper case that I built for the golden brickies, photographed below with a ukGarrison Stormtrooper (strangely that case ended up being rehomed by another UkGarrison trooper).

I needed this case to have the wow factor, I think it has definitely got that though after I received a phone call picking seth up from school and as I pulled it out of my pocket I saw young jaws dropping (job done).

Being such a huge fan of the LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy range, I knew my new accessory needed to be inspired by the Milano. I loved the blue, grey and mustard yellow colour scheme, plus I had a few spare minifigures knocking about to possibly include. It was never going to be a scaled down version as I knew that wouldn't work as a phone case but I wanted to build a spaceship. 

I'm not one for tooting my own horn but the end result turned out amazing and has received loads of great comments from people out and about. Star Lord now gets to fly about everywhere I go and the boys can play with my phone without fear of a drop and smash scenario unfolding.

Building a custom DC Lego Aquaman iPhone casing (because how else am i going to spend my spare time?)

Both my creative side and inner geek were working overtime last night when I spotted a Lego mini figure I hadn't seem for some time. Yes a small Lego figure does tend to do that to me. The house was tidy(ish), Mrs M was busy on the phone working and the boys were tucked up in bed so I did what any 33 year old would do in the same situation, I got the Lego out.

The mini figure I had spotted was Aquaman, he had been hiding in the Lego Batman Tumbler that me and Seth had built a while back. He's not one of my favourite super heroes but I have always loved the colours on his costume so I decided to revamp my phone after the Yellow Lego protective phone case I built a few weeks back. Crazy really that I would even go to this trouble over a phone I'm the one in the house that uses it least. I had time to kill though, what else was I going to do?

I'm no Tony Stark but we'll call this phone armour 'Mach III' as I'm in a nerdy mood. I didn't end up using Mach II (The Cat in the Hat case) as it was a bit much. I used the shape from the last build and did half orange and half green but it didn't look right so I added in a yellow belt, changing the phone wallpaper made it look more Aquaman esq but it still didn't look right, I really wanted to include the mini figure so I hollowed out the back to make a little home for him. Not meaning to toot my own horn but it came out far better than I had envisioned it so I was really pleased. I really should knock the phone covers on the head though and get Back to building bigger and better things, it is a head turner though when I'm out and about using it.

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

A few days back I wrote a post about building an indestructible toddler friendly iPhone case out of Lego. After going through a few high end covers (which were not cheap) I decided to give Lego a try, Lego being the answer to all my problems. It turned out great but has received mixed reviews. Negative comments usually being about the bulkyness of it. I obviously love it but decided a couple of nights ago that maybe it just wasn't eccentric enough. That night was one of those nights where I didn't have much to do, so while Mrs M tried to relax after a day of work I subjected her to the sound she hates most, as she put in a Facebook status update that night "Ah.... You know what sound I find most relaxing ? A thirty-something man rummaging through a pile of Lego last thing at night - bliss".

I'm a huge Dr. Seuss fan so building a Seuss themed Lego phone cover seemed like a good idea. I did say eccentric and it did need to fit my obscure personality. The basic shape was easy to build after making the last one so it took a lot less time to build. Mrs M looked puzzled wondering what I was doing but she's used to my evening Lego tinkering by now. I attempted to make the cats face but it didn't look right so I settled for an oversized hat to act as a partial screen protector for my new comical accessory. I added a spinning bow tie to the iphone cable cover which i thought gave a great effect.

Obviously all ports were easily accessible it would have been useless otherwise. I finished it off with a photo using the cat in the hat photo app which i already had on the phone (surprise surprise). If your reading this and you are interested in how the basic shape is made send me a message and i will happily do my best to make a tutorial.