My son is now at that age that he is totally into all things LEGO®. At the age of five, he’s graduated from his pre-school Duplos (which he has kindly given to his little three-year-old sis) and has moved into full-on building mode with his Hero Factory robots, villains and monsters and more recently, building his very own far, far away galaxy with LEGO® Star Wars.
The past few weeks in my household have been nothing less than hectic. Between major projects and late hours at work for both me and The Hubs, getting in the habit of daily “homework” with my kindergarten son, ballet class for my daughter, weekend soccer games and my father being ill and in the hospital – we frankly haven’t had much “family fun-time” as of late.
Thankfully, that will all change when we take the kidlets back to the Bronx Zoo’s Boo at the Zoo and totally start to get into the Halloween spirit!
My kids birthdays are a huge deal. To me, there is no greater joy than seeing the excitement, happiness and love in my kidlets eyes when their big day comes and we’re celebrating! But as most parents know, sometimes planning your child’s birthday party can take over your entire life. We just had my son’s 5th birthday party over the weekend and it was a huge success! Although I look forward to all the planning for a fun and happy event, I always get stressed making sure every detail is ready for the big day.
My son’s Star Wars themed party included this cake, with all the main characters showing up for the festivities!
I’ll never forget the Christmas of 1982, that’s because after months of begging and pleading – Santa (aka Mom & Dad) gave my sister and me one of the original home video game systems, an Atari 2600. The games were blocky and crudely animated, but they kept us mesmerized for hours. One of my favorite games to play was Pitfall! Players had to maneuver a character named “Pitfall Harry” through a maze-like jungle and recover various treasures in a 20-minute period. Along the way Harry would have to negotiate numerous hazards including pits, quicksand, rolling logs, rattlesnakes, crocodiles and my favorite, scorpions. You had to have Harry either run, jump, climb or swing on a vine to avoid all these dangers.
Pac Man, Bezerk, Centipede and Space Invaders. I know what you’re thinking, these are pretty old school, but these were the video games of my childhood and they will always have a soft spot in my heart. Video games though have come a LOOOONG way since then. Both gameplay and graphics have become so vivid and spectacular that you actually feel that you are a part of the action-taking place on the screen!
Playing today’s video games, a gamer feels like they’re really in the Batcave with Batman & Robin as seen here in the upcoming release LEGO® Batman™ 2: DC Super Heroes
This weekend was a sort of rite of passage for us and our four and half-year old son. On Saturday night he got to stay up late with mom and dad to watch “Star Wars,” one of our favorite films of all time! I wasn’t much older than my son the first time I saw “Star Wars” in the theater that summer of 1977. It was like no other movie I had ever seen and fell in love with all the characters. I became obsessed, wearing my R2D2 shirt and playing with my “Star Wars” Kenner action figures. I was excited to finally share this movie with my little boy.
Original “Star Wars” movie theater poster
