Does Obama like to get bladdered on Guiness?

Apparently somewhere in Barack Obama's family tree there's a slither of Irish.

Here's the (ahem) musical proof.

Low scoring month

2nd blog entry of the month. This has got to be one of my lowest monthly blogging volume totals - pretty poor even by my standard!

Once again....

I'm back after another enforced lay-off from the blogging scene. The last few weeks have just been a bit darn hectic and I've have no "me" time whatsoever.

I'd like to blame part of my absence on having a brother-in-law visit for a week, but apparently this was before my last blog. Shame - I could've moaned about him monopolising my PC for the whole week, and that because I'm a such a generous host he cost me a fortune in food, drink, petrol, electricity, spending money, and valuable web-site maintenance time too.

Here's a quick summary of what else has gone on over the last few weeks.

THE GOOD
- The mighty Baggies are going great in the English Football PRemiership.
-England are doing great too - yay!
- Ben has some more teeth - the top two are now through, so he has 4 chompers to bite with.
- Ben now enjoys joining in with pretend rough play (wrestling, chasing etc) with Luke and I.
- Ben's obsession with Mickey Mouse has reached feverishly funny proportions - put anything with Mickey in front of him and you get a big old beam, the finger extends towards the Mouse and squeels in delight!
- Ben has developed the ability to clap - yay Benji!
- We went to a good friend's wedding, followed by Legoland the day after.
- Luke is learning to read at school.
- Luke good loads of praise from his Teacher at parents evening - sounds like he's one of the smartest (if not the smartest in his class!)
- I had a good work trip to Cheltenham - hard work but enjoyable.

THE BAD
- A Goldfish died (a couple of days ago.)
- Roger Rabbit died - in fact I discovered his solid corpse about an hour ago when I went out to feed him. I think he must've had a bad fall down his ladder last night. RIP good bunny - you served the family well and 8 years is a decent stretch.
- I've been working my balls off at work over the last couple of weeks - absolutely shattered so looking forward to a bit of RandR and the weekend.
- Wendy had a bit of a tummy bug which she caught from Ben.

THE UGLY
- Ben had a really bad bug for about 10 days - both ends! This started when I was away overnight in Cheltenham, so I was really miffed to not get home until 10.30pm the following night due to a late finish in the office and car trouble on the way home.
- I managed to come down with the bug too - at the wedding reeption! Great time to start vomitting. Even worse both Ben and I were mega poorly while at Lego land too so we didn't get to go on anything (not quite true. We went on a train and Ben went on the Carousel with Wendy and Luke.) So Wedny had to take Luke on all the spinny rides (which she hates!!!)
- Like most people in the western world, my finances have taken a fair walloping thanks to pesky credit crunch. It's really annoying to think this is caused by really sloppy Banks, Mortgage Advisers etc. So the ole pension has probably had a bit of a hit, but it's the share-based saving that have been decimated. Even more annoying, my bank is one of the ones that the British Government have had to bail out and they haven't passed on the interest rate reductions! Great!
If I had money to spare right now might be an idea to buy shares. Oh well! Cest la vié!

Stair Master

Oh great....Guess who was found standing on the bottom step this morning? Yup. Ben.
He's been trying to clamber up onto it several times in the last few days and he finally did it today.

Shortly after achieving this feet, he then showed it was no fluke by climbing two more steps.

A short nap (dreaming of conquering the whole flight of steps, no doubt) later and his efforts were now thwarted by the arrival of stair gates.

Only thing is, he can still stand on the bottom step, and now has something to hold onto, thus standing up and shouting the odds about why we've stopped his fun.

Just for my friends in Utah...

....Here's the Utah Saints!

Well,....the dance house/sampling/dance band from Leeds, England . According to Wikipedia they weren't named after LDS; the name in fact relates to some Basketball and Grid Iron teams.

They had a few hits in the early 1990's, and are experiencing a bit of a revival at the moment. To be honest, it's not my preferred type of music (thought I recall dancing to it in the discos of my youth....)

We have a (potential) winner!

Yep - in all competitions there's a winner.


And when it comes to this years' Miss Utah I like to think I'm backing the winner -
Miss Provo (kk).

Here's her blog

FYI, kk is seeking sponsorship for her entry- so if you're a business or a website this is a could be a really good opportunity.

Disney matter

It seems ages since we got back from Florida (just over 4months ago) and I'm getting a hankering to go back again, but know I won't be able to afford it for a couple of years at least.

So, I figured I'd post some Disney stuff to cheer me up!

Here's a recent video on how they make their cartoons.

Jeez

Retinoblastoma - Having read this article on the beeb I thought "merde!" (pardon my French- Merci beaucoup) "I gotta find out more about this."

This site had a bit more explanation to it. Only trouble I'm now paranoid about any glints in my boy's eyes on recent photos.

Shocking Stuff

Even by my standards, the time between blogs has been pretty poor. And the excuse? Well I was on a course for 2 weeks away from home and although I had web access I didn't really have time for blogging. And the past weeks, well, just laziness tbh!

A lot has gone on in that time. The Olympics have come and gone. Congrats to Team GB, and boo hiss to the dodgy Chinese officiating. The Ruskies have been up to their usual tricks and invaded Georgia. Ever since Putin came to power they've been heading back to their cold-war ways. More worrying than that is the start to the Premier Football season by my beloved Baggies. 2 league games, one cup match, 3 losses. And, biggest news of all.....Ben has started crawling!!!!

Yep, the litle blighter has been trying for ages and has been getting around quite well despite not quite getting the need to keep both knees on the ground. And over the last few days he's been getting nearer then finally today, inspired by the desire to fetch Mummy's smelly trainers he crawled properly. Suddenly I'm filled with the need to hide absolutely everything because in addtion to this new skill, he already has the ability to haul himself off the ground and stand up holding on to whatever he can find.

And once he's got his balance sorted he'l be waddling around too as he's alreadt fathomed out that he needs to put one foot in front of the other (by holding his hands he'll merrily walk along with us....for a few seconds before falling on his bum!

Bewildering

We went to Bewilderwood today. Luke loved it and I gotta say I enjoyed it alot too. Although I was a bit concerned when we were about 50ft up going across a wobbly rope bridge!

I'm gonna miss both my boys over the next couple of weeks; I'm going to Bournemouth on a course. Although I'm back next Saturday for the day it'll be like not being a home for 2 weeks. So, whilst D will be struggling to cope with the little monsters at least she'll be able to get a cuddle!

TCM site has been updated

I've had one of those rare chances to blog about Total Client Marketing.

See the update here

I think the addition of the google search is quite neat.

Sad

Some very sad news.

Scrabulous has finally been removed from Facebook.

Yes, Hasbro are right that it is sort of a copy of Scrabble (which they apparently have the rights to...) however, it's also provides people to play with friends far away (ain't that right, K!!) and has encouraged many people who don't play scrabble to enjoy the game too.
So, is this a case of Hasbro shooting themlseves in the foot? Yep, I think so.


Image found on Celsias.com -Hope you don't mind!

Nice Tooth See You!

At last - Ben cut his first tooth today.

Like all little boys he's fascinated by it and onstantly rubs his tongue over it -and does this to stop anyone getting a look at it.

It's early days because you only know it is there if you run your finger over it - it's pretty sharp already. In fact it's a good job he's on a bottle nowadays otherwise, well.......
Let's just say Mummy would be a it concerned if little sharp-tooth made this kind of look (below) at her!

Happy Pop

Today was a good day.

After several weeks of being sent out of the swimming pool during his weekly swimming lesson for not behaving, Luke finally went an entire session without being told off!

And before that he'd spent his first couple of hours at "Big Boys School" so he could meet his new teacher for next term. And I heard good reports back from that too!

He rang me up at work to tell me his news in his usual efficient manner.
Me: Hey Lukey. What've you got to tell me then?"
Luke (in really quiet voice): I've been good. Bye.
Mummy: He's gone.

Skool dayz

September seemed a long way away until today. Luke got bought his first pair of school trousers and seeing him wearing them made me realise it's not long until the little fella will be starting school.
He seems okay about going to school, but he's gonna miss his playschool and nursery friends because they're all going to a different school (we're out of catchment). After going to half a dozen or so different schools myself and having to make new friends I can sympathise with him but he's the sort who can make friends quick so he'll be fine.