"For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward."

Its been a fun build up to Christmas this year mainly because we have decided not to go mad, buying things for the sake of it. When writing their letters to Santa this year, like every other year, we told the boys to just write 3 things that they wanted. You would think that this would be easy for any 6 and 11-year-old, the only difficult part being narrowing the list down to 3. For Seth and Opeie though it was a bit of a struggle. 

For a long time now I have been the sort of person that gets to Christmas and genuinely doesn't want anything. I am so content with how my life is that there is nothing that could make me any happier. All I ever want is a happy Mrs M and the boys. This has unexpectedly rubbed off on the boys, Seth especially. Opeie had one thing on his Christmas list that he really wanted and Seth simply said "I feel like i have everything that I need" which I thought was a very grown up and humble thing to say.

I like to think of Christmas as a time for making effort rather than it revolving around heavy spending. I like to try and do something special for the boys around the festive period that doesn't cost anything and this year I decided that I was going to make them both an advent calender. I had made them an advent in the past with the help of Mrs M, this year though I wanted to build them something using those lovable bricks.

At first I was kicking myself that I hadn't kept the LEGO advent calender we had bought last year as they would be great for reusing, all I would have had to do was design a cover for the box and I'd have been sorted. We ended up using the tray from our previous one as paint pots when crafting. Good old LEGO and their recyclable packaging. This years LEGO calender became my advent and mind started ticking away with ideas for the boys, I knew exactly what I was going to do.

Opeie has become a HUGE Ninjago fan since the LEGO Ninjago movie was released so it was a no brainer that his advent was going to be Ninjago themed. I decided to build his advent in the style of a Japanese temple with 25 doors to open. For each day a Ninjago character for his collection. Any LEGO enthusiast reading this with probably think 'that would cost a small fortune' but being a member of so many Facebook LEGO trade pages I managed to trade all of the figures for other LEGO items that we have. The advent didn't actually take that long to build and the look on his face on the 1st was amazing. Now on day 18 I get an excited little boy waking me up to tell me who he has got, its awesome.

I struggled at first for Seth's advent as he's not into any themes that come with minifigures. For Seth LEGO has become all about Technics. He loves playing with cogs and motors and working out how to make machines witch from an educational point of view is amazing. I decided to cruise the Facebook pages again and contact friends online looking for interesting Technics elements that he doesn't have in his collection. The problem I had though, was that I didn't know what style to build the advent (and I'm definitely out of my building comfort zone with Technics). That being said though I sat one evening and worked out how to make a remote control box which worked great but it looked boring so instead I decided to build a snowman with motor and receiver on the back so that Seth could open his torso every morning via remote and get to his LEGO Technic surprise.

Its been such a lovely feeling every morning watching them get excited about whats coming next and for me this is what Christmas is all about. A little effort goes a long way.

"Not all those who wander are lost."

We were having our usual fun at the park today, it was cold and the sky was grey but we were wrapped up warm, scooting, chatting and as always enjoying each others company. It was a nice relaxing and lazy Sunday afternoon after a busy day yesterday. But then disaster! the smallest member of our family unit decided to run off and like a rocket he was gone... But where to?

The thing about our quick footed little three year old is he's pretty good at hiding and being that small he fits into spaces us fully grown humans just don't fit. After a brief scout around the area Seth decided it was time to bring in back up. 

The Spy Net RC Recon Video Bot is a serious bit of kit based on a military prototype and has even been featured in the tv show 24. It is perfect for any budding little super spy in the making but also comes in handy for us clumsy parents who misplace our loved ones.  I would have been so excited to have owned something like this when I was younger, I was a huge James Bond fan and inspector gadget was one of my heroes. The Goonies was my favourite movie and I was always trying to make cool gadgets like Data. I just wanted to be a secret agent where very item around me, no matter how insignificant could be used for something AWESOME!

The RC Recon Bot is a strong durable piece of tech and it's solid outer shell means that it can withstand a fair amount of banging about. The unit can be thrown over any wall of ahead of you around 30ft for obstacles blocking your vision and can be used as a robot roaming vehicle with built in camera and a video screen on the remote. You can manoeuvre the robot 360 degrees and the lens can be manually adjusted to suit your roaming needs. To start our afternoon child hunt we dropped our unit down a hole in the parks climbing frame and began our recon mission...

Seth was up first and went looking around the smaller climbing frame for his little brother. The RC Recon Video bot has been able to get over every terrain we have tried it on so far, the tooth like wheels even got over a raised door frame at nanny and grandads house which i thought was really impressive, so roaming around this smooth wooden structure was no problem. Mrs M looked a little concerned about the welfare of the unit when it approached the slide but because of the solid casing, bouncing down the slide wasn't an issue. Sadly still no sign of our missing boy though?

Mommy was up next taking the unit over a bench and off the other side to search underneath too. but the boy was nowhere to be found.I love it when Mrs M gets involved in our adventures. We set up an assault course at home to put the device through its paces and she got quite competitive.

My turn to continue our search and i had a feeling Opeie may have been across the wobbly balancing beam, i was sure our robotic rescue unit could also balance across the full length of the beam and i was right the controls can be crazy if you want it to spin around lots but on more delicate journeys it works well under the pressure and can be quite smooth to control.

Where was that child of ours hiding???

Almost running out of places to search we guided the RC Roamer towards the big climbing frame hoping to get some sort of lead as to where Opeie had got to.

Seth had to get the bot over a difficult bit of the park and we had a couple of issues with the wheels not being able to get over rope ladders (well you've got to try) but from a tactical view point the unit was tackling every task and obstacle with the greatest of ease.

Thinking we had combed the park area thoroughly we assumed the little secret agent had fooled us and we were ready to give up, when we spotted something in the distance and sent the RC unit to investigate our findings.

There he was that little angel of ours quietly reading a book. The spy Net RC Recon Video Bot completed its first full mission perfectly, finding the lost member of our party and returning him to the people that love him most. 

With the mission complete it was time to head home, all that was left to do was test the range on the remote, if you can see that little dot on the white line ahead then you can see it can go a fair distance with the video feed staying as clear throughout its journey.

Seth being the massive Bond fan that he is has gone Spy Net mad so this afternoon we headed up to our local toy store to spend Seths winnings that he had been saving from hustling Mrs M every week over who was going to be star baker on the bake off each episode, she'll never learn.

We came home with the Spy Net Laser Trip Wire ready for our next adventure and since the visit the big kid in me is pining after the Ultra Vision Goggles, I could have so much fun with those babies! Stay tuned for our next spy related caper.