The Toys That Made Us is a Netflix series that focuses on some of America’s greatest toy franchises, including the companies and the people that created them. Some of the featured toys in the series include Barbie, G.I. Joe, Star Wars and in Season 2 episode 3 LEGO.
The 45-minute episode covers LEGO’s 80 plus year history. Starting at its humble beginning in the Danish countryside through its quest for global toy market domination.
The documentary does a great job covering big events in LEGO history including the many struggles and triumphs of the company. While most of the information shared is common knowledge in the LEGO community. The documentary is excellent for those not as familiar with the companies history or for those looking to brush up on their LEGO facts for LEGO trivia night.
Do you know how the founder Ole Kirk Christiansen got the name LEGO? Ole took the first two letters of the Danish words Leg Godt meaning to play well and smashed them together to create LEGO.
There are plenty of other fun LEGO trivia that fans would appreciate it.
In addition to the history, struggles, triumphs, and trivia there is also a lot of talk about LEGO toys themselves and all the different sets. LEGO fans young and old will see a lot of their favorites in the 45-minute documentary.
You will also learn about the values behind LEGO and the importance of the System.
LEGO System
If you consider yourself a knowledgeable LEGO fan you could probably pass on this documentary. For everyone else or if you just can not get enough of LEGO I highly recommend checking it out.
Holidays are full of friends, family, parties, celebrations and other such traditions! Many of those traditions and decorating are passed down from generation to generation.
While I am not aiming to start any family blood feuds, where is it written that you have to decorate or celebrate the way your parents did?
Growing up my family spent an entire weekend (and then some) playing Christmas music and decorating for the holidays. I remember carrying tote after tote from the basement full of decorations and other Christmas related items. That was our family tradition and it worked for us (most of the time).
While we were visiting with family over the holidays, I got into this debate with my brother on the “requirements” of Christmas decor. He is recently married and him and the wife decorated for the holidays, but they didn’t go all out as our parents did when growing up.
While one of the major focuses of the holiday is family and friends, it is important to remember to do things for yourself too. If decorating for the holiday is a chore you are doing it wrong.
Feel free to start your own traditions and decorate in a way that makes you happy. Since we are a Lego Family we decided to help our Brother/Uncle with his Christmas Decorations.
What we got our Uncle/Brother for Christmas!
We are blessed to live in an amazing time for “non-traditional” Christmas/Holidays. If putting up a traditional nativity set is what makes you and the family happy go for it. But don’t be afraid to make the holidays your own.
There are lots of geeky options out there for those geeky family’s like ours. While some of our family and friends are huge Lego fans like us and include them in their decorations. Some of them embrace their video gamer nature when decorating.
We saw a lot of Nintendo ornaments this year on our friends trees this year. Which is something we never would have seen on our Mom’s tree.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all of our friends! Do not be afraid to start your own traditions and decorate in a way that fits your family/household!
When we first started our journey with Leonidas’ Lair, we were overwhelmed with these acronyms, and I am ashamed to admit we didn’t know what they meant.
What is even more embarrassing about it all is the AFOL community was the first and loudest to come to our banner. The first to start following us and several of them became some of our best and most supportive internet friends.
So to hopefully save someone else the embarrassment and headache.
AFOL = Adult Fan of Lego
TFOL = Teen Fan of Lego
KFOL = Kid Fan of Lego
Captain Jean-Luc Picard from Star Trek
Like a lot of acronyms when you spell them out in context it seems painfully obvious but it took us awhile.
As a parent and an AFOL it was exciting to learn that there are online communities dedicated to older fans of Lego. Lego was not only bringing multiple generations together in our household but across the globe as well.
A few quick links to AFOL communities online worth checking out.
There are also a lot of awesome Instagram AFOL accounts worth mentioning but that is another post.
The creativity and level of detail in some of the AFOL builds are just incredible. It is also fun to see some pop culture references recreated in Lego Format.
LEGO Distracted Boyfriend Meme by Iain Heath https://www.flickr.com/photos/ochre_jelly/
So good news to Lego fans young and old! You are never too old at least until. . .
Once again thank you to the AFOL community for being so supportive of this project! Hope to do some dedicated posts to some of our favorite AFOL internet friends in the near future!
Happy Holidays to all of our internet friends and family!
A special shout-out and thanks to all of those who worked the holidays!
We have friends and family who both worked Thanksgiving and Black Friday as well as participated in shopping. While a lot of people get the holidays off the world keeps on spinning, and others have to sacrifice time with family to make it happen.
We wish everyone the best in the remainder of the holiday season and hope you will extend those wishes to the service workers and staff you encounter while celebrating!
Before the dust has even settled from back to school shopping, it seems the holiday preseason begins. Stores and Brands bombarding us with holiday advertisements through e-mail, online ads, physical mailers along with every flat surface they can put an ad on.
I have lost count of how many holiday promotions, catalogs and toy books we have received through the mail, half of them not even addressed to us(but who we assume are previous residents). It is hard to keep track of which brands have the hottest toy of the season (as they so claim) and why we should care.
For a season that is supposed to focus on family and values, it is easy to get lost in the holiday shopping excitement the latest deal, promotion, model, sale or whatever.
I often try to remind family and friends through social media not to go overboard especially on our account this time every year. This year I reshared “Christmas time rules” post I saw going around because it summed up my feelings so nicely.
It is important to remind ourselves about what the holiday truly means to us. We can show people we care without going overboard or overextending ourselves.
While Leo enjoys looking through the Store Toy Books and Catalogs that come in the mail. I am thankful that he doesn’t get too excited about all the holiday hype jumping on each new “hottest toy” bandwagon. Leo knows what he likes, and if you follow him on Instagram, it is pretty easy to pick up on the themes (Elephants, Nintendo, Lego, etc.).
Last week when we were setting a goal for him to work towards he picked Go Diego Go: Safari Adventure for the DS. A game he lost several weeks back and that we weren’t able to find (not the first game to go missing, DS games are so small). We have looked for it in the past, but none of the local stores carry it new, so we are forced to check in with used channels like Game Stop and Disc Replay.
After Leo hit his benchmarks for his goal, we turned it into an adventure(Dad likes to do this whenever he can get Leo out of the house). Traveling our regular route at the local Mall finally stopping at Game Stop to follow up on our quest for a used copy of Go Diego Go: Safari Adventure. Leo being a bit anxious in social situations willing to push through and ask the Game Stop Associate if they have it a DS copy in stock.
We were in luck! While the mall location did not have it, we learned that the west side location did and they could put it on hold for us. While the adventure turned into a chain quest, we were able to pick it up on our way home resulting in several hours of Diego African Elephant Safari fun all for the price of an afternoon adventure and $2.99!
Do your best to tune out all the advertisement and focus on what matters! Some of my most memorable gifts were homemade, used/hand-me-down items or merely setting aside an afternoon to catch up on old stories.
This blog post is a quick milestone shoutout. A lot of our time and focus has been on our Instagram content the last few months. Dad and Leo both learning and playing along the way. We have found a pretty cool corner of the internet and we wanted to give you the community a shout out!
Achievement Unlocked 700 IG Followers!
You are the best! Thanks for all your kind words and help growing with the community.
We plan to start expanding our content moving forward. Spending more time on video projects and blog material.
“Making the decision to have a child – it is a momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
Elizabeth Stone
This project has been on the board for a while now, and we are pleased to have the blog launched finally! If you have not already you should check out our Instagram and other social media accounts.
Leonidas’ Lair is a portal to my heart. One of the primary goals of this project is to allow the world a glance into our world.
To showcase Leo’s creations, projects, adventures, and challenges. With the hopes that it will bring awareness to others that we are all unique and special in our own way.
Thanks for joining us on our journey and your support!
