To be honest I had my money on Darby putting a piece of Lego in a place where Lego shouldn’t go.
Turned out I was wrong.
“My nose feels funny” says Quinn
“What do you mean funny?” I replied
“It’s sore. I think there’s something in my nose.”
“Maybe it’s a pimple. Like a little sore in your nose.”
“No I think someone put Lego up my nose.”
“What? No I’m sure there can’t be OH MY GOSH QUINN HOW DID THAT PIECE OF LEGO GET UP YOUR NOSE???????”
“I think someone put it there.”
Sure enough, there was a small round blue piece sitting up there just in view. When I initially reached over to feel her nose I think I might have pushed it up further. Hubs came along and told her to cover the other nostril and blow really hard. Sure enough out it cane with a sizeable booger.
I’d like to say I remained mostly calm during the even but I definitely laid it on thick about never ever ever ever doing that ever ever again. Like ever. She thought the whole thing was hilarious of course. And she wanted the piece immediately to put back on her new Lego.
Oh wow. You know when you have little expectation of something (little as opposed to low) and you are just blown away by it!? I love when that happens. Those little surprises in life make me happy, especially when they also make my kids happy.
I took the kids to Rocky’s Brick Event this morning, along with a babysitter to help out, and it was one of the best things I’ve ever taken the kids to.
The reasons for my expectation level, is due to this event that we went to last year. Looking back, I can’t believe how little I wrote about it! I think that’s quite telling. As I did mention, I was hoping that there would be more interactive things for the kids, other than the trays of bricks at the end. That’s where this event was different.
The displays were AMAZING and had heaps of moving parts.
Retro train set! Wooooo wooooooooooo!
There was SO much Star Wars Lego. My kids were so excited.
See?
We were among the first to arrive to beat the crowds (which was my plan) and it was great as it meant I could put Darby in the stroller (he took some convincing!!) and he could still see everything without other people getting in the way. By the time we left, there were crowds 3 or 4 people deep at each display so it would have been impossible for him to see. He loved it!
So busy!
There were probably about 40?? displays, but this was my favourite by far.
I couldn’t stop watching it! So amazing.
After seeing all the displays, there were a bunch of tables for building Lego! And not just any Lego; the kids could build their own train carriage to be put on the back of a running train! The kids thought this was so awesome. Here’s Chance and Quinn’s efforts (the 2 end carriages). (Gotta love Quinn’s comment at the end!!)
There was a staff member there the whole time, taking carriages off and putting new ones on to go for a spin. All the kids were so proud of their creations being shown off like that.
And that’s not all! There were a few towers like this with heaps of different shaped Lego for kids to make their names. Quinny had some help, but Chance did his all by himself. Such a great idea.
Sooooo much Lego. Almost as much as our collection at home!
And of course, because I’m a massive softy, I couldn’t not buy the kids some Lego to take home. I had told them not to ask me to buy any, and they honoured that, so I surprised them at the end. Of course they wanted to go straight home to build it.
Quinn chose Cinderella (quite fitting, as one of her nick-names is Quinderella) and Chance chose the Ambulance rescue plane.
We were only there for an hour and a half, and if it wasn’t so crowded, I would have loved to go back and look at the displays again, but it was just too crazy and the kids were ready to leave. I’m glad I had our friend there to help with Darby as I didn’t want to just keep him in the stroller the whole time. There was a Duplo table for him to play at while the kids were building their creations, but he was more interested in running around.
I think the biggest difference between this expo and the last one, was this was really aimed at kids. The one in Brisbane was more about showing the design side of things, and showing off creations, which were really impressive, but not that exciting for kids after about 10 minutes. This one was all about showing what you could do with Lego and really encouraging kids’ participation and creativity. 10 thumbs up from this crew. Will definitely keep an eye out for more events in the future!
We have a tradition in our house of giving Lego for, well, pretty much all occasions. And Easter is no exception! We have our friends Kate, Liam and Alex visiting for the week and it’s always more fun with other kids (and another adult) around!
We started off with an Easter Egg hunt in the back yard
Then it was time to find the colour-coded packets of Lego in the front yard.
Then the next hour or two was bliss for both adults and kids 🙂
We headed to the botanic gardens after that to feed the ducks and have a run around
Two foxy ladies 😉
It’s just so nice having another adult around and the kids are having a great time together. Looking forward to the rest of the week.
We had an early Christmas treat last Tuesday when we took Hubs’ family to the Lego display at the Brisbane convention centre. First of all, it was just so much fun being together. Hubs’ brother and sister-in-law are visiting from NZ so it’s so nice to spend time with them. After some initial shyness, Quinn came around to aunty Sarah’s charms and were besties after that.
And as per usual, my wonderful nieces entertained my children for me so I could have a bit of adult conversation with other adults! Hubs’ Dad brought 97-year-old Nanna along for the show as well!
How great does she look!? Thank you to Poppy for bringing her along – you make it look easy but we know what is involved! Lots of cuddles for Poppy too.
Now to the Lego! The displays were pretty damn impressive, though some interactive displays would have really made it something special.
There were heaps more displays but considering I started writing this post a well ago, I thought it best I just hit the publish button!
I decided pretty early on that I’m not adulting today. I just need to play and be with my kids. Or just play, and let the kids do their own thang. So this was my first couple of hours:
I know it’s hard to tell, but this will eventually be a helicopter, if I can find all the damn pieces. But since I “sorted” the Lego a little while ago, I now have to sift through all the pieces to find the parts for each model. From now on, each model will stay on it’s own in a zip-lock bag. I wish I had thought of that a few months ago…
So the washing shan’t be done today. We are eating lots of easy things like crackers and tomato and cheese, fruit and sultanas. I’m just letting the kids dictate the direction of the day, and not worrying about getting adult things done. Just lots of sitting around and just being. I’ll deal with the adult things once the kids are in bed. I’m glad I made the decision this morning, because the only other way today would have gone, is me moping about the house “knowing” I “should” be adulting but not wanting to.
The kids have been “helping” me. Chanbe’s idea of helping is sitting in front of the Lego, looking for all the white pieces, (of which there are 50 right in front of him) and climbing over the lot to pick one piece up from the other side of the pile. Then playing with it.
Quinndy’s idea of helping is this:
That is, tipping out my sorted Lego as she does not agree with my organising systems.
I feel like life is just kicking my butt at the moment. I’m always three steps behind and it’s starting to show. I shaved one leg in the shower today and completely forgot to do the other leg. It feels funny.
I had four coffees yesterday. Four. And the last one was foolishly at 4.10pm. (And it may have been of the Irish variety. Thank you St Pat’s Day!) I generally make it a habit not to have coffee after 3pm and as I was lying in bed awake at 11.45pm last night, I was reminded of why.
Kindy mornings have been hard going with Chanbe insisting he doesn’t want to go to Kindy and getting a bit upset over it. I’ve been trying to keep it light and positive and apart from one fateful morning 2 weeks ago (there was dragging, kicking and screaming) we have managed to get there in the end.
The place is still a bit of a shambles and to add to it, there are 3 baskets of folded clothes that I haven’t put away yet. I’m just not feeling motivated to do anything much at the moment. I mean I LOVE our new house and want it to be a nice place to live but I think I’m just overwhelmed and therfore not getting anything done.
And WordPress is still taking some getting used to. I used to have everything there ready to go with Blogger but now there’s a bit more fiddling around to do. It doesn’t help that we haven’t had a computer set up for a few months and I’ve been doing everything from my phone. It does mean that I have nearly 1000 comments pending, all but one or two of which will be spam. But deleting them on my phone is just too hard. I need to install a spam filter. It’s on the list.
And now it’s time to have a sleep. Maybe I’ll be productive after that…
In the meantime!…
Our photo wall is coming along nicely!
Quinn got “new” bowling shoes ($1 at Vinnies)
Our 3 little monkeys (generally) love having a bath together
