American Thanksgiving was Thursday but I got to savour the prospect of proper mashed potatoes for another 2 days until Saturday.  Nicola always likes to make a fuss of Thanksgiving by getting into the spirit and making great homemade goodies fit for the tables across the pond.  This year was no exception and we even made it a whole family occasion with Mum and Dad, Karen and Malcolm and Josh and even Buster coming over.  Of course it wasn’t entirely like the Thanksgivings I remember.  There was no buttery bread rolls….and I didn’t see a single game of American Football on TV…and taking a break before pudding (yummy pumpkin pie) so the girls can watch X-Factor never seemed to happen at my house either.  But then I suppose you have to create your own traditions huh…

Speaking of mashed potatoes…

Cheeky…like Jaime Oliver

“I think we need more butter mummy!”

“Are you sure we don’t need more milk?”

and whilst he thought no one was looking

Finger licking good…just like the Colonel

And now for a bit of reblog…what one earth is a reblog.  Well, I’ve always loved blogging on Mondays after the wedding.  Problem is that you have to decide what you are going to show based on a few small thumbails.  Then, once you start working on the files you find 2 or three which probably would have been better suited.  Its the trade-off of doing instant blogging.  Whilst I could do this for every wedding (and for both last weekend) I won’t…I will, instead, do it for just last Friday’s.  A small sample…

In my opinion a far better ceremony shot than the one I posted.  I love that room!

As I said, no flash allowed in the tapestry room at Clandon Park…I like this better anyway!

A comment directed more to my American friends and family.  After all, what do we Brits (sorry, English) have to give thanks for.  The fact that all folks with kids now have their personal details floating around the computers of Eastern European mafia bosses.  Or perhaps the rather tepid departure of our man Steve McLaren.  The only man with shinier teeth than Nathan Petrelli on ‘Heroes’.  Perhaps the most ironic part of the whole thing was that, even a month after the fact, you could still see the yard markers from the American football game on the pitch as Wembley.  Hey England…let’s blame that!

On the potty front…yes, I know you are dying to know.  We are now at 3 days clean.  Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Monday, apparently, was a disaster (their words, not mine).  Nursery, I suspect, aren’t as diligent at asking about wee-wees.  He goes back tomorrow and we’ve been bigging up asking for a wee-wee.

And yes…for those of you who are desperate to know if the ‘Evan’ mentioned this morning on Channel 5′s Milkshake programme for getting the colour of ‘Noddys’ book correct (green by the way), was in fact THE Evan.  I won’t continue the lie (that being that he guessed the colour correctly) by saying it was him who sent the email.

Listen to me.  Like we’re experts or something.  Hardly.  The transition to ‘pants’ (underwear for the American viewers) has been quite easy.  A few accidents in the first few days but yesterday we had a completely clean day.  Of course we still have hurdles to come…most noteably…the big hooey which seems to happen overnight when, as advised by our potty training guru, he should still be in nappies.  So we’ve got that hanging over us (not literally I hasten to add).    I suppose we need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable setbacks which are bound to come.  He also has to start getting more outspoken at nursery as he had more accidents there than anywhere over the past few days.

I had 2 weddings over the weekend.  2 days…2 completely different types of weather.  Enough jabber and one with the previews.

Kerry and Laurence – Saturday, November 17th - Easthampstead Park, Bracknell

Printing your Order of Service during the getting ready…interesting

I spent ages trying to find the groom and best man’s best side…finally!

All the majesty known as Easthampstead Park

Sometimes shooting into the light is quite cool

The groom’s father — go on..getcha some! (btw…that’s not his wife!)

The Registrar commented that she’d never seen a groom smile for the entire ceremony

Laurence’s mum gets all gooey inside

Little kids and digital cameras…an interesting combination

Anyone up for a game of checkers?

There’s a tonne of history in those windows…but who cares, we’ve got the bride in shot!

Like Dino in the Flintsones, they kicked me outside for the evening (OK..not really)

Just some advice Larry…only have eyes for the bride, not the Mother-in-law as well!

Shiny happy people!

Picking off the Bridesmaids…one by one!

Kerry’s Dad keeps her sweet

Larry start the ceremonial game of bingo in style…actually I don’t think that’s true

Dave grabs a place I can’t mention

For the Shootinghip-blog devoted you might recognise both Dave and Larry…back in March the roles were reversed!

And for the second part of our double feature…I don’t wimp out like Tarrantino instead showing both in one go.

Joanne and Mark – Friday 16 November – Clandon Park, Guildford

Mark is a decorated soldier…I have the utmost respect for guys like him

Sometimes other people taking pictures makes an interesting picture…or it is just me?

Clandon Park became an honorary borough of Scotland for a day

The guests took some persuading to leave the warm autumn sunshine

No flash allowed at Clandon…but who needs it with light like this

For a daylight service Clandon is only second to Cain Manor in respect to kick butt ceremony light

Oh no…not another bridemaid!  I love it!

A junior member of Future Groom’s of Britain

It helps knowing what the camera sees

I’ve got sunshine…on a…well…sunny day.

Clandon in all its glory

Yes…those are fire buckets above Joanne’s head

Grandad says ‘gizza kiss’

Off to the reception

I had to include this for my faithful apprentice, Darren, who couldn’t believe it

Another OOF (out of focus), grainy shot that makes it to the blog…you gotta love emotion

Hello everyone.  Those of you who visit frequently might recognise a few changes.  For ages I’ve been wanting to have some additional functionality in the blog.  Things like automatic archives, a search function, proper RSS and ATOM subscriptions and integrated comments.

Well, my search finally came to end last week when I stumbled upon Presstopia.  A free .NET blog suite.  So with my techie hat on I set up MySQL (how boring of me) database and got to work. 

But don’t worry…all the old blog is still accessible…how could I leave all that great material behind.

The old blog is here

The first day of PT went reasonably well.  A pattern is starting to emerge regarding the frequency of wee-wees.  Currently it runs at between 25-30 minutes.  Hooeys don’t even factor as this seems to be a night time thing which he is in nappies.  The sticker chart is working well…he get really excited each time we add a new one.  Fingers crossed tomorrow is a step in the right direction.

He loves his bathrobe…we even have to tie it up

On Sunday Nicola and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary. Actually we celebrated on Saturday. We dropped E off at the GPs and went out to The Links in Liphook for dinner. Usually we go to Brighton or someplace nice but because we are off to Bruges in a few weeks it seemed a bit overkill. The best bit was getting back to the bedroom…gosh I hadn’t had a night like that in ages. We were at it till morning and even after a brief break we were at it again. Its been a long time since it was that good. I mean, sometimes on Mondays when I’m at home alone I’ll do it all by myself but Nic isn’t very keen on that. When Evan walks in on us we try to get him involved encouraging him by showing him how its done. He’s not quite ready I guess. You do know I’m talking about sleeping…right. What do you think this is…an episode of Three’s Company?

P-Day tomorrow…I guess you are wondering what I’m on about. Well, the time has come. Potty training starts tomorrow. We’ve been bigging up ‘big boy pants’ for weeks. He does go on the loo if you ask at the right time. So we have all the signs on our side. But tomorrow the nappies come off and the pants go on. We’ve got a sticker chart with rewards..the whole 9 yards. Fingers crossed. Another rite of passage is about to be thrust upon us! We’re hoping his desire to be clean will help. On Saturday morning (4am) we were woken up by a screaming Evan. We assumed some sort of nightmare. It was only when Evan flung himself at Nicola did she notice something a bit wet and sticky on her shirt. Sure enough he had tossed his cookies. He demanded a bath he was so concerned. We had another episode at 6:30 and then again at 8:00. By 8 he had learned to barf in the bowl. It was encouraging! I just hope he doesn’t hooey in the bowl :)

It was my 3rd weekend off on the trot. So here are some pics of Evan.

Testing out the manual zoom on the flash

More crazy sliding

He loves the tyre swing

The cheezy grin!

Where he has learned this mugging to the camera I’ll never know

Who needs a leaf blower?

Very helpful indeed

The look of concentration…

and then it all goes terribly wrong

Back to work

Whatzat?

Strangely, he didn’t like it when I put him in the green waste bag

Playing alphabet snap with mummy

Crazy Hair day at nursery (all for Children in Need)

What you get when you tell Evan to look at the camera

Some might say placing a 2.75 year old on a kitchen counter with a knife block is dangerous…I can’t see why.