In Lieu of New Header

A new header for my blog is a fairly time consuming thing.  It's not that I'm time poor. It's just a matter of priority.  I will produce a new header in the not too distant future (I hope).  In the mean time you need to know that one of the grandchildren is missing from my header.  She is nearly a year old.  That's how slack I've been.  So here is one of the latest photos of our little Ladybug with her mummy, Juliette.   You can visit their blog here.

All of our family have bloggy nom de plumes for security and it is always a BIG decision when we have to decide on a new one for a new grandchild.  After all, it has to reflect some of their character and be positive.  None of them will ever be a "Spider" if I have my way.  Our Ladybug is soooo cute and colourful - like her namesake.

Of course since the last header update the other five have grown too.  So you were wondering if I have any recent photos of them too.  I'm so glad you asked.  Here is Little Bear looking gorgeous as usual, but sort of quiet, even pensive, definitely NOT as usual.  Don't be fooled by the photo!  Little Bear is the most impulsive and overactive energetic of all of the grandchildren.  She can be giggly, teary, cranky, haughty, sweet, charming, cuddly - and all within the space of a minute. 

Here is Monkey in a pose that I often see, but will never take for granted - running towards me with outstretched arms, usually yelling "Mammar!" as loud as he can at the same time.  How can you not love that?  That's Mr Sunshine and Dragon in the background.

Here are Monkey's big brothers with their cousin Little Bear.  That is Dragon in the middle and Lion on the end.  Lion is a bit like the Lion in the Wizard of Oz in that he often has that serious, slightly worried expression.  He can be very serious for a little fellow, but he also has the most adorable loving and cuddly nature with a great sense of humour.  Dragon is always ready for fun and it is much more rare to catch him with a worried look.

That only leaves Cheetah - the oldest - our first grandchild.  Cheetah was an OG (only grandchild) for 5 years before Lion came along.  I'll leave him out for now because soon he will be having a little holiday with us and I will make sure I feature him then.
Maybe with some fresh photos I'll find the time to update the header.  Maybe.

Draft Header

I've been working on a new header picture.  It still needs a bit of touching up, but you get the general idea.

The problem is that the template I'm using doesn't allow for editing the header.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I'll get over it or else I'll get around it some how.   Wait and see.

New skills

The last few days have been a little frustrating to say the least. . .  frustrating in a bloggy way.

You may have noticed.

I thought it was time to update the ankle-biters' photos in my header.  Monkey has grown so quickly that he would hardly be recognisable from his previous little baby photo.  So I created a new header and it didn't fit the header frame.  I changed the background and it narrowed my writing space down and left huge margins on the sides.  It also cut off some of my photo collage of my mum, which forced me to shrink it to fit.  All in all, my blog ended up looking embarrassingly amateurish.

Of course I am an amateur, but that is no excuse. I don't mind being an amateur.  I just don't want to look like an amateur.

The good news is that I found out how to widen the bits I needed to widen and changed my background to one broad page instead of columns and I'm much happier.

[Try to imagine me doing a happy dance around my computer]

Now the grandkids fit neatly in the header frame -  I will change it though.  It was another failed experiment, but I will reuse the photos of them because they are sooo cute.  There will be more changes.  Gradually and carefully.