Granting a Wish at Christmas and Why I Love LEGOS

Posted by Jeff on December 17, 2008

Happy Holidays everybody! I’m a member of IZEA and in today’s email was another message about how IZEA teamed up with Sears and a few other bloggers to do (yet) another shopping spree dubbed Granting a Wish with Sears, similar to the one IZEA and Kmart did a few weeks ago.

So I was looking at some of the blogger’s sites and posts and found Chris Pirillo’s blog post where his part of the contest includes giving away $500 worth of LEGOS. How freakin’ cool is that!?!?

So if I were to win Chris’s contest by commenting on his blog post, tweeting to twitter and then writing this post, myself and my son who’s 4 years old would have a kick-ass Christmas!!

I will tell you a little story…

When I was 6-13 years old, or there thereabouts, I was a LEGO-maniac. I think my parents bought just about all the LEGO sets out there for me, for birthdays, Easter, Christmas, maybe even Groundhog’s Day, who knows…but man I had it good!

LEGOS were MY thing. I had just about all the cool LEGOS of the late 80s. So while listening to songs like Rock Me Amadeus, Sledgehammer, Land of Confusion and Axel F — to name a few, I was busy creating LEGO masterpieces. Of course my LEGOS where nothing close to what is out in stores now, but I thought they were kick butt! Especially when I got my first real set of Space LEGOS.

Those awesome blue tinted windows that went up and down!!! And the knobby tires for the moon vehicles!!!!

My cousin and I would play for hours building spaceships, moon bases and whatever else we could imagine. I actually STILL have my LEGOS…and they are STILL as they were 25 years ago! (as seen in the pictures – click for larger)

So I thought about giving my LEGOS to my son for Christmas this year since I know he’s been playing with them at his daycare. He loves the small LEGOS now. I think he’ll get a kick out of playing with them and I’ll probably cry when he destroys what I created 25 years ago, but at least he and I will have a good time together! We need it!!

So don’t forget to check out Chris’s blog and the others that are a part of Grant a Wish with Sears.

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Took Our Kids to Playhouse Disney Live!

Posted by Jeff on December 3, 2008

Two weekends ago we took the kids and my parents (Mama and Papa) into Center City Philadelphia to see Playhouse Disney Live! It was great. The kids loved the live show and being in a big arena, although the Spectrum is so old and falling apart it was nothing special. We’ll be going to see Disney on Ice in early January at the Wachovia Center, must nicer arena. Can’t wait for that! My Dad bought all of us amazing seats. He said, front row. Awesome!

We had an amazing time the whole day. We let the ‘cat out of the bag’ a little to soon with our son. He was so super excited to go that he could barely wait the whole ride into Philly, about 45 mins. Then when we got to the Spectrum we had to wait outside for about 10 or so freezing minutes. The doors should have opened at 2pm, it was more like 2:10 or 2:15pm! Everyone was complaining of the cold have having their kids outside in the wind and temps. My little guy and daughter just wanted to get inside and see everything.

Once inside we had about 30 minutes to wait. We walked around, grabbed a few soft pretzels and made our way to our seats. Oh, I almost forgot we stopped off at a ripoff souvenir stand and paid $36 for two items that cost $3 to make for our kids. One of those spinning lights and a Little Einsteins “June” purse for our daughter. The battery was dead by the time we got home!

As the lights went down, the smile on my 4yr son’s face lit up. We was super excited, although he hasn’t watched Playhouse Disney in a long long time. He stood for most of the show as myself, my wife and Mama kept watching him dance and sing and spin his new light thing, a Handy Manny light.

As I said, I can’t wait to take them to the next live show in a few weeks. They are going to love it — so will my wife and I. Some things we’ve learned…

1. Do not tell our kids ANYTHING about the show until we are in the parking lot otherwise we’ll have an hour drive of “are we there yet?”
2. Think about taking out a loan so we can buy souvenirs, you just have to get the kids something from the show. Don’t we???
3. Take drinks with us, juice boxes, bottle of water. When a 16oz bottle of water costs $4 at the arena I would like it would be cold!
4. Plan on no naps the day of the show. Luckily we don’t get cotton candy for the kids – they don’t like it!

I’m sure I’ll have more lessons learned from our next adventure. I’ll post them in January after the show!

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Taking My Son to His First Movie

Posted by Jeff on November 17, 2008

Today was great. I took my 4 year old son, Lo, to see his first real movie in a theater!  We went to see Madagascar 2.  It was Guys Day Out as we also had my Dad, “Papa” join us. Lo was so excited from the time my wife and I told him he would be going to see the movie.  He couldn’t wait to get there.

It was 9:45am when we told him and the movie didn’t start until 11:45am. We couldn’t make the 10:20 which would have been perfect. We had to stop and pick up Papa first.  Since we had some time to kill, Lo and I went into my parent’s house and hung out for a bit and my son explained Madagascar to Papa so he would know what was going on. Lo is a pro with movies…DVD movies that is.  He’s seen the first Madagascar movie enough times to almost have memorized it. He’s also a fan of the Ice Age movies…memorizing those as well.

So we were back on the road a little before 11 and heading to Wegmans to grab a quick lunch since it’s right next to the Regal Cinemas. We had a few slices of pizza — I had to scrape the sauce (as best I could) off Lo’s slice. He has some aversion to sauce on his pizza.

Lo was so excited once we got to the parking lot! Like REALLY excited, it was cute to see his reactions along the way. Once we got in line for tickets i knew he needed to go potty.  Papa and Lo proceeded to the restroom while I stood inline waiting for the tickets.

Lo’s eyes lit up again once we got into the specific theater and the previews started.  Of course, he didn’t care for all the previews! Neither did I.

But to keep this short, we had a very good time bonding and seeing a great movie.  One thing I remember him saying about the whole experience was

they have those ‘magic chairs’! The ones you can bend down and sit in.

If you haven’t gone to see the movie yet, you should go see it soon. It’s hysterical! Here’s a little clip (found on http://madagascar-2-trailer.blogspot.com)