"This is the day you will always remember as the day you almost caught Captain Jack Sparrow!"

When it comes to movies and things on TV Opeie can be very fragile at times, he gets easily scared,  by things that I wouldn't even think would affect him. He's a sensitive little thing. If this happens then we can pretty much count on the fact that we will be in for a rough night with him as the things that do affect him really play on his mind. You can imagine my surprise when Opeie informed me a couple of weeks back that he wanted to watch Pirates of the caribbean, I was a little reluctant (mainly due to the zombie pirates) but I thought we'd give it a go. Suprisingly he loved the film (although as expected not a huge fan of the cursed pirates) and straight after asked if we could track down some of the LEGO minifigures (I'm feeling a custom Silent Mary with a GFTP twist on the horizon).

It seems we had watched the film at the just the right point, although I'm not in a position to be splashing out on the latest pirate ship there were two other recent Pirates of the Carribean releases in the LEGO range. Brickheads have hit the shelves and from what I have seen online have made a huge impact. If I am honest I'm still not sure how I feel about them personally as I love some playabilty in the things that I build and Ive not been a fan of the pop! style figures that have been hitting the shops recently.

That being said though, its not all about me and Opeie absolutely loves them as they are just the right size kits for him to build quickly so that he can play with them soon after opening. Captain Jack Sparrow and Armando Salazar from the recent installment 'Dead men tell no tales' are a great start to what may end up being a Brickheadz collection, which I dont mind at all because at the price they are perfect LEGO kits for keeping the kids entertained with having to spend a large amount of cash.

The full Brickheads range can be found HERE and if you are a fan of the range be sure co check out some of the custom builds as there are some really great ones out there.

"Oh dear," thought Snuffy sadly. "I can't help, I'm afraid, but wait... oh, yes I've got it! I'll call the fire brigade."

I cant believe it has been almost a month since I posted anything. The build up to the election was really getting on my nerves so I removed social media off my phone for most of that time and because of it I didn't really fancy writing. Add that to some new responsibilities I have around the house and its no wonder I have been quiet. Its not the first time I've gone this long without posting but other times it has been utter laziness. This time though my loafing has a face... and a really cute one at that.

Since we have been walking the dogs at our local dogs home, Mrs M and at the boys have gone into full on 'dog mode'. I made my feelings clear early on that I really didn't want a dog. As usual though my tiny voice went unheard and the hunt for 'the right' dog for 'us' began. Mrs M finally thought she had found the right dog through a Bulldog charity and it seemed as though Alma the bulldog would be finding a new home with us. The home visit went fine but we found out that she would most likely need operations due to medical conditions and we didn't feel that would be fair on the boys seeing how excited they were about getting a dog.

On the day of the home visit a very disheartened Mrs M informed me that there was a local family who had pug puppies, the mouse like comments of "I don't want a dog", "I DONT WANT A DOG!"  of course continued to go unheard and Mrs M said that she had already spoken to the 'pug lady' and could we go and see them. Push over Pauly caved (as I always do) and we were straight in the car to look at puppies. I wasn't really prepared for the puppy ambush when we sat on the floor in their lounge and we were bombarded with excitable pups. There was a faint thought of 'Smithers release the hounds' in my head as 5 fun loving pugs started climbing all over us. There was only one of the 5 left and of course that was the one that found Opeie, curled up on his lap and fell asleep. Mrs M looked across and said "what do you think?" It was at that point that I realised the trap I had fallen into, there was no saying no to that.

We visited our new family member every week for 4 weeks before we could take her home, sometimes spending 3 hours there chatting to the breeders. Opeie, Seth and Mrs M were smitten and although I still didn't want a dog I couldn't help but fall for that cute squashed up little face. 

At this point its probably important to point out why I dont didn't want a dog. I'm not some sort of animal hater or weird dog Grinch, I'm just not a fan of pet ownership. It is such a HUGE responsibility and I'm not sure anyone in the house has realised quite how much yet. I wasn't a fan of getting a cat but they are low maintenance and Polly is not interested in our attention at all, if anything she is more like a lodger than anything else. Dogs though take up a lot of time, which I have found out to the full extent over the last 3 weeks because I have done none of the things that I needed to have done during the evenings. The thing that I couldn't get across from the get go was that the HUGE responsibility is so much bigger if you didn't want the pet in the first place and when Mrs M is working away, that is all on me (maybe I am a dog Grinch).

As always though I have adapted to the change in our home life like I always do, no matter what is thrown at me and I've got to say despite my reservations its nice to see everyone in the house so happy. Someone once told me that getting a puppy is like having a baby but I would take 10 babies over the broken sleep Ive had recently. I was so exhausted a few nights back that I stood in the garden at 4am half asleep (on wee patrol) and it wasn't until I went to walk back into the house that I realised that my underwear was wide open and I was hanging out (I just hope our neighbours aren't up at that time of the morning).

 So this is life now, cleaning up wee, broken sleep and minimal time to do the things that I want of an evening. In its place though is an adorable little squashed up face to wake up to every morning who likes to eat my beard and chew on my stretched ear lobes. I may have been converted... but don't tell anyone here I don't want to lose my Grinch like status.

Welcome to the family Snuffy.