"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree."

I would never had used a quote like that a few years back as i was never interested in Christmas, i wasnt the scrooge type ive always been happy to spend money on the people i care about, it just seemed that as the years went by i had less and less people to buy for. I'd never really put much stock into the idea of family. To quote my dad "there's no such thing as family,the word doesn't mean anything these days" and until i was blessed with Mrs M and the boys i pretty much felt the same.

Mrs M is a Christmas fanatic if she could, i think she would have the tree up all year round. Well now i have children im my life i love getting involved too. Christmas has started quite early for us this year because of our eldest starting school this year, we have had to make decorative jars, cakes and have made a hamper to donate for the school fate which has kept us all occupied. Its fun doing these things as a family. (although there was a prize for best jars and Mrs M got far to competitive).

The most exciting part of Christmas at the moment in our house seems to be the opening of the Advent calender (which will be tomorrow). The little man chose a Lego star wars calender so i can see why hes anxious to get into it.

For Mrs M i made an Advent Calender, she collects childrens books so i thought of something appropriate. Im hoping she is as excited as i am about her opening them.

I think that tomorrow we will be putting the decorations up so the atmosphere in the house will be amazing as they all get very excited about going through the baubles. (im sure there will be a whole post dedicated to our tree haha). 

Weve had our Nutcracker up for the last 2 months and im sure he will just stay up all next year now. (he's our little bit of Christmas all year round)

 Its extra special this year as its our youngest child's first Christmas. Im really looking forward to the holidays as i will be with my most important 3 people who mean everything to me.

Happy holidays all.....

"Where does he get those wonderful toys?"

 Well i thought that it was finally time to get out the crates of toys i had been collecting for our youngest, i had forgotten what i had actually brought over the last 12 months. Ive not really posted much about DC so i thought id start with some of the Batman figures i had collected. I'm going to be pretty gutted if the little one gets older and he's not into super hero's. If he's into football god knows what i'm going to do, ill be completely out of my comfort zone. Mrs M says there will be no chance of that though with me and his brother running around dressed like Batman and the Joker.

These figures are from 'The Batman' animated series,  I definitely prefer the villains in the batman series. I always saw Batman as being a bit of a wuss.

   

Although there are plenty of animated batman adaptations my son would still rather watch the 1966 Adam West and Burt Ward series and i cant say i blame him. The show is timeless and i found it much more entertaining when the 'caped crusader' was more tongue in cheek.  My son is always asking to see the 'Exploding shark' from the Movie.

Anyway back to the figures.....

Im missing a fair few characters but as with all my collections i will complete them soon. Ive got a good few years before my youngest will be playing with them. These are some of the Batman figures i have so far. I'm thinking of starting a Joker collection as there have been so many variations over the years, plus he is one of my favorite comic book villains.

 

I thought i would also include our DC 'chubby' figures,Ive only managed to get hold of 2 of these so far, i'm not sure many of the characters were released. Aquaman spends more time in the bath than in the boys room as his trident squirts water. He is one of my favorite's of all the pre-school figures.

I was laughing to myself earlier at how many toys i've actually brought and are in storage,i dont even think Mrs M has any idea (but she will when she reads this over the next few weeks). Stay tuned for Super Hero Squad, Star wars and Lego.

"time is what we want most,but what we use worst"

For the first time in a long time i'm bored, it really doesn't happen very often but ive found myself wondering what to do. Tv isn't an option unless im watching a DVD (although i was laughed at a few nights back when Mrs M walked in the lounge and saw me watching the x-men cartoon....alone! apparently i'm "cute"). i was going to be very grown up and read some comic's but my iPad is dead. 

Got me thinking of other times ive been bored and had to find some way of killing time, it brought me to this picture from a few years back. I found myself in a house waiting for Mrs M, I looked down and there was an Etch A Sketch. (well it would have been rude not to).

I really should invest in on for the house, its like a poor mans photoshop. Knowing my usual obsessive behavior ill probably be thinking Etch A Sketch all night now and ill end up buying one tomorrow.  Oops!!

For anyone out there who is as obsessive a collector as myself, i have found that recently much of my spare minutes have been taken up by http://www.virtualtoychest.com/,  This site is great if you are trying to track down the toys that make up your collections. Their not on the site to buy but im useless at remembering characters names in my old age so this site does it for me.

Spider man and his amazing 'chunky' friends

Playskool Spider-man and friends preschool chunky figures. (Or chubby figures as my son calls them) These toys were great for introducing my son to Marvel comic book characters and they will be there to do the same for my youngest (when his mother allows it). I have a small confession though. I had these figures before the boys were even part of my life. I had hoped that when i brought them they would one day get played with by children and i'm lucky enough to have just that.

They are great for young children as there are no small parts. Also in some of the comic books the villains can be pretty brutal but as you can see from the cheeky expressions,their just here to play.It's just a shame that more of the characters were not made. My son would have liked Deadpool. There is something so satisfying about your children playing with your toys.These had been on display everywhere i had lived since buying them but its great actually playing with them.

 

We usually find that Captain America is the overall hero when were playing. Because all the accessories for these slide on their backs and they all fit each other we usually find that Iron Man is very clumsy/forgetful and either gets his rocket pack stolen or he leaves it lying around for the the Green Goblin to stumble upon and take out for a test drive. Our playing usually consists of the Hero's helping Tony Stark to retrieve his beloved Rockets.

 

Thing in his bumper car although a rather random toy is definitely one of my favorites and was actually brought by Mrs M (she's definitely a keeper), A great find also for £1, you cant buy anything for a pound these days.

A Hideously Deformed Creature Of Superhuman Size And Strength...

I was 11 years old when i first began my love affair with Troma, a bit wierd i know considering the content of most Troma movies, but at 11 the Toxic Crusaders hit the Tv and i was hooked (little did i know from where the show originated).

I have now managed to get our 5 year old interested in them too, which lucky for him means my Toxic Crusaders figures have made a grand appearance in the boys room. I love these figures, they don't make toys like this anymore. (i must admit though i was missing 2 of the characters which i have only managed to track down recently so as i said to Mrs M "That collection is now complete")

I am a little gutted that there wasn't more characters from the series or film that were made into figures as these really are great toys, colourful and very detailed. As you can see from the pictures all issues of the Toxic Avenger comic are present also. (i did make it quite clear from the start i was a geek).

I think there are a lot of women out there that wouldn't like the though of being with a big kid like me but i am very lucky really that Mrs M collects vintage fisher price toys and Dick Bruna children's books. So were both as bad as each other (he says very quietly so Mrs M doesn't hear as we both clearly know who is worse). it certainly makes for a more interesting house for the boys to live in.I am quite sure they wouldn't have us any other way (well until they are teenagers anyway and we just become Embarrassing).

These days though i spend more time watching a different kind of Troma movie,which leads me to this question to finish up on......

What sort of age do you think it is acceptable to introduce your child to 'poultrygeist: Night of the chicken dead'???

Learning to read.....

We don't have any problems finding books to read to our 5 year old,he loves being read to and doesn't mind what it is. Now he's at school he's starting to read things for himself a lot more. We've been trying to find ways to incorporate things he enjoys into his learning to read.

These books are great for first words, sentences and letter sounds. They are made by phonics and are from the 'i can read!' series. We brought the spider-man and batman box sets. Our boy loves them but I'm sure he will love them a lot more when his reading gets better.

A few months back we had a really good find in a charity shop, I get most of the boys books from charity shops,our local charity shop does 'fill a plastic bag with books for £1' so you can imagine how many books the boys have in their room.

These board books are from the Spider-man and friends special helpers series, in each one Spider-man saves the day and captures the villains with the help of two children. Poor sandman gets sucked up a vacuum by the children (sucks being a super villain).

It wouldn't be right unless i also included our homes bible,a book that we read religiously throughout the week. it has brought us a lot of guidance and i feel without it we would fall into a life of chaos and confusion....

Obviously i was talking about 'The Marvel Encyclopedia' 70 years of Marvel comics between 2 hard covers. No comic book geeks home should be without it. I was over the moon when Mrs Mcfly brought it for me for being a good boy (ill just have to keep up my good behaviour and hope that secures me the DC Comics edition for Christmas). It's a great read but also has another great advantage. When purchasing large lots of action figures off eBay, sometimes you have no idea who some of the characters are but now me and the boys can refer to the oracle now to find out.

"The one thing children wear out faster than shoes is Parents"

I've been told by my partner that I'm not to introduce my youngest to superheroes until he is 1+ as apparently now our 5 year old is into it he doesn't have as much time for mommy. He'd rather be dressed as captain America running around fighting me! (obviously I'm always the red skull) . I have offered her the chance to paint herself green and join in as she hulk but she's not interested. Because of this I have been 'collecting' not hoarding collections of toys for him for when he is older. So far I have 3 crates in the shed,oops. I will get them out over the next few weeks and will post pictures.This week I managed to unleash my geeky side again and I found these...

Reebok Captain America children's trainers, all i need now is a decent t-shirt to go with them and maybe a matching outfit for daddy. Its just a shame he wont be in them until he's about 3.

Introduction...

I'm a collector of sorts or possibly a hoarder if you were to ask my partner,i have always been into toys,obviously when i was young but i have never really grown out of it. I know there are a lot of people out there like me,but i have found that my passion for toys as fun as it is has also helped me build a solid and fun bond with my sons. At 5 my eldest is very much into his super heroes and we have plenty of action figures and toys for him to let his imagination run wild. We also have a new member to our super hero squad who is 7 months old so we will be gradually breaking him in to the exciting world of toys.

I thought it fitting to show a very small fraction of the toys that we play with to give a rough idea of just how bad my hoarding is. We really need a play room for the boys but until we move the boys bedroom will continue to resemble a toy shop. our 5 year old is pretty much into everything and if i like it or used to love it when i was young then he does too. He also prefers the older cartoons that i used to watch when i was younger, spider man and his amazing friends,x-men the animated series etc, he even loves the Goonies and back to the future (suits me because it means i don't get stuck watching back to back Ben 10).