So. Yesterday, I spent more than an hour playing with Lego mini-figures with the boys. We were cleaning/sorting the yellow room (also known as the Lego room) so that we can put up more shelves this weekend. Because I'm crazy, we decided to sort through all the Legos whilst we had most of the "excess" ones (those not claimed by one of the boys for some project or another...yes, this is a very large number of additional Legos) in a number of drawers. We pulled out any mini-figure pieces and set those all aside. Then, we laughed and laughed as we created as many full mini-figures as we could out of the pieces we'd just culled. We came up with this:
Yup, these 5 dozen or so mini-figures were the "leftovers"...the poor souls that hadn't been claimed for the boys' Lego town. Counting all of those also, we have roughly 140 mini-figures. Sad, but true.
(And, actually, we have about 20 extra heads for some reason...not sure if there are poor bodies without heads somewhere or what. Asher pointed out that at least a few of the bodies without heads are in each boys' stash because they're extra changes of clothes for their mini-figure representation of themselves, but I don't know where the rest of the bodies are, lol.)
Anyhow. It was great fun. We tried to out-do each other in creating the weirdest people.
Now. If you're wondering why I was cleaning the dreaded Lego room...let me tell you...
In short, because we're re-organizing and painting the basement, everything got moved into the front room (the "school" room). As part of the basement re-organization, we also cleared out the play area (just next to the front room) and decided to make that into the dining area it was originally intended for. The awesome new dining table that Nathan's parents got us for Christmas now sits in said dining area, awaiting a time when we've finished shuffling boxes all around the house, such that there aren't boxes filling the rest of the space (hopefully soon). The boys, in losing the play area and the front room and the rec room and the family room, where they'd generally played before, took over the new dining table as a staging ground for their Lego city.
Before I can finish sorting the front room, though, I need more room in the dining area. Which means I needed boys and Legos back to the yellow room. In order to get them back to the yellow room, we needed a miracle. The yellow room, you see, was not passable. As in, it was unsafe to walk in. As in, I couldn't see the floor...it was covered in Lego creations that I was not supposed to touch. (The boys love to build the Lego kits as they come but them modify them as they go and add them to their "fleet"...they somehow knew where every one of these creations belonged and were able to still get to the drawers of loose Legos. Amazing really.)
Anyhow, because my boys rock, I woke up earlier this week to find them tackling the yellow room floor all by themselves (having explained to them the day before my plan and why I needed the yellow room cleaned). So. I missed the complete devastation picture, but here's what it looked like after they'd made pretty good progress:
Yes, this is after significant progress. See? You can see the carpet. That's huge. So. We then proceeded to finish cleaning and sorting the yellow room, purging most anything that wasn't Lego, hence the time for playing with mini-figures, and are now just waiting for Nathan and Noah to get home with the shelving supplies. We're going to add big ol' shelves in the closet at boy height so that each boy will have a place to put his creations...a place that is *not* on the floor. ;) (I sectioned off spots on the floor using painters tape that are the same size as the shelves will be so that the boys knew how much they could keep. The rest got "recycled" for future building. And, yes, we took the doors off the closet long ago...just easier.)
Whew. So. After this weekend, hopefully, we'll have the yellow room in better order, such that the Legos can stay in the yellow room. (The reasoning here is that if the floor was clear enough that they could actually play in there, they'd stop bringing all the Legos to the dining table.) And. The last coat of paint on the trim in the guest room goes on later today. (For those who don't know, painting trim is not fun. At all.) Then, we can move the stuff from the guest room back into the guest room (it's currently taking up much of the space in the rec room). That will leave the rec room mostly empty, except for the toys from the former play area that will be moved down there (and the toys that were originally down there that are presently in the front room waiting). Here's what the rec room looked like once emptied:
And here's what it looks like now (or will look like once we move the stuff back into the guest room):
And, yes, we still plan to put a fort down there. But. We're trying to be realistic and have decided perhaps that can wait until spring. ;) Technically, we still plan to paint the doors in the basement (just a cleaner white) but think that may wait till spring, too.
So. After all that, I'll just need to finish sorting the stuff in the front room and get that all out to where it will now live. And maybe, just maybe, we'll take next weekend off. Or, if we're feeling crazy, we'll go look for new light fixtures for the dining area and front entry and paint the half wall in the dining area and try to finish off that stuff...we'll see...LOL...I kinda feel like after all this work to get the rec room more open for the boys, we deserve to make the main level a bit prettier. ;) Then again, there's definitely something to be said for not painting anything... ;)
Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 09:00AM ;)
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