"A Pirates life for me..."

If you are a regular reader you will be fully aware of how much of an impact a certain brick has on my relationship with the boys. I've been in complete awe of Lego for so many years. This is a company that shaped a huge chunk of my development and is now doing the same thing for those two very special boys of mine. The last few years though have been the most exciting, being able to blog for Lego is obviously like a dream come true and being able to share what I know and the passion I have for LEGO with the boys and help to unlock their imagination is truly amazing too. Aside from those things, one of the huge reasons for this excitement is the vast variety throughout all of LEGO's awesome themes. There really does seem like there is no end to what this unstoppable company has to offer. Lego's own creations like Mixels, elves and Nexo knights etc are keeping kids everywhere (and us older geeky builders) entertained and well stocked with new parts and ideas, and new TV and Movie themed kits seem to be popping up all the time, which personally I cannot get enough of. Who would have ever though that the Ghosbusters would get a firehouse headquarters! (I can't stop pining over this kit haha).

With the new angry birds movie hitting the cinemas I was not at all surprised that LEGO would be in on the action and when I first saw the kits online I knew I needed a closer look at these interesting Angry Birds kits and bizarre Minifigures. Like me, the boys love anything LEGO so Opeie was really excited to see the Piggy Pirate Ship in his room waiting to be built. We've got to that point now where Opeie is really independent and wants to build on his own, which although, selfishly is a little disappointing for me because I love to be involved, is great for Opeie's development. Learning how to follow plans confidently at his age is a great skill to have.

The Piggy pirate ship is one of the larger kits from the range so I knew that Opeie would need a tiny bit of daddy help but he got stuck in and surprisingly built the entire kit pretty quick. I'm always on the look out for interesting parts when these new themes and kits come out and I watched eagerly as Opeie excitedly connected each brick.

The finished ship looked great and the fact that the oars and paddle wheel move when pushed really added to the play fun. The only downside to the kit for us was the Minifigures, as they are single piece figures (apart from hats). Opeie's favourite part of building a LEGO kit is putting the Minifigures together so I think he was a little disappointed with that missing. That didn't stop his imagination and creativity kicking in though and he knew exactly what he wanted to do with the ship as soon as we had completed it.

Our LEGO building recently has been all about the trains and with the release of the Disney Minifigure range (which are fantastic), Opeie requested that we build a stitch themed train. They have had track running around their room for the last few weeks so I wasn't at all surprised that the Piggy pirate ship recieved an upgrade of train wheels to the base. Thats what I love about LEGO, where kids often lose interest in many toys when it comes to LEGO every build and creation can be transformed in to something new with only a few extra parts.

 We didnt move from this spot for a huge chunk of the afternoon, with the pigs and birds sailing the plastic rails being chased by Disney's finest. The catapult included in the kit was great for blowing the trains off of the tracks and with swords and shields at the ready there was tons of swashbuckling action to be had. We changed the crane boulder to lego magnets too and had them picking up all sorts as Opeie drove them around. There is no toy quite like LEGO, its versatility makes it (for me) the most intelligent building toy on the market with endless possibilities.

With 6 kits released in the Angry birds range, The Piggy Pirate Ship has got us looking at other kits from the range and we have our eyes on the Pig City Teardown and Bird Island Egg Heist , both of which would look great added to the boys latest LEGO train set up. 

 

"You may be different, but we're all creatures. All dinosaurs have different features."

The subject of 'how much time our children spend in front of the TV' seems to come up quite a bit amongst friends, it's a hot topic. Although we don't have a TV license at home the boys do squeeze in a bit of Netflix between all the other exciting things that we get up to. I love the fact that with Netflix we can keep an eye easier on what the boys are watching. For us, most importantly, is the fact that they are not subjected to the utter tripe on TV (including most importantly, the news).

I've been really impressed recently how well Netfix and the books we are reading have been working hand in hand and it's got me asking 'is screen time really bad for your children if you are picking what they are watching?'. The blog has been a bit 'Dinosaur' heavy recently  but Opeie's fascination in the subject has got me hooked. We've been reading all sorts of books and doing dinosaur activities, then a few weeks back we sat down to eat lunch and Opeie asked if there were any kids dinosaur programmes on Netflix. We had been watching the walking with dinosaurs series but I think Opeie wanted something a little less bleak so I searched 'dinosaur'. This is where we first found dinosaur train and if I am honest I have been as hooked as Opeie ever since. This show is what all kids TV should be like, fun, colourful and with fascinating educational content. We've both learnt so much about dinosaurs over the last few weeks and Opeie has been soaking it up.

The last month or so of Dinosaur fun has been awesome and we've ploughed though all the books we can find in our local libraries but what has blown me away is what Opeie has picked up from the show while I've been making lunch in the afternoons. He has explained to me how to tell if a dinosaur is a theropod, which dinosaurs were from which time period (including a woman's jaw dropping when me and Opeie were playing dinosaurs in Ikea and I said 'I'll be a Giganotosaurus", to which Opeie replied "they were found in South America!)". As he stood at the counter in Holland and Barrett last week he informed both myself and the staff that Archaeopteryx means 'old feather', he is full on entertainment and his passion for dinosaurs is addictive.

So is screen time really that bad?

When I started to write this post it got me thinking about all the things me and Mrs M have have learnt over the years from Netflix. All the Ted talks we have watch and fascinating documentaries, including the ones that changed my diet (yes Netflix stopped me eating meat and dairy). There are a huge amount of educational resources out there, if you have young children then Dinosaur train is a must, slightly older kids? Horrible histories is amazing. Switch your TV on and take full advantage of the information that Netflix is making available to you, it's worth every penny of your monthly subscription.

"It won’t last. Brothers and sisters are natural enemies! Like Englishmen and Scots! Or Welshmen and Scots! Or Japanese and Scots! Or Scots and other Scots! Damn Scots! They ruined Scotland!"

Last weekend we got to hang out with our friends Sam and Jamie as they were down from London, it was an afternoon on chatting, eating and some daring scooter stunts out the front of the house from Jamie, a perfect afternoon. Not long before they were due to leave the boys asked Jamie what he wanted to do, to which he replied "LEGO!", it was like music to my ears. So we all headed upstairs to make good use of the short amount of time we had left. We got on to the subject of LEGO trains and showed Jamie our huge box of track and he said 'there's 25 minutes before we have to leave, shall we build a track?'. Neither me or the boys are going to turn down something like that so got building.

It didn't take us much time at all before we had pretty much every piece of track we own down and connected and Jamie was loving it. The track building and train driving went on for a little longer than expected as us boys got a little carried away (as we always do when LEGO is thrown in to the mix). Eventually though Sam and Jamie had to leave. What Jamie left us with though was a train building session that took us right through to bedtime only to be picked up again as soon as the boys woke up.

Its that time of the year again when a new series of LEGO Minifigures is released and I can be found in our local toy stores feeling up blind bags to complete our collections. I'll be honest I'm not really a fan of the Simpsons but i did love series 1 of the Minifigures and i was excited about getting my hands on the second installment. It was LEGO Simpsons series 2 that was fueling our rail themed build and me and the boys were really getting into what we were creating. We needed an interesting way to review the series and the rail build gave us the chance for some fun, colourful pictures.

Series 2 has a great cast, the series includes...

1. Groundskeeper Willie
2. Mrs. Krabappel
3. Julius Hibbert
4. Comic Book Guy
5. Fallout Boy
6. Professor Frink
7. Waylon Smithers, Jr.
8. Patty Bouvier
9. Selma Bouvier
10. Hans Moleman
11. Martin Prince
12. Homer (Sunday Best)
13. Marge (Sunday Best)
14. Bartman
15. Lisa with Snowball II
16. Maggie with Santa's Little Helper

 Some of series 1 crept in to our building as Opeie was getting far to excited about the bright colourful train with a curly slide on the side. I never thought i would be that interested in the LEGO rail sets but being able to make custom trains to go with different LEGO themes gives our playing so much diversity. Sadly as much as we would love them we don't own either The Simpsons House or Kwik-E-Mart so being able to knock something up like this for the new range is why i adore LEGO so much.

As i said our Simpsons train build continued the following morning when the boys woke up and later on that day we had to pop out for supplies after Mrs M drilled through a water pipe while putting up a mirror (a story for another time maybe). We were only missing one character from series two so while out we popped into our local Smyths for a spot of bag feeling. Thankfully it was a short visit and we found Comic Book Guy in the forth bag we checked, result! We got home and continued our LEGO build by transforming our batman station in to a Simpsons themed station. Aquaman's news stand soon became a comic book shop and the Riddler's pizza shop became Apu's rail side convenience store (LEGO is too awesome!).

 Opeie helped out finding a place for all of the characters and helped Seth build an extra cart with Dr Hibbert tending to and apparently very unwell Ralph on a stretcher. Patty and Selma became a couple of extreme sports rail surfers courtesy of Seth and before long everyone had their place in the build, everyone except Bartman and Fallout boy...

 Seth soon took care of that though by building them a rail side tree house as a base of operations, every super hero need a base.

 There really is no end to the fun you can have with LEGO and a simple "lets build a train track" from our friend Jamie, kick started a building activity that filled every spare minute of the weekend with those colourful bricks that we love so much. 

 

"If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts."

Being a parent to two boys it's crazy how sometimes the little daily tasks that you do can become a big issue. Today I was reminded that I take these things for granted, take having a pooh for example. I don't mean to be so blunt but it paints a picture. Laura was working in London today and me and the boys went to Madam Tussauds and then spent some time adventuring on the tube. We popped back at lunch time to meet Mrs M and grab some suitable food for Mr Allergy as she was at a vegan show.

Mrs M queued for almost an hour for the food and when it arrived i wasn't sure what it was and Mrs M looked as confused as i was as she took her first bite. It was repulsive! (I'm kicking myself now for not taking a photo), Seth enjoyed what he had which was lucky but i was really hungry, it was healthy and so I just ate it anyway. Mrs M found it so horrible that she got our money back, go Mrs M. After lunch (if that's what you can call it) Mrs M went back to work and we hopped on a train to continue our adventuring. This was when some very odd noises began emanating from my stomach, uh oh.

Within 20 minutes I was in agony and would have been doubled up had it not been for the fact that Opeie was sitting on my knee while I also held the pushchair against the Side of my chair with my foot. The train was packed and honestly I feared the worse (a complete loss of my bodily functions). Thankfully we made it off the train accident free. 

Have you ever tried to squeeze into a public toilet cubicle with two children with a really upset stomach? No? me neither and today wasn't going to be my first attempt. I'm sure there are many parents out there that have done it but I like privacy during this very private time and I didn't need two spectators that would have been practically on top of me taking it all in. That sort of image could stay with them forever. It was touch and go for the next hour, jumping from train to tube to train, carrying a pushchair up and down the stairs and making sure the boys were okay but we made it through. In the end we found a slanted ramp like wall and we sat there chatting until the pain had passed. It's amazing the things you sacrifice sometimes as a parent (not that the boys would ever know) and it made me realise how much I take Mrs M being there for granted sometimes.

Sacrifices were made and it was a lucky escape but maybe I won't be so fortunate next time.

"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!