Lights, Camera, Action figures

When Jay asked me to build a block palace with him this morning, I was not very excited. We have built amazing edifices in every possible location of our 600 square foot domain, except maybe the bathroom. I feel like I’ve used up every combination of Jay’s small box of blocks. Jay doesn’t mind repetition, but I like variety. I have been trying to get him to build on his own all week, but he loves it when I build him an elaborate multi-level castle. So today I finally went to work. With no better ideas,we started building Darth Vader’s house in the family room. The outer walls had barely been laid out when inspiration struck.

Quick backtrack: Jay makes armies of Whiteguys with his big lego blocks. He plays with them for hours. While I commend his imagination, sometimes I forget who’s who—which square pillar is a Whiteguy and which one is a Strong Boy? [Whiteguy=Stormtrooper, Strong Boy=the good guys]

As you probably know by now, I love the challenge of constructing homemade toys for my kids. It’s way more fun than going to the store and spending millions of dollars on the “real” thing (and Star Wars toys are all collector’s items or something, so they’re even $$$-ier than other toys). Plus, Jay likes doing projects with me, especially when he gets to play with it when we’re done.

All we did was print Google images of the classic Star Wars folks, cut them out, and tape them to the blocks. Instant action figures! I did stick clear contact paper to the pictures to make them a bit more durable (aka in case Rose gets a hold of them). I hope I didn’t destroy Jay’s imagination with these! But we both think they’re pretty cool.

Here’s the dark side.

Marshaling the troops.

Point for Mommy.