LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Sixteen Review.

Welcome back for Day 16... Feels like I just finished reviewing day 15...

The past 24 hours have been crazy... Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone that were involved in the Martin Place siege and also to their families and loved ones at this extremely difficult time.

Lets try and continue our daily routine and see what our little munchkins got today...







I can tell you now Chloe was not impressed with today's offering. A Christmas pudding, a couple of trans pink mugs and... a chocolate star cookie? I think today was her final straw and she finally cracked, Chloe wishes she had the Star Wars Advent. When you get the last week of gifts all together is doesn't look to bad.

Spare cookie

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This morning our little policeman got himself a new ride. A new police snowmobile. 12 pieces were used to build this funky looking snowmobile. I think the police officer is happy with it.

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Jaspa is always getting the cool stuff. Continuing on with the original trilogy we get a Snowspeeder Pilot to accompany the Snowspeeder from yesterday. Fantastic printing on both sides of his face and torso. Even his legs are printed. Jaspa has a few different versions of this minifigure and this combo is unique only to this Advent Calendar. needless to say he loves it! It's another to one he can add to his line of "good guys" which he thinks he doesn't have enough of.

Well, that's it for Day 16 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and please check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-)
 
Tan Tile signing out! See you all again tomorrow.

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Fifteen Review.

Welcome back to the start of week 3. Today is Day 15!

Only 10 days to go now... It gets tough to write an intro everyday. Trying to come up with something to say that's worth reading. Sometimes I babble on like I am now... and sometimes it's easy. It really depends on what has happened that particular morning. The only thing worth noting about today is it's the final week of school for Chloe being in grade 2 and tomorrow is Jaspa's last day of kinda before he starts prep next year. All fantastic milestones! anyway...

Lets take a look at today's door reveals.





This morning Chloe got her kitchen sink, I knew there had to be one eventually. Now Mia and Ewa can do their dishes after eating their yummy Christmas dinner. 12 pieces are used to make the sink. Did Chloe like it? Yeah sort of... She has a few iterations from other Friends sets, so she wasn't too fussed about today's. When do the toys start coming? Girls can have fun too!

Today's spares

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I didn't get to build anything today. What I got was a dog with a bone in a bowl... yep! Cool to have another dog  if you don't own many, but I loved last years more. It was different. A new coloured dog would have been great! Instead we get this one again...  I have well over 20 of them now, from all the different City sets in the last 3-4 years. But only 2 of last years Dalmatian, more of him please. lol

Spare bone.

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I think Jaspa's calendar build wins today! He built a mini Snowspeeder. (you only had to wait a couple more days Az) Jaspa absolutely loves it. So much so he has dug out his Lego Star Wars tub and is playing with it for the first time in months. It takes 19 pieces to make up this cool little build.  Zoooooom! Zap zap zap!

Spares

Well, that's it for Day 15 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and please check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-)
Tan Tile signing out! See you all again tomorrow

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Fourteen Review.

That's week 2 done! Welcome back to Day 14.

Doing these reviews every day has certainly made my December fly by quickly. In 10 days we will be done for another year.

As with most Sunday's, I get the chance to have a sleep in, but that sleep in has made today's review later then any others we have done.

Normally I start at about 9am and have them all done (including building, photographing, editing, uploading, writing and then publishing) by about 11:30am. But when I wake up at 11am... I am already trying to catch up the moment my eyes are open.

Lets get to then... what goodies did we get today?


Today Chloe got to serve the 2nd course of her Christmas Dinner. Behind her door was some really nice food elements... 2x Carrots, 2x chicken drum sticks, 2 x cup cakes and 2 x  drinks in glass' or it could be some strawberry jelly. Chloe was extremely excited about getting some carrots and chicken legs, sitting on the floor pretending to munch down on them while washing it down with some imaginary liquid.

Spares for today. You can make an extra cup cake for the deer out side. ;-)

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This mid morning... I built a Flash (BTW a fantastic TV series! You should check it out if you haven't) inspired Red and Yellow toboggan/sled. Today's toboggan helped foil the robber's getaway from yesterday. Crime doesn't pay folks! A cute little build that will stand out in contrast to all the white in our Winter Village MOC. 

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Jaspa's build for today seems to be keeping with the Episode IV vibe and giving him a moisture vaporator.
Moisture vaporator's are commonly used on dry desert planets such as Tatooine to draw in any humidity that is in the hot atmosphere. 14 pieces are used to build this mini version. Jaspa didn't really think much of it today. Maybe TLG could have added a couple of Christmas lights on it to give it a more festive feel to it, I guess that's my job then ;-P  For us OT fans this is an instant recognisable build and they did well to capture the look and feel of it.

Well, that's it for Day 14 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-)

Tan Tile signing out! See you all tomorrow

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Thirteen Review.

Hello and welcome back for Day 13 of our daily Advent Calendar reviews.

Some consider the number 13 as unlucky, but in terms of building with LEGO I see no harm. In fact today seems to have been a good day for the calendar builds. None of us were disappointed with what we got.

Scroll down to take a look and make your own decision. What do you think?








This morning Chloe's calendar is still focused in the kitchen. She got to build some draws, salt and pepper shakers and a chopping block with a wedge of cheese sitting on top.  Over the "cheese" is this wicked Clear dome piece, It's used to help keep the "cheese" from drying out. It still doesn't feel like a Christmas themed calendar, more like a Better Homes calendar for redesigning your kitchen. I like how with only 13 pieces, it gives you so many options to play with., need salt or pepper with your meal? How about a slice of cheese? don't forget to cover it back up. Or put your knives and forks in the draws. All we need now is a kitchen sink.

A couple of spares.

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In this mornings City calendar I gots me a thief! The thief comes with a backpack sack, a jewel and a flash light. Why don't the thief's/robbers find time to change out of their prison uniforms. Lol. He has a double sided torso print that is new for 2014. By using this combination of parts, the minifigure is unique to this set. In the photo below I wanted to highlight the jewel better as it was pretty dull in the sack so I had a red laser pointer lying around and when I pointed it at the jewel... WOW you should see how it lights up and sparkles! The photo still doesn't do it justice so if you have laser pointer give it a go*. (*Please don't point it into anyone's eyes!)

The Spares you get can make up another flash light and an extra jewel for the thief to steal.

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I had a feeling he was coming today! Behind door number 13 Jaspa got the owner of yesterday landspeeder, a Luke Skywalker minifigure. He is a fantastic looking minifig and he has printing on both side of his head and torso, even his legs have detailed printing. This is the new 2014 minifigure that is only in 2 other sets; 75052: Mos Eisley Cantina and 75059: Sandcrawler - UCS.  The other 2 sets are up in the $$$ and getting him in a set less then $50 ($39 for me) a lot of people will be very happy to welcome this minifigure into their collection. As soon as Jaspa opened him he was excited to see Luke! We have not opened our Mos Eisley Cantina yet and we don't own the BIG Brown tool box ;-)

All in all, today was a good day... Cue in the Ice Cube track now...

Well, that's it for Day 13 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-)

Tan Tile signing out! See you all tomorrow.

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Twelve Review.

December is flying by so fast! We are now at the halfway mark. Only 13 sleeps till Santa comes with the larger LEGO sets! :-D

Are you all prepared? We almost are... but those shops are getting insanely busy now! We need to find possibly 2 more gifts and then we are done.

Any way... lets take a look at what we built today.







This morning Chloe got more finer details to add to her little Dinning/Kitchen area with a pot and... tomato soup? The picture on today's door shows the Red dish pieces (tomato soup) sitting in a plate/bowl, but as you can see from the photo below there are none. You are meant to use yesterday's plates/bowls, but it is kind of confusing at the start because the picture has them grayed out making it look like you are suppose to get 2 more of them. It had me guessing whether or not they were missing and I had to look online to make sure. 7 pieces used.

Whoops.. who spilt the soup on the floor?

A shot with it added in to the whole scheme of things. The little detail of garnish by using the Bright Green Bracelet pieces is a nice touch.

Today's spares.

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For me this morning my mini build was a Remote Control Duck, it's based on the classic wooden pull-along duck that was released way back in 1935 by LEGO before the now infamous little plastic brick.
It was a cute little build that reminds me of all the other mini builds like the Trains from the previous years.

My spares.

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Today our little man got to build Luke Skywalker's Landspeeder from Episode IV. What a great little model! It's instantly recognisable and to make something so small using only 15 pieces blows my mind! Now that Jaspa has this small version, he is dying to open 75052: Mos Eisley Cantina and play with the larger version.
My tip (going by the previous days, and if the trend continues) is we might be getting the Landspeeder's owner tomorrow. We will wait and see...

Spares..

Well, that's it for Day 12 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-)

Tan Tile signing out! See you all tomorrow.

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Eleven Review.

Hello and welcome back for Day 11.

What a great morning to wake up to. I woke up to find both kiddies ready for School and Kinda. My wife was on night shift and came home with some nice hot Bacon and Egg Mcmuffins! Yum!

Now that the house is nice and quite with both kids out for the rest of the day, I might go take an afternoon nap after I do this review... :-)






This morning Chloe got to build an Oven with a Stove Top. To be honest she wasn't all that impressed with it. I get that cooking and having a hot meal is essential to any Christmas day but really? It needs to be recreated in Lego? I haven't seen a lot of fun activities in this Friends Calendar. It's more geared for a "Let's play house wife" type of deal and I'm not liking it. And neither is my daughter. The only thing remotely fun so far in this years Calendar is the toboggan/sled from day 2.  Even that looks odd when the minidoll is sitting on it. Any way here it is... 

One spare.

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I got to build our 4th Minifigure so far from the City Calendar. A Police Officer with a Loud Speaker and a Music Sheet. He has the 2014 Police torso that has printing on both sides. If you are like us, you would already have plenty of these guys. It's still a fantastic looking print and I love the newer style hat he comes with too.

A Spare Loud Speaker.

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Jaspa got a Tie Fighter Pilot this morning, the same one that is also in the micofighters 75031: TIE Interceptor. It's a wonderful looking figure. He has printing on both the front and back of his torso and also has printing on his legs. Jaspa was thrilled with him but he needed to find his friend from 75031: TIE Interceptor in his "Tub"... Lets just say that was not fun to look for. lol.

The only thing that looks odd is that his flesh coloured head is exposed at the back. He probably should have gotten Day 8's Snow Trooper head instead.

That's it for Day 11 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-)

Tan Tile signing out! See you all tomorrow.

LEGO 41040: Friends, 60063: City, 75056: Star Wars 2014 Advent Calendar, Day Ten Review

We have hit the double digits! Welcome to Day 10 as we countdown the days to Christmas.

The kids woke up super super early this morning and by the time I woke up to begin the day, they had already gotten dressed and opened their calendars for the day. Not bad for a 4 and a 7 year old. They are growing up so fast... Too fast!

So I missed out on their reactions this morning.

Let us see what we got today...







This morning Chloe got some accessories to fill in her pretend "kitchen" and actual dining table. She got 3 x Plates, 3 x Knives, 3 x Folks, 3 x Cup Cake holders and some Kitchen utensils. Chloe didn't get to build anything today and was rather upset about that. :-/

An after dinner happy snap.

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Because I missed out on opening my Calendar at the same time as the kids. It didn't feel as fun, and the excitement of what we might get was gone. What I did get this morning was a Snow Catapult with "4 x snow ball projectiles" or 1x1 Round Bricks in White. The picture on the door only show 3 round brick but I suspect the 4th may be an extra. Another mini build to add into our MOC?

Just the one spare Technic piece (and maybe 1 round brick)

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Jaspa was already lying on his back zipping and zooming around his newly built mini Tie Fighter when I got into the lounge room this morning. A pretty good indication that he is delighted with today's build. I bet I know what he will get to build tomorrow... :-P A nice interpretation using just 11 pieces. A better looking build compared to the 2011's Tie Fighter.

 A stud for a spare... (sounds like a personal ad) 

 

That's it for Day 10 of the Advent Calendar reviews. Thank you for dropping by and check in again with us tomorrow to see what little goodies we get to build. :-) 

 

Tan Tile signing out! See you all tomorrow!