Lego Paradise

Legos. There I have your attention. The other night the boys had an opportunity to go to a birthday party for one of Alex’s friends from scouts. It was of those instances where we had double booked ourselves. Mandy had to work, I had to work and we had a party. The plan was to drop Alex off and then I go home with Connor and work al little bit from home. Great plan right? It was until we were told by the boys’ mom that she planned on Connor staying. Curses, foiled again. Double curses when they saw the backyard. There was a huge tarp with four blankets placed on it. On those four blankets were roughly 4,000 Legos.  The idea was for the kids to build their own Lego racers and then race them down a track; Boys and girls welcome to Lego Nirvana. Picture a dog that you just gave peanut butter to in a Kong toy. You know how they just wag their tails in hyper drive and run in circles until you actually give it to them. Yup that was pretty much their reaction also. (Did I just compare my boys to a dog? Crap)

Come to find out this was a business that they had hired. He comes in with the tarp, blankets, Legos and track. Sets it all up, gives the kids building tips, and lets them loose. It was really cool to see the kids building and racing. To see the imaginations come to life within the cars, or planes with wheels or Connors car with propeller.

To top off the evening they had setup a screen in their backyard, had cake and watched the Lego Movie. Full disclosure here, I had left after only 45 minutes because I had to work and I had to get up early Friday morning for a very important event (Company golf constitutes important event). Mandy is the best to take one for the team and stay in Lego Heaven (watching the racers and building) and Lego Hell (EVERYTHING IS AWESOME) for two hours. Mom of the year!

It even inspired Alex to come up with his own racer for President Business the next day.

I really do hate the little things but I love what they bring out in the boys.

 PS you’re welcome for getting the song stuck in your head the rest of the day.

Pirate Teamwork

Before I get into this week’s Lego of the week, I want to thank Mandy and the boys for such a wonderful Father’s day. I got coffee in bed in my new Utes mug, had homemade biscuits for breakfast, got some Utes gear, some Poopperi (Google it. It’s really a gift for the whole family), went on a hike, went and saw How to Train Your Dragon 2 (awesome), had dinner at Park Stone at Station Park (three words: Tri-Tip, BBQ, Sandwich. Yup it’s that good), played catch in the front yard with one son and played Lone Ranger with the other:

All in all a fantastic day. I am nothing without those three. They make me who I am and all my life choices are made with them in mind. In the words of Lou Gherig, “Today I consider myself the luckiest man in the world.

Whew, I got that sappy stuff out of the way, on to Lego of the week. Most of you have kids. Most of you have multiple kids. I’m assuming most of you had siblings growing up. Since most of you have multiple kids and were siblings, I will also assume that most of you know about bickering and how it spikes in the summer months. No, you don’t know about that? Then you’re a liar. My brother and I were always pestering one another but we also got along too. My boys are no different. They can be best friends one second and crying the next. Yes I said second not minute. It changes that fast. Another phenomenon is the “I can’t do it” syndrome. If they can’t do something or figure something out in exactly 5.7seconds, we get the “I can’t do it. You do it talk.” However, for a brief couple of hours this weekend, that changed.

Mandy found a Lego set online of a cool little pirate ship for Connor, you know because he likes pirates……and Legos (shudder). The problem was it was an older set with horrible instructions. I mean horrible. I am a Lego veteran and these were hard. It was like Ikea and Lego joined forces to purposely to mess with the general public. Well, it sat in the basement for a week or so, mostly because we haven’t had time get to it (see previous post about baseball season). Alex saw it sitting there a decided to take up the noble challenge. I was proud of him for exactly two minutes until I heard, “I can’t do it. Can you help me?” Normally, I would have tried to help, because this one was hard but he asked right in the middle of me doing yard work and Mandy was at her Mom’s doing a yard sale. I told them to keep trying and I would be inside in a while to help out. They came outside to play for an hour or so then decided to take up the challenge once more. Again, it took two minutes when the call came out again from Connor this time, pleading for me to help. Once again, middle of yard work, figure it out or wait. I came inside a little while later and help them playing great together. I decided to get me a drink and decompress for minute. Then it hit me, albeit half an hour later (hey it was a good decompress), I told them I’d help with Lego. I told them to bring it up when I heard something I wasn’t expecting, “Oh, never mind. Alex fixed it.”

I was proud of my guys. They told me a tale of using teamwork to get the job done. Connor separated blocks and got the next pieces ready while Alex put them together. It took a couple of take aparts and rebuilds to get it right but they did it. I am super proud of them to get through this. I know it’s a Lego and not that big of deal but to them it was a huge accomplishment. Hopefully, they remember this next time they have a challenge and can figure it out together without Mandy or I.

 

Great I got all sappy on the blog again.

Tenth Circle of Lego

What a week last week. My father was in town, we golfed, we had baseball, Mandy was working, I was working, baseball practice, we took the boys and hit some golf balls, Dad left, swimming lessons and oh yeah it was Connors birthday this past weekend. Normally, this day is for this site is either Weekend Recap or a Lego of the day segment. We’re going to combine them today.  

I have spoken at length about my love/hate relationship with Lego’s.  They are fun way for our family to spend some time together building. They are the bane of my existence when I find them in every room of the house. I mean every room. It gives the boys hours of enjoyment. They cost so much money for something that stays in one piece for maybe a week but took hours to build. So for his birthday this year, naturally we had a Lego themed birthday party with Connor and six of his closest friends.

So Saturday was wake up, make Connor his birthday breakfast, which is the same as his normal Saturday breakfast, my pancakes (mine are the best) and bacon. Clean the house (why we cleaned before we unleashed 7 7-year olds in the house was beyond me), go to swim lessons. While Mandy picked up pizza and cupcakes for the kids. We got home from swimming and got ready for the party. This is what the counter looked like before the party.

Yes those are faces on cups made to look like Lego heads. Mandy went above and beyond on this one. What you don’t see is the ice in the shape of Lego blocks and figures (it’s hard to get a picture of ice. Well at least small ice).  Did you see the candy Lego bricks on the cupcakes? After the boys arrived, we fed them pizza, root beer, Sprite, Smarties, and then proceeded to the tenth level of hell. Yes, I said ten. When Dante was writing his Inferno, I am pretty sure the Lego Movie had not been made, or else he would have included it. The movie itself is fun, I really enjoy it. Seven seven year olds singing Everything is Awesome for the next two hours, yeesh. Getting them hopped up on soda, candy and popcorn before movie and Everything is Awesome may have been a mistake in retrospect. I kid of course, all the boys were great and there was only one puking incident, so that was a bonus. Not a bonus:

Not pictured is the Minecraft shirt and stuffed animal (ok the Minecraft stuff was fun). Yes this is what my week is going to consist of this week. Baseball and Lego’s.  For those that cannot see very well that is a Monster Fighter set, two Lego Movie sets and a Lone Ranger set. That is 1,620 bricks of fun. And that is just from Saturday. Ok, in the interest of fairness, Connor did do the 122 piece Lego, so it is only 1,498(wow math in my blog. Maybe I have grown up a little bit?).

Now we proceed to Sunday and the combined bday party for Connor and his uncle.

Holy mother, Mary and Joseph we’re adding 587 blocks of terror. For those keeping score that is now 2,085. Plus the two Mixels his Aunt got him, but again Connor stepped up and had those done before we left.

Here is Metalbeard, Castle Lego Movie (it can transform into a Castle hover craft thingy), two Mixels, two Micromanagers, and the extraction chamber. For all my bitching and moaning about how evil Lego’s are, last night made it all worth it. Connor wanted the Silver Mine Shootout set from the Lone Ranger built. I made him deal that if was good and cleaned the living room I would build it while watching the Hawks game (really they lose on the softest damn OT goal I have ever seen).  The building started well, until we opened the box and discovered six bags of bricks and two instruction booklets.  Those Lego pro’s out there know if you see two booklets your night is over.

It was the most fun I have ever had building a set. Connor was awesome. He would skip ahead and have the pieces ready to go. He separated all the bags into the different color piles. Three hours later the job was done. I had to finish the last bag by myself because, well there is still school tomorrow and it was 9 o’clock. We should have just let him stay up another 30 minutes. He kept opening the door to peek out to check the progress. Here is the finished product.

The best part of the whole endeavor, we were two hours into the project when Connor stops dead and says, “Papa, when you are done, Can I give you a giant hug?” Who says Lego’s are evil?

Lego Subs!

This week’s Lego of the Week was an undertaking and by undertaking I mean I didn’t do a damn thing. However, the boys had a great time reworking different Lego’s into their own creations to become MASTER BUILDERS. If you have seen the Lego Movie (yeah right if you have any kids between the ages of 3-33 you have seen the Lego Movie) you know what I mean. Did I mention that Lego Movie is now available on ITunes and your Apple TV? You didn’t know? No worries, if you need to know anything about the movie just ask one of my boys. They will gladly rehash the entire 100 minute film in chilling accuracy for you. I am venting now to you (and to let off steam. Damn Blackhawks pull you s*%t together. I shouldn’t blog and watch hockey at the same time) about Legos because a certain little boy has a Birthday the end of this week and all I will hear about for the next three, maybe four weeks are Legos and which ones he received and which ones he now wants. Sigh. (Speaking of sigh. They need two fonts. One for sighing and they definitely need a sarcasm font. Of course I would only type in the sarcasm font but it would be helpful for text messages and Facebook posts. In fact I came to the realization last week that my sarcasm and dry humor is so advanced that people just think I’m jerk. Sigh. Back to your regularly scheduled blog post.) On to their Lego’s. 

Connors entry this week comes to you courtesy of Lego Atlantis; yes there is a Lego Atlantis, thank you Netflix. We don’t own any sets from the Lego Atlantis series, mostly because we didn’t know they existed until last Thursday, but never less Connor decided we needed a set.

This is his interpretation of a land sub. Land sub? Oxymoron much. 

Stay with me on this one, it will make sense. In the cartoon of Lego Atlantis they all are in submarines that they build from vehicles. One of the subs they build is a sub that crawls on the bottom of the ocean floor, land sub. I had the same reaction I’m sure you all just had when I typed Land Sub but it was explained to me plainly by Connor, “Papa, you know drives on the ocean floor.” Insert eye rolls here. See that is why there are wearing helmets, I mean “air masks,” so they can drive in the ocean on the land floor. 

Yes that is a Stormtrooper helmet. 

This is literally about the tenth reimaging of his Lego. Just when I would take a picture of it to post, he would come and change it. Hence the undertaking I mentioned earlier. Alex’s was a much easier process. 

Alex also stayed with the submarine theme but took a different tact.  He made a Bat Sub, as in Batman sub for you Marvel comic snobs. (I know marvel is bigger but Batman is better. Suck it Wolverine. Yes I still will see the new X-men movie. Looks epic.) Alex took this:

I had to find a picture online because as you know, the sets never stay in their intended state for long!  

And transformed it into this:

Batsub! (patent pending) 

I am always amazed at how they can think of this stuff. Connor’s randomness is fun but Alex’s attention to detail to use all the parts, no extras from other sets, from one vehicle and morph them into another is awesome in my eyes. I was never that good with Legos. I build an awesome tower or staircase but that is the extent of my abilities. He did this in about ten minutes. It would have taken me ten hours just to come up with a schematic to begin to build. I know it doesn’t look like much but they are my boys and I’ll brag about them as I see fit.

 

Really the new X-men looks AWESOME!

Weekly Lego

I know I had my mini meltdown the other day about Legos, but they really aren't that bad. They give the boys a creative outlet. A way to bring out their personalities in their work. Especially this weeks selection of Legos. First Connor,

It's a space cruiser, piloted the Swamp Creature with a human head in a race helmet. Connor is so laid back whatever goes, unless of course he doesn't get his way. Look at that Lego again. We see a hodgepodge of different sets that really don't go together. In his eyes it makes perfect sense. To him it's perfect. He moved the wings and guns around at least a dozen times before he let me take a picture. Connor beats to his own drum and you know, I love him more and more for it. 

Alex is more like me. Follow the directions, a little OCD on uniformity. He on the other the other hand is way more artistic and expressive than I ever was. I hated Legos growing up because I could never come up with my own designs that I thought were worthy to display.

His little buggy here is an example of this. Same wheels on both sides, same type of levers, two little prongs up front. Even his driver is all one color. That is who he is though. Follows the rules, likes uniformity but still relaxed enough to put a power crystal on back. It's who he is and I could not be more proud. 

I am almost three weeks into this blog experience. I feel I am starting to hit a groove with it and I hope you are enjoying reading it. 

P.S. Both boys get their expressive art talents through Mandy. No way was I ever this good.