"Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness."

Yesterday marked the day of our friends Gareth and Vikki's wedding. Although I don't know them both that well, I get the feeling they are big kids like me. Gareth is a big fan of the Aquaman phone cover I made a few months back so I decided to make them a Lego themed wedding gift. I love a challenge and it was something to keep me occupied. Like anything we build together the first step is to find an empty container and look for pieces that 'may' come in handy...

I had an idea for a decorative box that opened up with the bride and groom inside. I picked white and pink as a colour scheme and started building but it looked overly femanine. I then changed the pink to red but a bow we made crossing the box looked like the st George's cross (not great for a wedding). I was getting stressed out at this point but then Seth suggested I change the red to yellow as he said he liked it on my original phone cover (always good to have Seths opinion on these things). I should probably point out at this point that before we had even begun building together Seth had made a Lego wedding piece of his own a few weeks before, which we all thought was really cute and very well thought out.

We started out building a plain white box to encase the minifigures that we were going to make. The plan was to make a bow going across the box from each side but as we carried on building we added little bits of detail in like the white and yellow corner pillars. The box seemed far to dark so we opened up the sides with archways letting light in from every direction.

   I wanted the box to open up wide so we added a tooth hinge (which are probably my favourite Lego pieces, sad I know). Because of the angle of the bricks on this part I couldn't have matching arches. So I sat for quite sometime working out a door with a heart shape cut out, it was a pain but I got there in the end. It ended up looking so good that that I made a matching one for the top.

We built a circular platform (Seth's idea) for them to stand on and kept Seth's original table he had made as I thought it was great. A bottle of wine, glasses and flowers set the scene and it was starting to look pretty great.

Then it was my favourite part of any of our builds, minifigure time. I ordered the bride online as we didn't have one in our collection. Vikki has red hair though so I had to change the hair and rummage through our box looking for a face with matching eyebrows etc, Gareth was easy apart from the hair (his is short dark and curly, a style I've not seen on a minifigure so he got a hat instead (more about Gareth's hair later though).

Although the piece was really coming on we wanted to make it a little more personal, the problem is with a minifigure bride and groom is they can kind of look a little samey so we needed to accessorise. We raised the base of the box and added in a draw at the rear, inside we added a costume change for them both. Vikki is a fitness instructor, so sweatbands and a boombox were a definite, black and red gym attire is his colour scheme at the gym. Apparently he's always talking about how much meat he eats so having a leg of meat in our collection worked out well and then it's back to Gareth's hair. And Gareth if your reading, my apologies. I was told your minifigure NEEDED Afro hair so I ordered the disco dancer minifigure for the look. (after meeting his brother last night I realised the hair would have suited a minifigure for him perfectly).

The gift was finished...

Next was packaging and we wanted to keep it simple. A plain vintage looking brown wrapping but we made a Lego gift tag that ribbon could be threaded through

Obviously we had to make a card to compliment the gift too, simple yet elegant (I love Lego).

I started this post a couple of days ago, the wedding yesterday was amazing and it was so nice to be a part of it, I will write about in another post, our Lego gift went down really well and apparently will take pride of place in their home, which is always good to hear. Although I got stressed at the start, this build was a lot of fun and myself and the boys enjoyed being able to use our creative flair to create something that brings a smile to someone else's face for once. 

Congratulations Gareth and Vikki you look so happy together and it meant a lot to us to be able to share your magical day with you xxx

"I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes."

Many of my posts are written about a single event, somewhere we've been, something we've built and sometimes something we are reviewing. Throughout the day though there are a whole bunch of things that we do aside from the boring housework to keep us entertained. Sometimes I feel a little like Hugh Grant's character from 'about a boy' thinking of the day as units of time, each unit lasting no longer than 30 minutes. "Full hours can be a little intimidating and most activities take about half an hour" (before Opeie starts losing interest anyway).

Today was one of those days crammed with mini activities, each as I said lasting no longer than 30 minutes...

Activity 1: a good old fashioned wrestle, all that pent up aggression and anger that builds up as a 2 year old unleashed on to a poor unsuspecting dad.

Activity 2: learning our alphabet. I'm quite sure I've got it down to a T but there's no harm in practising.

Activity 3: working on our creativity, Opeie informed me as soon as we had dropped Seth off that today he wanted to do some painting, which is great. Today's masterpiece was 'the cat in the hat! and the thingamajigger. Which spurred on activity 4.

Activity 4: watching an episode of 'the cat in the hat knows a lot about that', which gave us an idea for a craft activity that we will be doing tomorrow as disorganised daddy doesn't have any glue in the house (oops).

Activity 5: still feeling in a Dr Seuss mood and being quite excited about me finding one of his favourite books that had been missing for a while, Opeie asked if we could read 'Gerald Mcboing boing', while fetching his book though he spotted another of his favourite books, the one I wrote for Mrs M as part of my proposal. This then became half an hour of reading.

Activity 6: bath time, a little paint was spilled and Opeie was sweaty from the wrestling so we had a bath. The super heroes joined us and took it in turns to have their faces and bottoms washed (Opeie is a funny thing).

And all of this before lunch time, just goes to show how much you can do in a few hours. After lunch it was time to pick up Mrs M and then Seth and that brings me to now, sitting in the car waiting to walk up to the playground before starting our 30 minute units of time for this afternoon which so far looks like it is going to consist of blackberry picking, tea, possibly Lego (because we fit it in where we can) and cuddles before bed.

'You don't have to be sad to be feeling a little Blue'

After an in depth sit down talk with Opeie he has informed us that his favourite colour is blue! May seem trivial to most but I see this as quite the milestone. He's getting more grown up and independent by the day and he knows what he likes. So in honour of this new found love and your first favourite colour (which I'm sure will change soon), here's some blue things that daddy loves...

Just kidding...

 

And this one, that we're watching at the moment (and watch together pretty much every day).

I'm looking forward to hearing what your next favourite thing is, I find everything you say and do fascinating, I'm an extremely smitten daddy.

"The score never interested me, only the game."

When we are given a product to write about my mind is flooded with ideas of what I want to do, it usually tends to be a little eccentric but then that pretty much sums me up. The problem I have is that no matter how great my directional skills are,my cast of actors being 6 and 2 have more of a spontaneous approach to the job in hand (I'd be lying if I said sometimes this doesn't turn out better though). Because of this I generally have to work with whatever I have to pull together.

The Janod animal domino's from thetoadstool.co.uk are a great little set perfect for teaching the classic game (which at 2 Opeie really doesn't understand), with the added bonus of animal domino's on the reverse, which was actually a lot better for Opeie as he loved the fact he had to keep checking to see if he had the animals bum (much easier for younger players). Although I'm not going to bore you with the script and big plans for the post, which instantly went out the window when fake mustaches were applied to the boys (never under estimate the level of excitement caused by a mustache). Anyway, The Janod animal domino's...

Available at thetoadstool.co.uk

'Instructions? where were going we don't need instructions'

Seth is a Lego genius, I'm not sure that everyone see's it and maybe that's because i pay so much attention to what he is doing, being a little brick obsessed myself. But he blows me away with every little build he does and the way he is so creative no matter how small and insignificant to most people these thing are. Seth has become a huge fan of the 'Back to the future' movies over the last year but it wasn't until yesterday that he watched the third movie through. While watching the film he disappeared briefly and returned with his big box of minifigures.

I continued to clean the house while he sat and played with Opeie and within five minutes he came in to me looking very proud of himself. He proceeded to show me his custom Marty Mcfly (riding a hoverboard, of course) and Dr Emmett Brown. Its little things like this that put a smile on my face continuously through the day. Seth can make something of nothing and a lot of thought goes in to everything he does. Keep up the good work Seth I'm so proud of the mini builder you are becoming.

"The fingers must be educated, the thumb is born knowing."

The boys are always being given nice things by family members and friends, it's lovely to know that people are thinking about them when they are out and about and spot things they might like. Our friend Michelle had found a very cute gift that made her think of the boys and when Chris came down to see us on Monday he brought it with him. I'm a little disappointed with myself for not thinking of this simple yet very fun idea myself.

The set is a thumb print card making kit and yesterday afternoon we decided to have a craft session and give them a try. It was a great set for all of us and opeie loved getting his fingers dirty and making a mess.

Seth really got into the card making which was great as it gave us something nice to sit down and do together. Innevitably as with all craft activities Opeie lost interest after about 20 minutes but I'm sure as he gets older he will get in to designing things a little more.

After making the most of the cards and the stickers provided we decided to freestyle our own cards and while Opeie's recent new hobby is to copy everything his big brother does, Seths is still to copy me (which i think is adorable). Its very cliche for me i know but i decided to use my thumb prints to make the Avengers...

In great Seth style though he out shone me all the way with his amazing drawings. I'll never get bored of seeing the little characters that he creates. An excellent mini craft session and a great way to spend an hour or so, thanks Michelle. xx

"Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living!"

We had been looking forward to the August bank holiday for quite sometime, we didn't have anything huge planned but the fact that Mrs M was off for a three day weekend was reason enough to be excited. Sadly Friday came and due to unforeseen circumstances Mrs M ended up quite ill and basically sofa bound. Obviously she was well looked after with no shortage of foot rubs, i made sure her nails were painted and eyebrows were plucked as i know this is the best way to get her relaxed. (I know how to treat my girl like the princess she is).

We had arranged to see our friend Chris (gingerjamphoto.com) on bank holiday Monday and Seth had picked somewhere fun for us all to go, but Mrs M still wasn't feeling great and the thought of a long car journey really wasn't appealing, so we decided to venture somewhere a little more local. Unfortunately after driving most of the way there we had to turn round and find a different route due to a serious road accident.

Some bad navigating from the back seat and a couple of bad turns and our journey ended up a two hour stretch, not what Mrs M had hoped for being wedged between two car seats. Chris kept us occupied though with a barrage of terrible jokes that I can only describe as awful 'dad humour' (god help any children he may have in the future).

After our epic journey we finally arrived at our destination, desperate to get out and stretch our legs. The temperature had risen substantially since the morning so I was a sweaty mess. Seth was desperate to show Chris the dry sledging and Chris proved to us once more that he's as big a kid as all of us. The new gym mat/sledge has certainly been getting some use since being given to us by our friend Gareth (he's yet to come and join In the fun though). We all had a great time apart from a few near misses with the gravel at the bottom of the hill.

After a good few rides of the valley we headed back to the car to get the boys wellies on and go splashing. I don't know what it is about splashing in streams but Seth loves it.

Spending time with Chris is always a lot of fun and the boys love him to bits. Being a photographer he comes with the added bonus of taking great photos of the four of us together. Although we're always out together visiting nice places, one of us is always behind the camera so we actually don't have that many of us all together.

It was soon moving towards tea time and I think tummies were beginning to rumble so we decided to head home. It was a great afternoon, topped off with some yummy food, cups of tea and a few games of countdown on the boys blackboard courtesy of Seth Vorderman. All in all a great bank holiday Monday was had by all. Thanks Chris, for the photographs, TERRIBLE jokes and of course the great company.