There are two things that my kids love more than anything - Harry Potter and Legos. They can spend all day either building Lego's and making up stories for their figures to act out, or dressing up and pretending to be Harry and Hermione going on adventures. They love to get on the computer and search for Harry Potter stuff or Lego sets that they don't have. It was during a recent search that we discovered that at one time, there had been Harry Potter Lego sets. They were instantly smitten, and spent many days going back to Amazon to look at the different sets. They wanted them so badly, but because they were out of production, even the smallest sets had price tags of $60 and up. Matthew and I searched on Craig's List, but didn't have any luck finding reasonably priced sets.
Matthew did a little investigating online, and emailed Lego to see if they would be releasing new sets this year to go along with the movie that's coming out in December. He found out that they would be, and even found previews of the sets online. The kids were thrilled, and we began the countdown to the October 1st release date.
Right after school on the 1st, the kids and I headed to Target, and they practically raced down through the store to the toy aisle. Rowan was walking along with her eyes half closed, and her fists clenches saying "I am so excited, I am so excited". Killian was planning to close his eyes when he got to the toy section, just to delay the excitement for one more second. You can imagine just how devastated they were when we got to the toy section and....there were no Harry Potter Lego's to be found :( We asked an employee, and she said that they weren't coming out until mid October. The kids practically cried, they had so been looking forward to this day. I felt so bad for them! We went home, and I started making phone calls. I found that they had been released that day at Toys R Us, but that didn't do us much good because all the gift cards Killy had asked for for his birthday were all for Target. I called a few more local Targets and they all said to check the ad on Sunday.
Killian woke up bright and early on Sunday, and ran out to get the paper just to be disappointed again. There wasn't even a mention of the sets in any of the store ads. So I got on the phone again, calling the Target stores to see if they were out. The one that's closest to us didn't have them out...but one of the Targets about 15 minutes away said they were on the shelves already! Woot! The kids ran to get dressed, and Matthew and I piled them in the car and headed right over. We didn't even have breakfast or coffee, we were in such a hurry to get there.
This time they were not disappointed - the store had all the sets neatly lined up. Killian had enough gift cards, and had saved up enough money to have a total of $165.00 to spend. There are 4 small sets, ranging from $12.00 -$60.00 and then a train set for about $80 and the big one, the Hogwarts Castle, was $130. He had already decided to get the smaller sets instead of the two bigger ones, so he happily piled all 4 of them into the cart. He got "The Burrow", "Hagrids hut", "Freeing Doby" and "Quidditch Match". He had promised Rowan he would buy her the smallest set, which was "Freeing Doby" but once he got there and realized how much money he had left over ($35.00), he decided to spend everything he had left on buying Rowan "Hagrids Hut". She was SO happy, and we were both so proud of him for being so generous and kind to his sister. She kept saying "I have never met a brother as good as mine". So sweet. He was happy to do it, and excited to share the moment with his little sister:
We got home about 9:30, had a quick breakfast, and the kids were into Rowans room and building by 10am. I didn't hear a peep out of them for hours - and practically had to pry them out of there for lunch at 1. They finished eating, and promptly went back to building:
At about 3pm, Killian had built all 5 sets, and they moved them out to the dining room table to start playing:
All together, they spent over 6 hours building and playing with their new Lego sets that day. It was fun to see them so happy and excited over their new sets, I know they will get hours of entertainment out of them in the coming months!
Matthew did a little investigating online, and emailed Lego to see if they would be releasing new sets this year to go along with the movie that's coming out in December. He found out that they would be, and even found previews of the sets online. The kids were thrilled, and we began the countdown to the October 1st release date.
Right after school on the 1st, the kids and I headed to Target, and they practically raced down through the store to the toy aisle. Rowan was walking along with her eyes half closed, and her fists clenches saying "I am so excited, I am so excited". Killian was planning to close his eyes when he got to the toy section, just to delay the excitement for one more second. You can imagine just how devastated they were when we got to the toy section and....there were no Harry Potter Lego's to be found :( We asked an employee, and she said that they weren't coming out until mid October. The kids practically cried, they had so been looking forward to this day. I felt so bad for them! We went home, and I started making phone calls. I found that they had been released that day at Toys R Us, but that didn't do us much good because all the gift cards Killy had asked for for his birthday were all for Target. I called a few more local Targets and they all said to check the ad on Sunday.
Killian woke up bright and early on Sunday, and ran out to get the paper just to be disappointed again. There wasn't even a mention of the sets in any of the store ads. So I got on the phone again, calling the Target stores to see if they were out. The one that's closest to us didn't have them out...but one of the Targets about 15 minutes away said they were on the shelves already! Woot! The kids ran to get dressed, and Matthew and I piled them in the car and headed right over. We didn't even have breakfast or coffee, we were in such a hurry to get there.
This time they were not disappointed - the store had all the sets neatly lined up. Killian had enough gift cards, and had saved up enough money to have a total of $165.00 to spend. There are 4 small sets, ranging from $12.00 -$60.00 and then a train set for about $80 and the big one, the Hogwarts Castle, was $130. He had already decided to get the smaller sets instead of the two bigger ones, so he happily piled all 4 of them into the cart. He got "The Burrow", "Hagrids hut", "Freeing Doby" and "Quidditch Match". He had promised Rowan he would buy her the smallest set, which was "Freeing Doby" but once he got there and realized how much money he had left over ($35.00), he decided to spend everything he had left on buying Rowan "Hagrids Hut". She was SO happy, and we were both so proud of him for being so generous and kind to his sister. She kept saying "I have never met a brother as good as mine". So sweet. He was happy to do it, and excited to share the moment with his little sister:
We got home about 9:30, had a quick breakfast, and the kids were into Rowans room and building by 10am. I didn't hear a peep out of them for hours - and practically had to pry them out of there for lunch at 1. They finished eating, and promptly went back to building:
At about 3pm, Killian had built all 5 sets, and they moved them out to the dining room table to start playing:
All together, they spent over 6 hours building and playing with their new Lego sets that day. It was fun to see them so happy and excited over their new sets, I know they will get hours of entertainment out of them in the coming months!