"We don't create a fantasy world to escape reality. We create it to beable to stay."

The Super Mario Maker buzz is still going strong in our home and it has clearly become Seth's favourite game from 2015. He will happily spend the time he has while doing his physio creating interesting courses for us to play. When he's not creating though he loves searching the awesome course world for creative courses to play as there is a huge selection.

Seth came out of school recently and told us that he had been watching a Dick and Dom show in class and really enjoyed watching them wreck a full size remote control car, so he was really excited when I told him that they had created 3 Super Mario Maker levels that could be downloaded in the course world and I had the codes.

Being a huge Mario fan myself Ive loved playing all of the games so far but Super Mario Maker really does have that something special and i love all the hype that's been attached to it along with all the great collaborations come with it too (like the Mercedes Benz level). Dick and Dom definitely did the game justice. If you want to attempt their levels yourself here are their codes:

Dick's level - F15E-0000-0114-40CD

Dom's level - 9C14-0000-0108-C0F9 

Dick and Dom's co-created level - C78F-0000-0124-C6FB

 Happy gaming.

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older."

Since writing for Nintendo it has kick started some serious nostalgia when it comes to my gaming. As I have said many times before gaming was a big thing for me when I was younger, it was a way to escape from other things that were going on in my life and Nintendo definitely shaped a huge chunk of my mental and emotional development. Here in Shropshire we have a local Facebook page where people sell their unwanted items and a few weeks back there was a blast from my past that popped up in my news feed.

Instantly I thought about all the games I used to love and fun times camping in the garden getting drunk and sitting up all night playing with friends. I managed to haggle the seller down to £15 which was a steal and this little nerd was very excited when I got it home. The next few days were taken up by me mooching through eBay pages looking for the games I loved and it gave me a chance to play games I found that I didn't realise had even been released.

At first Seth thought the console was really funny, many of the games seem pretty basic compared to the hand held games that you get on the 3DS these days but what I love about the boys is how they get really excited about things from my youth. They love all the old shows I liked as a child (in fact we just woke up and are watching the Super Mario Bros Super Show). I wonder what the boys would think though if I got my hands on the original Gameboy, Seth had a good chuckle when he saw one in the science museum a few weeks back.

The recent retro addition to our Nintendo family has been a lot of fun and has reminded me of many good times with friends. It's nice to think that the boys will probably have some similar great memories of us all sitting down together and playing and I love that again their gaming development has been shaped by Nintendo.

"Painting is just another way of keeping a diary."

This great weather we have been having makes all the difference to how we plan and spend our days. When the weather is bleak we can easily waste an hour or two in the morning deciding whether to venture out or not. When the sun is out though as soon as we've dropped Mrs M and Seth off we either head out on our adventures or we're making the most of the garden.

A couple of weeks back we met up with Opeie's friend at Cosford air museum. While we were waiting for our friends we filled our pockets up with stones from the rockery, oops. Opeie had been asking to paint rocks for a couple of days and these were just the sort of rocks we were looking for. So by 9am yesterday we were in the garden and all set up for a morning of painting and craft. I asked Opeie if there was going to be a theme and he said 'Mario'. The little Picasso knew exactly what he was doing and began to flick paint around everywhere.

I on the other hand was guided by Opeie explaining exactly what he wanted out of me (he's a very demanding artist). The weather was glorious and it was such a lovely creative morning. Opeie painted a Yoshi rock and I painted Mario's overalls on a rock.

Opeie then told me I needed to paint Mario's head while he painted a rock white to create Drybones. Ever since working with Nintendo Opeie has become a proper little Mario nut. It's always lovely to see the things I love rubbing off onto him, he's a real mini me.

"Driving is a spectacular form of amnesia. Everything is to be discovered, everything to be obliterated."

With the release of Mario kart 8 two weeks ago Nintendo has set us bloggers a series of mariokart related activities to mark the occasion. I'm so behind on the posts I want and need to write at the moment that I've put activity 1 and 2 together.

Activity 1 was to design our own karts and think about what their special abilities would be. When you have a craft idea it's difficult to keep a three year old interested especially one that gets easily distracted with the feathers, beads and string in our craft box. Opeie found out his Nintendo themed characters and we set about making them some fun rides. Dry bones apparently needed an invisible car. I did think of just dangling him on some cotton and taking a picture, well the cars invisible, but where is the creativeness in that. Opeie found some clear plastic and we got to work. We'd been munching on jam tarts that afternoon and Opeie wanted to use the foil cases for wheels. A couple of googly eyes and we had a kart.

For Yoshi we designed an Unwheeled kart out of plastic toy eggs. Opeie wanted a car that 'stomped'. He informed me that it can also eat other karts, yummy.

Our karts needed a track which was activity 2 so as Seth was home we asked him for ideas. The weather has started to get a lot nicer recently so it was time to pack away the winter clothing. So our idea was to create 'winter weather wipeout' using our winter clothes. A track made of scarfs, earmuffs tunnels and plenty of wellies.

  

Seth came up with the wellie cannon, shooting the racers further along the course.

First over the wellie bridge finish line was Dry bones, the boys had a great time building their winter themed mariokart course.

They even managed to fend off the snapping crocodile gloves...

Reasons to be thankful for Nintendo - quarantined in the car

I just can't shake this dam lurgy, it feels like we've all had some sort of ailment for quite some time and because I only had an hour sleep last night I feel rough. We've come to see nanny roo as it's Mother's Day and rather than spread my lovely germs around perfectly healthy people I have quarantined myself to the car on the drive. That may sound like a boring way to spend an hour or two for some people but then we work with Nintendo so this sort of quiet time is covered.

Opeie wanted a couple of new games to play for his birthday. He's such a cool 3 year old and is a bit of a Mario geek already which I love as the mustachioed plumber shaped a huge chunk of my childhood. So we got him Mario 3d land. Also it seems that Adventure time has found it's way into our daily life so I thought we would get him the new game too. Ive become a bit of a fan myself.

Being the super dad that I am I thought I should give them both a try for him, at least then I'll know what I'm doing when he inevitably asks for help, so all that's left to do now is put my feet up for an hour or so In our automobile of germs and hope that jumping on a few koopa troopers will help take my mind of this never ending lurgy.

I'll add this to my reasons to be thankful for Nintendo.

"In the quiet moments, the discoveries are made."

It's been a really odd few weeks for us. With the loss of a well loved family member and an array of negativity around us. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse but then one afternoon the week before last there was a knock at the door and there stood our postie holding an intriguing package. I love seeing a package at the door especially when I'm not expecting anything. It seems that those magical pirates that watch over the boys had been watching over me too. I opened the box to find the one thing I'd been pining over since Seth got his Nintendo 2ds back in November. 

for the last month or so while Seth has been doing his Physio Ive heard "i wish you could play 3ds games with me" and "when is mommy going to buy you a 3ds?". One afternoon Seth even told me that he was going to work really hard around the house for pocket money so that he could buy me one because, in his words.. "You're the best Stepdad ever". Seth is such a cutie and clearly was desperate for a play mate, so when i picked him up from school that afternoon and told him the news his little eyes lit up. Finally he would no longer play alone.

Mrs M has been working on something big over the last two weeks and since we are down to one Macbook due to a recent sippy cup accident, Ive had limited access to the computer. The blog has suffered a little but my gaming has come on a treat. We limit the boys during the day when it comes to gaming. Seth will always want to play during Physio and Opeie will always want to play Super Mario before bed, every quiet chance Ive had when I'm alone the 3ds has gone on and Ive switched off from the rest of the world. It doesn't happen as much as i would like being a stay at home dad but i take full advantage where i can.

Prime times for me are waiting in the car for Seth to come out of school or if that little angel of mine drops off while I'm driving home i just pull up outside the house, pop my feet up and play until he wakes up, my console is always close by.

Or my favourite time is in the bath, although i do tend to get carried away and lose track of time. The bath usually needs the water warming up three or four times while I'm in a Nintendo bubble.

Having the console has been a great distraction for the boys too, especially when we are waiting around for mommy. Last weekend while Mrs M was in the Opticians we sat down for a three player game of Mario Kart. Its great how the newer consoles can be linked to the older DSi's for multi player action. All this talk of gaming has made me realise i really need a bath, so I'm off for a bit of me time while Ive got the chance.

A big thank you to my Nintendo pirates, they've made this hairy gamer very happy.

"Thanks for playing! Way to go!"

This morning I thought it would be a good idea to make some masks with Opeie. I wanted to keep him Occupied in the house seeing as it's so cold and wet outside and he's not been feeling great since the weekend. I also wanted to keep his mind off the TV, I'd had my fill of Go Diego Go this morning. I asked Opeie what masks he wanted to make? As always he knew exactly what he wanted, Yoshi from super Mario with his long tongue sticking out for him and Mario for me, no problem.

The coloured card, scissors and glue came out and we sat down together to be creative. About 10 minutes in though Mrs M handed him a snack and he instantly lost interest so I continued alone and made a very quick Yoshi mask with sticky out tongue as requested.

As soon as Opeie saw the mask he got his creative mojo back and reached for his scissors. Now if you've ever tried to do cutting with young children you'll know that they need a lot of help so sadly no photos of us in creative mode. I held the paper and moved it round as he snipped away. Some of the pieces came out how we wanted and some of them were a little bit more unique, but the finished Mario mask came out so much better and had much more character than the mask I had made.

And that was our morning, now to fill the afternoon.