"I saved the city again, it was off the chain!"

It's that time of year again where me and the boys can be found standing around in toy stores for extended periods of time feeling up small plastic bags. We love a new LEGO Minifigures series release, for the boys it means new characters and for me, it means new parts and the recent LEGO Batman Movie Minifigures are the best yet. After receiving a surprise package over the weekend of two of those saute after blind bags it has kick awakened that 'got to have them all' feeling that I get with every series.

We are all really excited about the release of the new LEGO Batman Movie (the trailer is amazing) and the Minifigures and kits that have been released alongside the movie have got the three of us pining (not something we need this soon after Christmas). With Cave Batman and Arkham Joker toying with me from the shelf (I love a good Pun), I rang my mate Steve who works at our local Smyths to make sure that they definitely had lots in because I knew where I was heading first thing Monday morning. 

 For me it was all about Vacation Batman and Lobster-lovin Batman, but the entire series is a must have. As expected that evening the boys began their plans on what they think our next big build is going to be so that should be interesting over the next few weeks.

Right before the boys went to bed they had decided that Vacation Batman needed a pool so while the boys were off to bed, I clanged around downstairs rooting through the LEGO (very zen), finding parts to build them a bat-shaped pool, worthy of the dark knights awesomeness. One of the things I love most about a new Minifigure series is the inspiration for building that comes with them.

Today we couldn't come home from our trip out without swinging by Smyths for another bag feel up session. I must have felt up 150 bags and I still can't find Pink Power Batgirl or Glam Metal Batman which was very disappointing (there's always tomorrow though).

 If you haven't seen them yet, the new LEGO Batman Movie sets are definitely worth looking at. I'm desperate to get my hands on all of them.

LEGO Minecraft - The nether Fortress

As much as I love LEGO in its entirety there are some themes that I struggle to know what to say when reviewing the product. The main one being Minecraft and although the kits are awesome and the minifigures are really interesting, I know literally nothing about the game apart from the main character being called Steve. Luckily though Seth knows his stuff which is handy in these sorts of situations.

I was going to just leave him to do his own thing but as we were playing one afternoon we came up with the plan for me to take a series of pictures of the LEGO Minecraft Nether Fortress and put them in our comic format and for Seth to add in the story of what he thinks is going on, enjoy...

As a custom builder the LEGO Minecraft Nether Fortress drew me in because of the interesting minifigures parts and all the deep red bricks, I can definitely make good use of them if Seth decides to brake it up.

The Nether fortress is one of four LEGO Minecraft kits this year and they are all really interesting. If what I hear in the playground at Seth's school is anything to go by Santa is going to be inundated for requests for Steve and his brick friends.

'The product was provided by LEGO GmbH without any obligation in regards to the content of the review’

"With a mini series you can give the story a proper sense of pacing, aproper sense of closure."

It's that time of year again when I can be found sitting in a toy isle feeling up small plastic bags. People expect it more at the toy stores but when I'm in the supermarket sitting on the floor surrounded by packets i get some pretty funny looks. Yes you've guessed it, the latest series of LEGO minifigures (Series 12) have hit the shelves and I've had my eyes on some of them for months, since I first saw  images online and in the LEGO club magazine.

My friend Steve is a big collector of these sought after little chaps and I've helped him with his collection along the way. I'm not a collector myself and the boys are like me, with each new series it's more about new parts, hairstyles, accessories and body parts. I love them, you can spend ages creating an epic building and it can come out looking amazing but sometimes it's the minifigures you use on the build that really make it stand out.

After seeing the images a while ago it was all about the pig for me. The animal ones are always the first to grab my attention, I'm still after the bumble bee from a few series back. What surprised me though is that when I opened up the wizard it was instantly my favourite in the series.

The Goth was also a figure of interest for us, mainly for the hair. Me and the boys like to make minifigures of our friends and the parts on the goth (or Gother as Opeie calls her) will come in very useful. Opeie and Seth were really interested in getting hold of the rockstar too as my friend had given them the girl rock star a few weeks back.

I've written about this over many posts but one of the great things about the minifigure series which I don't think it's written about enough is the educational value of Lego. It's great for honing your children's fine motor skills but the release of historical figures and characters from literature over the minifigure series means that the boys know who these famous characters are long before covering them from an academic point.

Last weekend at Madam Tussauds Opeie ran over to a waxwork and said "daddy I want my picture taken with Shakespeare". I wouldn't have had a clue who that was at 3 and that's all because of LEGO.

The boys got a brief lesson about the three musketeers by Alexandre Dumas and their moto 'one for all, all for one'. Again this was because of LEGO's character choice from series 12.

Today's trip to the shops got me the two other characters we needed for our LEGO collection the Princess for me (I think it's about time our very own princess's minifigure got some royal attire) and for Opeie the lifeguard. Next On my bag feeling mission is to go searching for the gamer for Seth.

I was excited to talk more about the tech side of the Series 12 minifigures but sadly...

With each minifigure purchased there is a code inside for you to redeem online so that you can take your new character into the online LEGO minifigure game. I'm really looking forward to this to be available on either Mac or Tablet as i think it is something that Seth will really be interested in. Each character has special stats and abilities to be used in game. The game can be played for free but you can also pay for extras for your characters to up your game and give you the advantage. You can also pay to become a member giving you access to other extras. It all sounds awesome, hurry up and make it for Mac LEGO.

Its going to be a busy week or so of bag feeling, i love the excitement. Now to start thinking about all the things were going to use these guys on.

"Sometimes that light at the end of the tunnel is a train."

Since our recent purchase of a big mystery box of LEGO and our new found love of LEGO trains, we ended up building a DC Comics inspired Joker train which I wrote about last week. Our track was looking a little bare and while me and Seth were out scooting on friday we walked across a level crossing and feeling inspired he rushed back to build one for his track. I love how he went on Google for some ideas and then sat and built it while we were making lunch.

I wanted to make something fun for the boys to play with too, to add to their new track so while the boys were in bed last night I started to build them a platform based again around their favourite comic book characters, the minifigures have got to get on and off somewhere right?

With some great colourful characters to choose from and base shops and stands on, I had so much fun building. I wanted to build a couple of shops/buildings based around specific characters and their colour schemes so that the boys could use them for their usual creative role play. I started off with one of my favourite DC minifigures 'The Flash' who is manning the Stations information desk and ticket sales. Best man for job of a fast paced railway station I say.

When we purchased The Riddler Chase kit a few months back, I thought it was a little random that he came with a banana but it gave me all the inspiration I needed to build him a Deli/Pizza stall. I love builds like this as you can go all out with the smaller details and with this amazing timeless building toy there is is no end to the possibilities.

I wanted to make use of the large printed, single piece Batman doorway that we got when we brought Opeie the Batman easy build Defend the batcave kit. I love these kits for the larger printed pieces as they are great for younger builders to build around but also look great on custom builds like this. I think it worked perfectly for the exit from the station.

I had no idea who to base the space that was left on as I wanted to build something colourful but then I remembered the custom iPhone cover I built a while back and the character that was sitting In the back of it. The remainder of the platform definitely belonged to Aquaman and it had to be a newsagents. I love the orange, green and yellow colour scheme and it ended up looking great.

A few benches, bins and CCTV and we were ready to add all the other DC characters in or collection. Luckily Mrs M had some work on last night so apart from the rummaging of bricks it was a quiet night making the most of one of my favourite and more creative hobbies.

If your a regular reader to our LEGO posts then you'll know that I like to include ourselves in most of our custom builds and this one was no different, wearing fitting outfits of course.

The boys were super excited when the got up and saw what was waiting for them and they couldn't wait to start adding to their new piece of LEGO railway. This has by far been the best kind of train toy we have had as every piece of it is fully customisable if you have the patience and creativity.

"When I was a kid, it was a huge insult to be a geek. Now it's a point of pride in a weird way"

Ive become a little slack over the last week with my writing, part of that was needing a few days break from the internet, some nights i feel like being online consumes me. The other thing slowing me down was the recent purchase of ANOTHER huge box of mixed LEGO. I had an email last week from my friend LEGO Steve (as the boys like to call him), saying "have you seen this?" with a link to an eBay listing titled simply 'Lego'. Two big boxes full and not far from where we are, buy it now for £25. I literally couldn't click the buy it now button quick enough and i gave myself a headache with excitement of the bargain. I'd picked the LEGO up within the hour and so one of our favourite past times began (routing through a huge box of mystery LEGO, what would we find).

The new LEGO has certainly kept us entertained and we have found some great things while sorting through it. The first thing of interest i spotted was Jabba the Hutt, closely followed by Lando and Princess Leah which got me searching for what kit they belonged too and it seems that Jabba's Sail Barge is in there somewhere which i have started to build. There were many other fun parts but the thing that has got us the most excited was the selection of train track, wheels and remote control. I didn't think i would be that interested in LEGO trains but as we started to build a custom train i quickly realised how wrong i was. 

If you are a regular reader you will know what comic book geeks we are and although i'm personally a huge Marvel fan the boys love Batman and when it comes to custom super hero builds i am all about the Joker because of all the colours we can use, remember the LEGO Joker's ice cream parlour?

So two days ago we started work on our remote control Joker train and it has been so much fun to build. The wiring is easy to connect and once that is in you can pretty much build around it.  The end result came out so well and the boys were really excited about it.

Because of the battery pack and remote signal receiver there wasn't much room for minifigures so while the boys were in bed (and while i should have been doing the ironing, oops) i started to make a split  carriage based on two other DC villians that we have in our collection. Firstly Poison ivy as i have been wanting to do something interesting with all the LEGO plants, leaves and flowers...

And then Mr Freeze because the boys love the minifigure and the frozen cell pieces so much. Considering it didn't take very long to build it came out a lot better than i expected. Then it was time to build the track which sadly we didn't have enough of so we ventured up to our local Smyths to buy a box of track because we wanted to see our new creation in action (plus we didn't even know if the remote and receiver worked, thankfully all was fine).

And that is what we have been playing with since getting home from our scootering adventure earlier. Weve had lots of different themed LEGO included in our story and the boys room looks like a LEGO explosion has gone off, but i love it,it takes me right back to my own childhood. As always our story revolved around Me and Mrs M being captured and held hostage, this time by that chilling character Mr Freeze. Luckily our fearless boys were on hand to run along the roof of a moving train to make sure that we made it to safety, What brave boys we have. This random find of track and remote has helped us to love LEGO in yet another way and i think the LEGO rail may be showing up a fair bit in our custom builds in the future, Seth has already started plans on his Christmas train idea (although his initial idea was an evil Santa train that was a mobile weapons factory where elves we forced to build guns hmmmm.....not too festive! )

Well for all you fellow LEGO builders out there, happy building, until next time. choo choo!