Building a brighter tomorrow with LEGO® bricks

LEGO and My Mom

For Christmas this year, my mom got me a sweater, a necktie, a pocketknife, a toothpaste tube squeezer, and a LEGO set – LEGO Train Set #3677 Red Cargo Train. I went over to her house last night and we exchanged gifts, and she wanted to see what it looked like when it was built…. so I suggested we build it right then and there! To my surprise she wanted to do it, so I helped by sorting out the parts and going through the instruction book with her while she put the pieces on. Her 71 27 year old fingers had some trouble getting the pieces to go on, but it went pretty well.

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Advent 2012

2012 was the first year LEGO made a Friends Advent Calendar, joining City and Star Wars for three calendars total. As usual, each post was originally a separate blog entry, starting with Day 1, and continuing with a daily post about that day’s advent models. However, to clean up the site, I’ve condensed all those daily posts to a single post per year. Here’s the 2012 edition.

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Friends Second Wave #8: Summer Riding Camp

The final set in the Friends Second Wave is LEGO Friends Summer Riding Camp 3185. This is the biggest Friends set to date, with 1112 pieces (Olivia’s House had only 695).

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Friends Second Wave #7: Heartlake Stables

Today we examine LEGO Friends 3189 Heartlake Stables

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Friends Second Wave #6: Adventure Camper

Today’s set is LEGO Friends 3184 Adventure Camper.

This set features a motorhome, trailer, two bicycles (including one in dark teal, a new color for bikes), and some campsite details. Our old friend Olivia is back, and a new friend Nicole joins her.

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Friends Second Wave #5: Emma’s Horse Trailer

Today we take a look at LEGO Friends Emmas Horse Trailer 3186.

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Friends Second Wave #4: Heartlake Flying Club

Having dispensed with the smaller sets we now tackle the medium-sized ones, starting with LEGO Friends Heartlake Flying Club #3063.

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Friends Second Wave #3: Mia’s Bedroom

The third in my “Friends Second Wave” reviews is LEGO Friends 3939 Mia’s Bedroom.

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Friends Second Wave #2: Andrea’s Bunny House

Last week I posted “Friends Second Wave: Olivia’s Speedboat” and I was going to post more reviews of the second wave of Friends sets, but the weekend got away from me … I posted all the photos on Flickr for several sets but didn’t get around to writing the reviews. But this week I’m determined to catch up. So here goes with review #2, #3938, Andrea’s Bunny House:

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Friends Second Wave: Olivia’s Speedboat

This past January, LEGO came out with its new “Friends” line of toys aimed mainly at girls. Since there were 14 sets in the first wave, and I’d just finished a review of the Advent Calendar sets the previous month, I ran a series of blog posts I called “Fortnight of Friends.” This summer/fall, a new second wave of 8 new Friends sets came out, and I’m finally getting around to reviewing them. No guarantees that I’ll keep this up with future sets though…

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Sorted Friends

First-stage sort of all the parts from all 14 of the Friends sets. In January I did a review of each of the sets in 14 days called “Fortnight of Friends” and these are the parts after dissassembling all the sets.

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Tolkien Old Boys Club

Preliminary pictures of the minifigs from the new LEGO Hobbit / Lord of the Rings sets are out (thanks to Total Film)…

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 14: Olivia’s House

This is the last of the “Fortnight of Friends” series, and is the biggest set by far in the Friends series, #3315, “Olivia’s House”.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 13: Heartlake Vet

Today is the penultimate day in the “Fortnight of Friends” series, with the second largest set in the line, #3188, “Heartlake Vet”. This set builds an animal clinic, with both pet and large animal (horse) sides, and features two minidolls, Mia (last seen on Day 5) and the veterinarian Sophie.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 12: City Park Café

Today’s “Fortnight of Friends” set, the 12th in the series, is #3061, “City Park Café”.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 11: Butterfly Beauty Shop

Today is day 11 in our LEGO “Fortnight of Friends” series, and we tackle #3187, “Butterfly Beauty Shop”. This is the first LEGO Friends set I’ve done that has more than one minidoll in it… in this case, one of our main characters, Emma, and a new character, Sarah. Sadly, all the sign printing is done with stickers, which I didn’t want to apply, so the picture isn’t quite what is shown on the box…

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 10: Olivia’s Tree House

The tenth in our LEGO “Fortnight of Friends” series is #3065, “Olivia’s Tree House”.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 9: Heartlake Dog Show

The ninth day in our “Fortnight of Friends” series brings us the first “big box” set, #3942, “Heartlake Dog Show”.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 8: Stephanie’s Cool Convertible

Today we start off the second week of the “Fortnight of Friends” with the first of the larger sets: #3183, “Stephanie’s Cool Convertible”.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 7: Emma’s Design Studio

Today is day 7 in my “Fortnight of Friends” series. We’re now half way through, and this is the last of the small sets. Today’s set is #3936, “Emma’s Design Studio”.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 6: Stephanie’s Pet Patrol

The sixth in the “Fortnight of Friends” series is set #3935, “Stephanie’s Pet Patrol”.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 5: Mia’s Puppy House

The fifth set in the “Fortnight of Friends” series is #3934: Mia’s Puppy House. Of the sets we’ve seen so far, this one is far and away the “pinkest.” All the sets so far have featured one unique minidoll, and there are five main characters in the Friends line, so we now have one of each.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 4: Olivia’s Invention Workshop

This is the fourth set in the Fortnight of Friends series, #3933: “Olivia’s Invention Workshop”.

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Fortnight of Friends – Day 3: Andrea’s Stage

The third LEGO Friends set in my “Fortnight of Friends” series is #3932, “Andrea’s Stage”.

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