Labels

Wednesday 30 November 2011

22 year old lego passed down from Father to Son

A few days ago my Husband thought it was time to pass down one of his most treasured toys down to his Son, my son is now the proud owner of a 1989 Black Seas Barracuda lego pirate ship.
Black Seas Barracuda 
My husband received this as a Birthday Present when he was around 9 years old. My mother in law recalls him spending hours carefully putting each piece together taking great care to make sure each piece went in the correct place. Once the pirate ship was complete he then went on to spend hours upon hours playing, and creating adventures of his own with his pirate ship. To think he put this together when at the tender age of 9 shows he must of had great patience as a child. When I think back to when I was around the same age there is no way I could of possibly sat down, and put this together, I would of lost patience put it back into the box and gone out to play.
Lego gold Deblume

Barrel of swords
What amazes me not only did he keep this built for 22 years, he still has all the pieces, and many of them are tiny from the treasure chest full of gold deblumes to the barrel of swords all are perfect. The figure head still sits in pride place on the bow of the ship, the hinged stern still opens smoothly to reveal the Captains cabin, and what ship would be complete without the pirates parrot.
the figure head at the bow of the ship

When my son excitedly sat at the table with his hands over his eyes knowing he was to be given a special toy that gave his dad hours of fun was a fantastic moment. Tristan has an amazing imagination so I know he will soon be sailing the seven seas as a one legged Captain or he will play the role of a pirate counting his gold deblumes.
the hinged stern pulls down to reveal the Captains cabin

Hopefully Tristan won't decide to take it apart because the instructions are no longer with us. To put this back together from memory will be a real task, and only a task my husband could do.
the ships parrot
I hope that Tristan loves his pirate ship as much as my husband did, and I hope it takes him on many magical adventures that only a child can create.
Pirate ready for action 

In years to come when Tristan has been on every adventure possible with his ship mates I hope he follows in his dads foot steps, and carefully puts his Black seas pirate ship away, so he can then pass it on to his children so it can give another child hours of fun
the 4 canon sit waiting ready to fire their canon balls
The stern of the ship

Have you passed anything down to your child that you treasured as a child? My husband recently gave Tristan 3 wuzzles, and still has Thundercat toys ready to give to him. I would love to hear your stories










Thursday 24 November 2011

Proud Mummy Moment

This week we received Tristan's first ever school report, the scoring was a little worrying because the children was given a score of 1,2,3 or 4 for each 1 being 18-24 months level, 2 = 24-30 months, 3 = 30-36 months and 4 = 36-48 months(3-4years).It was based on an on-entry assessment into nursery. Tristan's scored a 1 for reading and writing which put him at the age of 18-24 months so you can imagine this was worrying considering he is 3 and half yet he scored a 4 for physical with the comments "Tristan is able to confidently thread beads onto a string" and "Tristan is able to catch a large object (ball) between his arms and torso" so last night we went to parents evening with lots of questions that we wanted answers too. Well it came our time to hear how our son is progressing and he is doing brilliant, the scoring system is done by people who don't teach and don't come across the children. Tristan scored a 1 in reading and writing because he has not yet chosen which hand he prefers to use that is how silly the scoring is. Tristan is average-above average in all of the categories and has settled perfectly into school life. He even scord a level 6 putting him at 5-6 years for the social part in personal, social and emotional category which was music to my ears because when he had just turned 2 the health visitor at flying start was trying to push me and my husband into putting him into the free nursery placement when he reached 2 and half, I did not have too much of a problem because all my other children went into a nursery setting early due to work commitments but my husband was set firm, Tristan was not to attend free day care whilst there was somebody at home to look after him, the health visitors argued that it will be good for his social skills and teaching him it's ok to be away from mummy and daddy she made it sound like we was holding our son back because we would not allow him to attend and she always left the application form. So to see he is a well adjusted boy who is developing at a perfect rate was really good to hear and when I asked if there was anything we could be doing at home to help him and she said keep doing whatever you are doing because you are obviously doing it right. My boy is a pleasure to teach. So today when he finishes school he is going to the shop and picking an ice lolly for being such a star

Friday 4 November 2011

John Crane teams up with Sevi

If you like wooden toys you will love this
teams up with 


John Crane likes to bring us quality wooden toys for excellent value, wooden toys are excellent for allowing our children to explore their own imagination, I love to see my son Tristan playing with wooden toys because each time he plays there is always a new way that he interacts with them he loves nothing more than exploring the many new adventures he can achieve with wooden toys, so I was delighted to hear that John Crane will soon  have Sevi products for our children to enjoy.

Sevi have been around for almost two centuries in its devotion to wood and the success of Sevi is down to its design, quality, commitment to professional service and the hundreds of satisfied customers.

Sevi – a history...
1920 – At the beginning of the 1920’s Sevi excited the local market with their small, hand made masterpieces.
1930-1940 – To keep up with a now growing market, new machinery was purchased to support the craftsman’s skills.  Automation did not affect the high quality of Sevi but enhanced it.
1950-1960 – The booming economy lead to a new craze of giving children small ‘surprise’ gifts.  Inspired by this Sevi continues today to producing not only toys but objects that express the warmth, wonder and friendliness of a child’s world.
1970-1980 – This was the brands boom years with new characters born – the Happy Clown is still in the line up today, reborn in the newly styled Le Cirque collection
1990-2000 – Sevi is acquired by the Trudi Company in 1998, remaining faithful to it founding principles and values; Sevi continues in hand crafted wood, caring for detail and dynamic creativity.  Stringent safety testing is applied to all products and Sevi was awarded UNI EN ISO 9001 certification in 2001.
2010 – Sevi chooses John Crane Ltd to distribute to retailers in the UK, and a strong wooden partnership is born.

So what can we expect 

My son would love this to add to his collection of tools to help him fix things and do the DIY in our house 



My kids will be able to make me some fantastic meals prepared on this 


Then once our meals have settled they will be able to get creative and play us some music on these fabulous wooden instruments 


you can find John Crane on facebook and twitter or follow their blog