New look to the Blog

The last template was causing me problems and looking very strange - and it wasn't just happening on my blog, but with others using the same template.

So now I have gone for a clean, white look - and hope you like it!

Top 100 baby names!

Here they are... the top 100 baby names in the US 2004!
Here is the newest page on my baby names site. It took a lot of work doing the table with 100 names for girls and boys. There are some interesting duos there. More opinion and comment on this coming right up on the baby names site.

And guess what? There's a new game coming up on the baby showers pages all about baby names!

More updates on my baby names site

I am continuing to add new pages to the baby names site, and as it seems that Yahoo have picked up only the pages that I have linked to from this blog, it seems appropriate to add a few more links for the spiders.

My Blogger blog for my new site is located here.

The new pages concern popular baby names for 2004.

Girls' top baby names 2004: the top ten rankings
rankings 11 - 20

2004 baby names - boys' top ten
boys' rankings 11 - 20

More in the pipeline on baby names, plus big plans ahead for my little kids' games site.

Thanks for your patience, and until next time..!

A move abroad

Well, there have been quite a few changes for us over the last couple of weeks, and my site has been left to stew by itself during that time, boo hoo! Not such a bad thing though as you will see.

Two weeks ago we left England and started our trans-European tour by car on our way to Bulgaria, where we will be settling for a time.

We spent ten days travelling via Paris, Geneva, Florence, boat from Bari in SE Italy to Igoumenitsa in Greece, Thessaloniki and Sofia Bulgaria. During this time most of my pages were picked up by MSN, who up until this time has pretty much ignored most of my site. And what's more, MSN has given me some very good rankings for some of my pages, so I'm not complaining.

What I haven't been able to do is carry on my onsite news blog, which is very frustrating. I am changing computers and the laptop I have with the software on it won't connect to the internet. So I am going to have to get it all fixed next week.

And these things take time. Much more time than a frustrated webmistress would like, but hopefully I'll be online with my own computer again soon.

Other than MSN, Google is behaving itself, as is Yahoo.

I am getting good visitor numbers, and being in Florence seemed to boost my site stats no end!

There's a lot more to come on the site. I keep saying it. It's slowly happening. Many of the subjects I cover are a bit skeletal at the moment, and more is needed.

For the next week (and that is a very optimistic time frame) my work will be cut out transferring all our belongings into our new home. That means unpacking a ton and a half of boxes, furniture, kitchen stuff - you name it, we brought it with us.

You'd think I would be an expert on kids' travel/car games wouldn't you? But my little six year old sat all those hours in the car wistfully looking at his Star Wars sticker book, writing lists of characters, planets, weapons, goodies, baddies and so on that I can only say a heartfelt "thank you" to George Lucas for producing a series of films that keeps a little lad (who still hasn't watched most of the films yet) spellbound.

New blog - new ideas!

Well, I decided to take the plunge and whack a blog - or at least, a newspage for the moment - on my site. It may indeed have a comments function added to it soon. I am just debating with myself whether that is a good idea or not.

However, I am very pleased with the new system. I can add a couple of short paragraphs with the smaller ideas that I have. It is easy to upload. And every month the posts are archived. What is more, I will even be able to add some of my own articles to my own site instead of syndicating them to the article sites! Of course, I can revamp the articles a little and still get them out on the web, but it will be nice to have my own stuff on my own site n'est-ce pas?

I nearly got my nursery rhyme games page up today but ended up making a mess of the page so I deleted it and will have to start again tomorrow! Got some nice ideas for that page, it's mostly written up and ready to go - just the titles and description need a bit of polishing.

Life's a-changing

After selling our house in April and staying with my mother the last few weeks - and our belongings hopefully safe en route across Europe - we are finally preparing our move abroad.

As you can see from my about page, my husband is from Bulgaria and that is where we met.

Now we are going to spend some time there over the next year or so, and leaving the UK for a while. We spend every summer by the Black Sea and it is beautiful. But we also know the capital, Sofia, very well indeed as we lived and worked there for most of the 1990's. Believe it or not, I speak quite reasonable Bulgarian! And my cooking is a weird mix of plain old British fare spiced up with a few Bulgar twists.

So the last week or so has been very chaotic, and I haven't had too much time to spend on the site. Funnily enough, it seems to have survived quite well without me checking on it so much!

There's so much more to be done; but I will have to wait a couple of weeks or more until I can do it. Next week we set off and then it will be a case of settling in and getting an internet connection sorted! Plus - a new school for my son. Big changes for him, so keep your fingers crossed. You can imagine what it is like changing your child's school, but for one in another country... (even one we know) - well, I'm just trusting in the good Lord.

I have managed to fit a little work in over the last few days - reading up on Christmas traditions. I will be adding a section on holiday games as soon as I can in time for the autumn/winter season. Which, with June arriving tomorrow, is not that far away. I bet some of you even know how many shopping days there are till Christmas!

Thinking about baby names...

I really ought to get some baby name games up on the baby shower game section. Particularly since my interest in this area has prompted me to start writing... yes, another website!

How to Choose Baby Names is still in its infancy ha ha! It's a fascinating subject, especially as people from different parts of the world will have quite different views on the matter.

With this new website I'm trying to give online step-by-step tips on choosing a name for your new baby. The steps are clear; the difficult part is in the detail. To give you a flavour, I have started the first section all about popular baby names.

Have fun!

Free Printable Baby Shower Games

Free Printable Baby Shower Games
Yes, I know I've blogged this page so much but this time it's specially for msn who seem to be beginning to notice me again. So, here you are msn, pleeeease look out for my baby shower games pages, because you seem to cache everything but...

New pages, new ideas

A bit of a site update.

I've been busy building new pages, particularly for the party games pages. Just to keep our spiders busy, here's a reminder:

Western party games

Luau party ideas

Pirate party games

Birthday party themes

There are more themes to come!

I've also got a lot of pages coming here concerning seasonal party games.

Plus more ideas for free printable baby shower games.

And more game ideas for little kids in general.

So all in all - concentrating on building up the content of the site. It seems to have taken on a bit of a life of its own recently. Which is quite nice!

Birthday Party Themes for Great Party Games

This page aims to gather together the essence of party themes and reassure party-givers that themed parties almost run themselves. I've still got a few hints to write up on this one. I was almost tempted to give the themed games a section to themselves. Then decided to keep all the party pages together. So it's fingers crossed on that decision!

Western Party Games for Little Kids!

My new page about Western party games. Most of what I have read up about life on the frontier tells me it wasn't this much fun! It's been an amazing history lesson.

Fun Pirate Party Games for Little Kids

Party games on a pirate theme here. Musical gangplank, cannonball skittles - and I'm still dreaming up a few more!

Luau Party Ideas - Luau Games and Activities

Here is my new Luau party game page. I'm a long way from Hawaii - but you can always dream. I'm adding these new pages for those search engines - particularly MSN, who seem to think I have 16 pages. If they put a new page up - they drop another. Hey ho!