A little love note...

One night I came home from book club and found this. It's nice to know you are loved and thought of when you are not there.  I hope you all had a lovely valentine's day! Thanks for reading my blog.

Lost in Lego?

It is no secret we love Lego at my house. Keeping it under control, easily accessible, easy to play and build with and out from under foot, is a work in progress.  I thought I'd share our Lego corner with you - it has been working for us for awhile.

Since that's where all the Lego building action is, we will be starting at the ground for our tour.   (Just FYI I'm going to note my resources for supplies, but I don't have any sponsors for the post) My sister Joanna sent us the labels for the shoe bins (from the Container Store ~20 bins for $35, I really love these boxes, with clear lids they are super durable and stack really well).  We have our Lego sorted by colour and then a few sets are in bins by themselves and a few by theme - Star Wars, Lego Agents, Harry Potter, Atlantis or whatever.  These bins are labeled with stickers and pictures from Lego.com.  The blue bin (other colours too and comes with a base plate) is available at Amazon.com (which we actually found at a thrift store) is for any mini-figures and accessories, often a built police car or certain small specialty pieces.

Next above the storage bins are the tables and shelving (thanks Ikea $10 LACK tables and EKBY BJÄRNUM Shelves).  I learned it is pretty important to have lots of display and play area for creations.  It helps keep things off the floor and they love to show what they are working on to everyone who comes over.  The creations tend to move around a lot on the shelves and are changed often.  Bigger sets like the Atlantis fortress are more fun to play with and I do less repairs when they are off the ground.  The tables are also great because they are mobile and can be moved to the middle of the room or another wall (two was kind of important to have once for each boy, one just didn't have enough elbow room).

I actually put up the shelves completely by myself and I'm not very handy. I liked this system because of the 1) Style is industrial/boyish 2) Price 3) Custom - You decide the length of shelves (I got 3 smaller shelves from one board purchased) and there are two depths to choose from 4) No painting, the ends are covered by the bracket.

The sorted by colour system seems to work for us.  Once a project has been disassembled the pieces can be found in their matching colour, we've been able to rebuild sets easily from the instructions. It can take a little work to re-sort after a massive building session, but it is worth it and the boys are getting speedier.  I promise it doesn't always look like this...maybe one of these posts I'll show you and action shot :)

Oh not pictured we have a binder 3-ring binder with plastic sleeves to store the instructions for the sets, it makes them easy to find and flip through and keeps them from losing pages.

I'd love to know what works for you to organize toys - Lego or otherwise, Any thoughts?

Happy Building!

For the Love of LEGO - Puppets

So this is a fun, easy craft, plus my kids love anything LEGO or Star Wars and both is a dream come true.  I like the project element, cutting practice, and the free price tag.  Considering all the time my boys would like to spend on LEGO.com it is surprising we haven't discovered these print-ables before. The website suggests making stickers with these image downloads, but we didn't have the right paper.  E was the one who suggested puppets, so we dug out the Popsicle sticks.

The craft is easy - Print the downloadable sticker sheets you want and cut them out (we laminated ours anticipating heavy use and battles that plain paper cannot survive).  Next tape or glue to craft sticks (I normally like paint stir sticks for puppets, but these are kind of small figures).

Lastly duck down behind the couch and have a great time reenacting battles and key scenes from the movie - Don't be surprised if your Star Wars loving husband gets his hands on the puppets and secretly wants his own set.

Capes for LEGO Minifigures

One of my favourite blogs is Zakka Life and Jessica has come up with something fun and amazing again.  I have a lot of blog-catching up to do including our last LEGO challenge winners, back to school, etc.  I know you "For the Love of LEGO Challenge" lovers will love this - capes for minifigures! My boys are wild for this idea. Go check it out.

Jessica also reminded me that there is a free LEGO Club with a free magazine.  It comes every 2 months and my boys pounce on it.  Plus, we aren't doing any challenges during the school year and they do (plus they have really good prizes).  Thanks Jessica!

For the Love of Lego Challenge 8 - City

This week's challenge is:  City

The photos of your creations are due the next Monday (anytime that day) and the "judges" will review and post a winner Tuesday.


Photos can be submitted by adding them to the flickr pool (preferred) so everyone can share.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/lovelego,/by commenting on the Monday Challenge post, or  by email (whatarewedoingtodaymom@gmail.com).

Just joining us? Welcome! Check out the 1st For the Love of Lego Challenge for some details.


If you need a little inspiration...

For the Love of Lego Challenge 6 - Sports

This week's challenge is:  Sports

The photos of your creations are due the next Monday (anytime that day) and the "judges" will review and post a winner Tuesday.


Photos can be submitted by adding them to the flickr pool (preferred) so everyone can share.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/lovelego,/by commenting on the Monday Challenge post, or  by email (whatarewedoingtodaymom@gmail.com).

Just joining us? Welcome! Check out the 1st For the Love of Lego Challenge for some details.


If you need a little inspiration there isn't much more inspiration than the Olympic Games.

On your mark...
Get Set...
Build!!!

For the Love of Lego Challenge 5 - Aliens and Outer Space

Since we are on vacation, we wanted to extend this week's Lego challenge one more week - so Aliens and Outer Space is due NEXT Monday (August 9th). Thanks for playing!

This week's challenge is:  Aliens and Outer Space

The photos of your creations are due the next Monday (anytime that day) and the "judges" will review and post a winner Tuesday.


Photos can be submitted by adding them to the flickr pool (preferred) so everyone can share.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/lovelego,/by commenting on the Monday Challenge post, or  by email (whatarewedoingtodaymom@gmail.com).

Just joining us? Welcome! Check out the 1st For the Love of Lego Challenge for some details.


If you need a little inspiration check out NASA Kids Club

Winner For the Love of Lego Challenge #5 - Animals

I think a lot of people were on vacation this last week.  Super thanks to our diehards: Nate, and .

Isaiah with his super cool snail-turtle, to see it in action check out Queen of the Wild Things.

Denver and a great show this week with a worm

Uncle Jon made an elephant complete with a photo reenactment of the animal race scene from Swiss Family Robinson (photos copied from Flickr, sorry for the poor resolution)

Our winner this week is Nate for his cute, tiny little dog! How cute is that little dinner bowl?

See Confessions of a Narcoleptic

Congrats Nate!

Knights and Princesses - For the Love of Lego Challenge winner...

Our winner this week is Josee! Congratulations!

Look at the amazing detail she put into her castle and I love that she added furniture and princesses.

We had less entries this week so I get to comment on all of them (sorry about the big delay in posting the challenge).  This is my grown-up brother Jon's.  I love his choice for princess and I love that she is kissing the knight on the balcony.

This really cool castle is a collaboration between Nate and Isaiah.  Lots of great towers, It looks like the knights are ready for anything.  Is that a secret hide-out on the right?  I love the flags and the rooftop garden.

Here is E and C's  Apparently there was a murder in the front room and rats? eww. The King's throne is cool.  If he looks familiar, it's because the King is really Indiana Jones in disguise, he took over the kingdom to get the treasure, the guy opening the treasure looks pretty happy about it. All kinds of other stories emerged with this build and it was a pretty fun play set this week for adventures.  Besides Indiana Jones some pirates and spacemen also visited the castle.  I did not see any princesses though.

This is Denver's ship.  Every kingdom needs a royal navy, way to plan for defensive strategy!

I really love Lahni's, "Princess in the Tower"  

I can almost hear her calling "Romeo, Romeo wherefore art thou Romeo?"

Then he must say something like, "Let down your long hair...or pass me a rope."

See more pictures in the flickr pool.
Don't forget, this week's challenge - Animals....interpret as you will...

For the Love of Lego Challenge 4 - Animals

I'm going to post the challenges every Monday, the photos of your creations are due the next Monday (anytime that day) and the "judges" will review and post a winner Tuesday.

This week's challenge is: Animals

Photos can be submitted by adding them to the flickr pool (preferred) so everyone can share.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/lovelego,/ by commenting on the Monday Challenge post, or by email (whatarewedoingtodaymom@gmail.com).

Just joining us? Welcome! Check out the 1st For the Love of Lego Challenge for some details.

Need some inspiration? We love http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/animals/.  The videos are really cool and there is lots to learn in one place!

For the Love of Lego Challenge Winner and this week's challenge

Ack! I'm so sorry the week has gotten away from me, I'll be much better posting new challenges every Monday.  So fun to see all your robots! This week's challenge is KNIGHTS and PRINCESSES - anything related, dragons, castles, jewels, etc. (send in your submission by next Monday night)

Here is the flickr pool so everyone can share.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/lovelego/
You are welcome to name it and put in any details in the flickr pool. (My boys wanted more details about everyone's robots ;)

If you need details on how the challenge works, check out the 1st For the Love of Lego Challenge.

 

The Lego Robot winner is : Isaiah! 

Everyone had really great entries and it is so fun to see what everyone builds, keep building!

For more pictures check out our flickr group. Here is a snapshot gallery of our entries this week:

Blog links and entries:
Nathan and Jaxon
 Isaiah, Denver and Mom
Josee
Mia
Max H.
Zachary and Corey
Jonathan (cool vintage kit)
C
E
Max V
Jonathan - Lego Piece finder
E
C
Mia

For the Love of Lego Challenge - Bugs winner and new challenge!

There were so many really great entries, the boys loved all of them.  You are some seriously talented Lego builders.  We are excited to see what you do with this week's challenge - ROBOTS.

I've created a flickr pool so everyone can share.  http://www.flickr.com/groups/lovelego/

If you need details on how the challenge works, check out the 1st For the Love of Lego Challenge.

And now drum roll please... our judges this week have selected "The Scorpion" by Slade.  I need to tell you this was a very hard choice.

Here are some other creations, thanks for playing along!  For more angles, etc. please check out the Flickr pool.  For future challenges you can either post your entry directly to Flickr or you can still link below this post or email me - whatarewedoingtodaymom@gmail.com

These are not in a particular order...

Thanks to everyone who participated + send in your pictures for this week:
1: Nate - Scoop Flyer (plus more!)
2. Caterpillar - Isaiah
3. Denver - Spider
4. Josee - Caterpillar
5. Mia
6. Max
7. Daniel - A Centipede and a Bumblebee
8. Joshua - 1 Black Ant and 2 Fire Ants
9. Josh - Giant Ant
10. Dragonfly - Jon
11. Ladybug - Lindsey
12. Alex - Ladybug
13. Joanna - Butterfly
14. C - Dung Beetle
15. E - Scorpion

A couple questions to clarify...

• Duplos, Megablocks, etc. are great to enter with as well.
• If you are linking, link in the comments to the post with theme challenge was introduced (today's post will have links for robots)
• If you want to enhance your Lego creation with other things that's fun too, like in the bug challenge, paper wings would have worked.
• All creations should be original (not from instructions or a kit) and if helped by a grown-up that's great, but please let us know.  
• We also have a couple of grown-up entries which is really fun - thanks for playing along (Uncle Jon, Aunt Lindsey and Aunt Joanna)! Note - grown-ups are not eligible for the prize (sorry!), but please post along with us, Lego is fun for everyone!

For the Love of Lego

Lego Logo creation photo by E and C.

So here are the Lego challenge details:
Each week there will be a new challenge with a theme.
The theme for the coming week is "Bugs"

To participate 

1. Build something related to the theme 

2. Post it (on a blog, flickr etc.) and link to the post in the comments of the challenge post 

OR

Send me an email whatarewedoingtodaymom@gmail.com with a picture.

*It is up to you if you would like your child to be pictured or just their creation. If you send me a link or image I assume you are giving me permission to post the photo on my blog as it relates to the challenge.

Rewards

The main reward for participating is playing along.  I'll try to feature as many entries as possible (must be submitted by 9PM Monday PST to be featured for that week, but you can continue to link in the comments as long as you like).

E and C have decided there should also be prizes each week. It will be a simple mail package and may or may not be Lego related.  E and C are going to make something for the challenge too, but they will also be the judges and cannot win the prize.  They will pick a different winner each week.

I really hope we'll get a lot of participation and the more the merrier, so please pass it along to anyone you think will like to play!

Be sure to ask any questions in the comments or email whatarewedoingtodaymom@gmail.com I'll reply and update the posting as well as soon as I can.

Happy "Bug" week!

A couple questions to clarify...

• Duplos, Megablocks, etc. are great to enter with as well.
• If you are linking, link in the comments to the post with theme challenge was introduced (today's post will have links for bugs)
• If you want to enhance your Lego creation with other things that's fun too, like in the bug challenge, paper wings would have worked.
• All creations should be original (not from instructions or a kit) and if helped by a grown-up that's great, but please let us know.  
• We also have a couple of grown-up entries which is really fun - thanks for playing along (Uncle Jon, Aunt Lindsey and Aunt Joanna)! Note - grown-ups are not eligible for the prize (sorry!), but please post along with us, Lego is fun for everyone!

Kids Love Lego? We've got a challenge for you...

That's right, everyone is lining up to join in.  My boys have devised a weekly Lego Challenge, I'll have more details tomorrow,  Ready your Lego.