I like themes for birthday parties, and when we decided to have a joint birthday party with The Boy's best friend, the theme was set of a LEGO party. Suitable invitations seemed quite elusive so I lost myself in Pinterest for a few hours, found a number of ideas for inspiration, and set to making our own personalised invitations.
Days 82 – 88 of Project 36
#LEGOChallenge: Exclusive LEGO Ferraris From Shell (Review)
LEGO is one of toys that I've been anticipating The Boy playing with for a few years; he likes creative toys and producing something, plus it's a great, traditional toy which is so versatile. However, when other two year olds were busy with large construction blocks and building garages and houses, he would merely turn to another toy disinterested in LEGO's potential. Who knew that it would only take last year's trip to the Mecca of all 'blockheads' everywhere (LEGOLand) to ignite his curiosity in Duplo, and since then LEGO. We last went in October half-term and I ended up smuggling two boxes of the stuff (for his Christmas presents) back to the car, wrapped in my coat so he couldn't see what they were, "No darling, mummy's just hot. That's why I've taken my coat off"!"
Last week I received a parcel which sent The Boy into raptures of delight! To celebrate their new promotion, Shell and their technical partner Ferrari have teamed up with LEGO to produce six exclusive models. In the range there are; Scuderia Ferrari truck, Ferrari F40, Ferrari 150° Italia, Ferrari 458 Italia, Ferrari FXX, and a Ferrari 250 GT Berinetta. Each one is powered by revolutionary micro-propulsion engines, the smallest ever pull back engine built by LEGO. And we were very kindly sent one of each model, along with a storage box and instructions on how to race them.
This is the first piece of proper LEGO that The Boy has played with, and we had great fun making it together; me deciphering and translating the plans into minute steps for The Boy, and him almost putting them in the right place each time. However, we got there in the end (despite daddy coming and taking over completely with one car) and decided to test them out to see which of the cars was the better at the jump-ramp we positioned in his tuff-spot.
I need to warn you that this video was the last one I could handle recording; it was the eleventh 'take' and we'd gone from mad chatter to doing it in silence, via him getting completely confused and doing the cars backwards. By this time, I was delirious with hysteria (the mic on my phone went weird at one point), he'd turned into the biggest over-actor of them all (no Oscar awards ceremony for us in the future) and we were cold.
In order to get your hands on these models for £1.49 each, fill up with £30 of Shell V-Power Nitro+ Unleaded or Diesel at any Shell garage between now and 8th January 2014, the cars are available while stocks last. LEGO and Shell are also encouraging you to get involved by videoing one of four exciting challenges (found here), and uploading and sharing it via twitter, Instagram or Youtube using the hashtag #LegoChallenge. There are a great selection of prizes for the best entries. More information can be found here.
We were sent the above products for the purpose of this promotion.
Days 321 – 327 of Project 365
321. Catch A Leaf (We went into the garden to rake up some of the leaves that have fallen from the cherry tree, which of course led to throwing and catching them! Mr. TBaM and I decided to try and stage the perfect falling leaf photo, it didn't quite pan out how I wanted to as The Boy kept sticking his tongue out, scunching his neck, closing his eyes and everything else in between. In the end this photo actually is perfect to me as I like Mr. TBaM's hand and foot in it, it adds to the moment.)
322. Taking A Break (The Boy threw up in the bathroom at 8.30 this morning which meant he had to stay home from school. Of course he wasn't sick afterwards, he'd just forced his breakfast down and has a strong gag reflex! I'll admit that I lied to the secretary and said he had a temperature, because if I'd said about the sickness she'd have made him stay off for two days, and I'm already in the amber category for attendance! I made sure he did plenty of reading, writing and learning through play to make up for being off school, this was a silly moment we were having in the kitchen when he was pretending to be a baby crawling!)
323. Pinner (I nipped up to town to buy some sausages for dinner, and perused the seven charity shops while I was there. This pin-art-thingy was in one for £1.25 and is one of the best toys he's got at the moment!)
324. Relaxing (All these play activities on other blogs featuring a tuff-spot, and I bet none have them used as chill-out and t.v. watching zone!)
325. Petrol Head (We've been sent some marvellous and limited edition Lego cars to highlight a promotion in Shell garages at the moment, The Boy has never tried proper Lego before and after a fraught first attempt we managed to make the cars together, he now adores them and now we just need to race them!)
326. Scareswan (We went to feed the swans at the local nature reserve and it was obvious they were very hungry as they all came flocking. Once we'd gone through out half a bag, they decided to investigate The Boy's pockets so he stood still like a scarecrow to scare them away.)
327. Who's There? (This morning I set up The Boy's magic elf door from The Magic Door Store, scraped the ice from the back of the freezer and sprinkled some elf dust. When he came into the living room and discovered it, he was completely captivated and we proceeded to watch it for twenty minutes in silence to see if anyone would come through. During that time he saw a hedgehog poke his prickles through, and a Christmas Mouse, but hasn't remembered Edward the Elf will be visiting. We're going to have great fun leading up to 1st December when Edward will make his appearance!)
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Duplo Number Train (Review)
It was only a few months ago that we first went to Legoland and since then The Boy has become completely captivated with the Creative Cars and My First Build sets that we bought him at the time.
He was recently sent the Duplo Number Train to review, and he was enthralled with it. The great thing about Duplo boxes are that they feature a large photograph showing what the completed product is meant to look like, and this is easy for children to follow. The Boy referred to the 'map' (as he calls instructions) several times throughout, but quickly worked out which piece should go where.
The train comes with four brightly coloured chassis to create an engine and three carriages. There are also parts to create an engine (with a driver) and ten numbered blocks, fitting three to each carriage if placed in a row (with one spare), a dog and a few spare piece of Duplo to create a basic station or a bridge.
On the first sitting, The Boy happily played with this for half an hour; laying the numbers out in a line and touch counting the blocks, creating the intended train, and then making different versions of it. He has come back to this a number of times, and actually has incorporated it into his normal Duplo sets and made a train station adapting the My First Build set for this purpose.
The Duplo Number Train is a really reasonably priced set of Duplo at £12.99 and comes with enough blocks to provide creativity with the way that the train is made or to allow children to go off a tangent, as they are want to do! Until we had a set of Duplo, I didn't fully appreciate the difference between it and other cheaper building blocks; it's hugely different due to the materials and accurate moulding. Moreover it has engaged The Boy with the idea of constuction for the first time ever!
We were sent this product for the purpose of this review. My opinion is honest and unbiased.
Lego Heads (Review)
A few months ago, The Boy received his first batch of Lego to play with and was quite enthusiastic about it. Admittedly he's still quite young for proper-sized Lego at the moment, but it's actually the first time he seems to have shown an interest in construction; conventional toddler building blocks did nothing for him at all.
However, last week we were sent some amazing giant Lego storage solutions which have been designed and created by Room Copenhagen (under license from Lego). They have developed a range of giant Lego head tubs and storage blocks to save mums and dads the world over from suffering 'stepping-on-Lego-bricks-with-bare-feet-itis' (a well known condition affecting parents).
To celebrate Hallowe'en, The Boy was sent the small Pumpkin head and Skeleton head, and a black storage box.
As you can see, one of the best features of them is that they actually stack on top of each other just like the 'real' Lego blocks. The Boy was completely enamoured with the storage heads and block, and has put all of his Lego into the black box with the heads on top.
The problem is, he doesn't have very much Lego at the moment…
… I'm sure that will change in time, and the box will be overflowing!
We were sent these products for the purpose of this post. My opinion is honest and unbiased.
Thursday 5th July 2012 – 'On The Floor' (187/366)
Saturday 7th April 2012 – 'I'll Blow Your House Down' (98/366)
