"If music be the food of love, play on".

Me and Mrs M love music and both have a pretty eclectic taste, i love it when the boys hear music of ours and react to the songs. Here's a few of the songs that they love....

Intergalactic is definitely one of our eldest's favourite songs and has been for a while,we have to listen to it most mornings on the way to school. Its also inspired a fair few of our Lego builds.

Another of our top played journey to school songs is....

Apparently when we go away to the states this year we have to go and buy EVERY cereal mentioned in the song and try them, i'm totally up for that (who doesn't love cereal). 

There is something so cute about listening to my son mumble along to the words to 'shoot to thrill' he really loves this song. Weve recently been listening to this song in the car a lot too, I love listening to him chant the words "hey ho lets go".....

Our youngest doesn't enjoy being in the car much especially when he's tired or hungry, but 99% of the time we can get him relaxed or even sleep with this song....

But thankfully this isnt the only kind of music he seems to like (its more moma's taste). He's quite partial to a bit of Alkaline Trio,especially this track.....

Well we will continue to fill their heads with all the music that we love and hope that they don't end up becoming fans of speed garage!!!

we built this city.... we built this city from le....go bl....ocks.

One of mine and my sons favorite past times is Lego, when i was young i used to spend a huge chunk of my time building things out of Lego too (usually robots). I just love the way you can build a master piece then destroy it and build something completely different. Although we love building the kits....

......there's always so much more satisfaction from building something from scratch, Plus i always love the look on Mrs M's face when she see's our final creations. Last year we  brought 18kg of Lego for the boys (well i say for the boys but secretly...)

The day the Lego arrive we decided we should make something for mommy, as she loves giraffe's we thought that would be the best choice.

He now lives in the lounge and wont be taken apart (no matter how desperate we get for yellow and black bricks)

We tend to build quite a lot of random things

Each thing that is made,is made to my sons very specific idea's, (and trust me some of them take a lot of time to work out). I like to think of them as commissions. 

One of our recent builds came about when my son saw the Beastie Boys video Intergalactic. 

His specifications were:

moving eyes

moving cogs in the chest

chest should also have windows where you can see scientists working inside

360 degree body movement

claws for hands that move

arms that have 2 joints in each

jail cells in the legs to hold bad guys

A wind up cog on the back

And a detachable foot that is a ski car

Some times it shocks me that these sort of things come from out 5 year old

Any way here is the finished piece....

Well the little man was very happy with the outcome but now wants a girl robot to keep him company so watch this space.

I love the fact that Lego can keep you and most importantly the kids occupied for a long time,although there are times i should really be getting on with the house work! oops!

My youngest is desperate to join in with us and get in on the action but at 10 months and happy to stuff anything he can grab hold of into his mouth i don't think its a great idea (i will soon be stocking up on megabloks though).

It doesnt stop me making things that he likes though and it wouldn't be right unless i made some thing Yo Gabba Gabba.

This weeks 'commission' was of course super hero related,i was asked very nicely for a Captain America shield made of Lego.

Ta...Dar!!!

This year for Christmas the only thing that our son REALLY wanted was the Lego City police station, which he pretty much built himself. (i was very impressed)

Unfortunately since building the police station it has been taken over by the imperial forces..

It seems that the Lego city general public are more concerned with the drunken chef on the roof that is about to fall (during our Lego playing there always seems to be a drunken citizen causing trouble)

My son finds it really funny that when ever we play with his Lego city sets Darth Vader just rides a round happily clutching a diamond and a key to the jail cells, he never has any relevance to the story were playing, he just likes to have him riding around laughing (gotta love a child's imagination)

I'm quite sure there will be many other blog entries with our creations and Lego adventures,so until next time....

"A drawing is simply a line going for a walk".

As the weeks go by i am becoming more and more impressed by my son's drawings, i find the way children view things and the markings they use to express what their seeing so interesting. id love to be able to draw like him but im never going to be able to see things from his perspective.

Recently he has been drawing a lot of super hero's (surprise surprise). 

I love the fact that i don't even need to write who they are as you can clearly tell which hero he has drawn.

You can ask him to draw anything, at first he will say "i can't draw that" but once he gets going theres no stopping him. Me and Mrs M are both creative people and even met studying Art at university so we do everything we can to encourage the boys to be creative with many different mediums.

This is definitely my favorite of his super hero drawings (so far).

There's something really touching about your child coming to you clutching a piece of paper and saying "ive drawn a picture of you".

For example, this is me and my son having a food fight, he has chosen the classic tomato (im assuming over ripe for maximum effect on impact) i myself have chosen a slice of cucumber (im not sure what i was thinking that day but its quite clear who would win that battle).

This would be me again, cleverly on his part he has decided to draw this portrait showing both my front and rear. apparently i am naked and my bum crack goes all the way up my back?? more importantly i am anatomically incorrect (nothing beats being de-masculated buy a 5 year old). The pink spot on the back of my head is my brain!! (oh how i love my boys mind).

Both mine and Mrs M's favorite all time picture was the one he pulled out of his school book bag a couple of weeks ago. I love the thought of him sitting in school drawing pictures of us. Its clear he loves us as much as we love him.

"There's time enough, but none to spare."

I keep finding blogs and sites of people that customize toys, i don't go looking for them they just seem to find me. Id love to be able to get into doing things like this but with 2 young children there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day. Recently i stumbled across these amazing customizations.

Ive been collecting super hero squad figures for my youngest for when he's older and being a fan of marvel zombies I'm now starting to think that it might be cool for him to have some custom zombies that i could make him. Obviously that would mean buying more figures. (certainly didn't need my arm twisting there).

I can imagine the look on Mrs M's face if she walked in on me wearing a mask and holding a heat gun delicately melting action figures! she already thinks my super hero collecting is funny.

"When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat."

Unfortunately our sons muscle condition causes him to feel unwell a fair amount of the time, which at times can make him have quite erratic temperature readings (like tonight). 

We have a way in our house of explaining how poorly he is with the use of superheroes/villains.

If he has a slight Temperature he is Pyro

 

 But if he has a high temperature he is the Human torch

If his temperature is cool then he is Mr Freeze

But if he's really cold he's Iceman

its the first time ive ever seen a child get excited about the outcome of having something shoved in their ear.

super heroes win again!!!

Tony Chu is cibopathic. That means he can take a bite of an apple, and get a feeling in his head about what tree it grew from, what pesticides were used on the crop, and when it was harvested. Or he could eat a hamburger, and flash onto something else entirely.

When all is quiet in the house and the troops have gone to bed i like to spend the relaxing part of my evening reading comics with my music on. ive been reading from quite a few series so thought i would include some in my blog, Ive been completely hooked since the first issue of 'The Walking Dead',id be shocked if there is anyone that has read this comic and doesn't like it. I was really enjoying the Tv series until i started to read it but the comic is so much better on so many levels.

Thanks to reading 'The walking dead' i found out about 'Chew' through the adverts, this series just gets better and better with each comic, i find myself feeling quite impatient that there is only one issue per month. The concept and storyline is definitely the most interesting i have read. A very cleverly written story i just hope that the series spans out as long as 'The Walking Dead'.

http://chewcomic.blogspot.com/

Im not quite sure i came about reading 'The Li'l depressed boy' but I'm so glad i stumbled on to it,its not really the sort of comic i would usually read being a huge super hero fan. The closest Ive read to this would be Ghost World by Daniel Clowes which i also enjoyed. You cant help but be drawn in by the main character and and in certain ways relate to him (for me it reminds me what i was like as a single man living alone,evenings would be taken up by movies,games,comics and pacing around trying to pass my time seeing as i barely slept). All in all an amazingly written and heartfelt story its just a shame there's only been 8 issues so far.

http://depressedboy.com/ 

As i said in a previous post i really should have read civil war along time ago but im glad im getting round to it now, im about 75 comics into the story at the moment so theres still a few to go. I never want this story to end when im reading it i really have to drag myself away or i wouldn't get any sleep (there's been a couple of times ive been waiting in the car for my son to finish school and Ive got so into the story Ive almost forgot to get out the car to go meet him,father of the year i know).

Haven't got very far into the Thunderbolts yet but am enjoying what ive read so far. Ive always been a fan of the villains!

Oh how i wish to meet a lady with green skin! I dont think i need to say any more!!!

I'm really looking forward to my son's getting a bit older and developing on their reading as my eldest is constantly saying he wishes he could read comics,i cant wait to fully introduce him to all the things i know and have loved since i was a little boy!!

Lego excitement...

Just a very very quick one...... have just seen this video and im very very excited!!

Wondering how important it is that we save money for our holiday???? hmmmmmm.......

I want new Lego please!!!

"The mask of Helmut,13th Baron Zemo... and the leader of MASTERS of EVIL"

 Id be lost without my iPad (another great gift off Mrs M),because of it ive been able to get back into reading comics, meaning that i am finally getting round to reading some of the comics i should have read a long time ago but just haven't managed to. As much as i love them im not the sort of comic book nerd that needs to be owning them all in print and im not stressing myself out over the fact i don't own a copy of Spider-man *1 in paper form.

 I am though a little bit disappointed with myself being a huge comic book fan that ive only just got round to reading marvel zombies but worse of all ive only just begun reading the epic run of comics that is Civil War (http://marvel.com/universe/Civil_War)

The great thing about civil war is that every super is involved so in reading it ive found other characters and super teams that ive never heard of before as the story is made up of comics from many specific characters run of comics. Shamefully i have only just found out about The Thunderbolts (yes and i call myself a comic book fan).

Ive always been into the super villains more ever since i found out about carnage and whenever me and my son are playing super hero's i always end up being the red skull as obviously Captain America needs someone to beat up,unless of course he's wearing his big foam thing gloves and then i have to be super skrull to take my inevitable beating. I couldn't possibly be a good guy as the hero's don't fight each other (he's far to young to understand the concept of civil war....at the moment).

 My villain of the hour at the moment is Baron Helmut Zemo one of Captain Americas nemesis, This is a villain that devised a scheme for his 'Masters of evil' to temporarily become hero's (and so the Thunderbolts were born) only to lose most of them mid plot because they enjoyed playing hero and actively tried to achieve redemption. Oops...

Cant beat an easily foiled super villain!!

(Zemo wouldn't stand a chance against us 2 Super Soldiers!!)