YMCA and a favor

We are officially members of our local YMCA.

Number one reason? It has a small water park.
Number two reason? I need to get in shape.

We had talked about joining before we even moved down here. I really want to get Gavin signed up for swimming lessons. Swimming abilities are a must when you have a cabin on a lake. Yesterday, I get a random phone call…

“Congratulations! You have won a two week pass to the Rochester YMCA!”

Sweet! It will be a great excuse for us to actually go visit the gym and see if we like it. But needless to say, we ended up signing up for memberships instead of using the two week passes.

But, because we got the phone call, it costs us thirty dollars less a month and our enrollment fee was waived!

Now, lets see if we actually use the gym…instead of just going to bring Gavin to the pool!

I have a bone to pick with you all…I get 150-250 hits a day on this blog…and yesterday I asked if you would help Gavin win the local “Cutest Baby Contest” by voting for him. We have 16 votes. We are in the lead…for now…but come on! I get that many hits a day…and only 16 votes so far?!? I KNOW that you all can do better than that!

No, you won’t get a million emails from our Fox News Network because you register.

Yes, you do have to register…but it takes about 1 minute and it’s only so they can track votes and prevent you from voting more than once a day.

If just half of you take five minutes to head over HERE to vote, we will be WAY in the lead.

We are faced with the dilemma of saving money for Gavin’s future medical expenses AND for his college funds, so every penny we can add to either of those helps!

So yes, I am asking, begging, not entirely pleading (ok maybe I am) with you to help us out. We’re not asking for any money…just five minutes of your time!

And once you register, you can go back everyday and vote. And once you’re registered it takes all of 15 seconds vote. And you’ll have one very happy (almost) one year old boy and two very happy parents (bragging rights included).

Soooo, click HERE to vote!

Local Contest

Our local Fox station is currently holding a "cutest baby contest" for local babies born in 2009. So of course I just had to enter Gavin!

Please click HERE to vote for him!

The winner of the contest (one with most votes) wins a $100 savings bond!

So please head on over and vote!!

(p.s. you get one vote per day...so feel free to head back multiple times!)

“Hat”

Well we thought Gavin learned a new word the other day…and we were right, sort of. My first word was “hot,” and while we were all in the kitchen the other day we thought he was saying “hot” over and over again. I was all excited, thinking that one of his very first words was the same as mine.

Wrong-o bucko.

We should  have known better. Casey wears a hat 24/7, and with it being freezing cold outside Gavin has to wear one whenever we go anywhere. It’s always an adventure getting him to actually keep it on, so needless to say he hears “let’s put Gavin’s hat on” and “keep that hat ON!!!!” over and over again.

Today, Gavin picked up one of Casey’s million hats and proudly declared, “hat!”

Duh.

We rarely talk about anything being hot…it’s winter in the frozen tundra. The only thing that’s hot is our sky high heating bill.

So here you go, a little proof that we have a mini genius on our hands…one that’s already smarter than his parents…

And a little extra in there for you…did you catch the uh-oh at the very end???

Top 50?

So this was kind of cool...

On my feedjit, I noticed that quite often I have people stumble upon our family blog from google. So I wondered, what would I have to search for to have our blog show up?

After several searches, I found a link to Networked Blogs, "Top 50 Blogs in MN." Hmm, I thought, I wonder if I read any of these...

As I scrolled through the page, I just had to laugh. Guess who's blog is on there....OURS!

Click here

Now I know that this was a poll only using Networked Blogs, but it was still pretty cool to see our name on that list!

Books!

Our little man LOVES to read his books.

If you ask him where they are he crawls as fast as he can to grab one…or two…or three…before long they are all off the shelf and all over the floor.

He calls them “boooos” (gotta work on that ‘k’ sound!)…

and spends a good portion of his day leafing through the cardboard pages

He also loves to pick one out (typically “Brown Bear Brown Bear” or “The Digger”) crawl it over to Casey or me and thrust it in our face. If you don’t drop everything instantly and read to him, watch out for those crocodile tears!

Get annoyed with blogger?

Do you find yourself spending way too much time tweaking your posts, only to end up even more frustrated with the “compose” section of blogger? Hate not being able to move your pictures around how you would like? Annoyed with the limited layout choices?

I was too. And maybe many of you have figured this out already, but today…I made an awesome discovery through the amazing world of Google search :)

Windows Live Writer

I’m in love. With a computer program. And Casey should be in love too, because it will now take me way less time to post anything new :)

It’s a free system (click here). Just a heads up, it does take quite a bit of time to download. I have a fairly new computer with high speed internet and it took around 12-15 minutes.

The program links up with your blog (you will need to enter your blogger username & password) and allows you way more editing options. I no longer have to worry about HTML codes, uploading my pictures in a certain order, or swearing at my computer :)

If you are comfortable with blogging through blogger, you will be comfortable blogging with Windows Live Writer. In fact, I find it to be much simpler.

Hope this helps some, if not all, of you!

Resolutions anyone?

Happy 2010! Hope you all had a fun night filled with celebrations (and hopefully not quite as much "fun" as we did...there is a bit of recovery happening around here...)

Have you ever been one to make a resolution for the new year? I've never been, but apparently my friend Rebecca is!

Now, before you run over to her site, let me give you an idea as to why I'm so impressed.

In college, I definitely struggled with my weight. That supposed "freshman 15?" Well, I added to that number...a lot. At one point I weighed around 45-50 pounds more than I do now. The fact that I stopped dancing after highschool was part of it...and the 2 am beer & pizza probably didn't help either :) I'm pretty sure that Casey threw up in his mouth a little bit when I pulled out some of those pictures...Put it this way, I weighed more but still tried to wear my old clothes...yuck.

Losing the weight was not much fun. I am a soda-aholic, love eating out and I loveee Mexican food. I had to give it all up. It was hard, and not so fun...but luckily, after several months of "dieting" and exercising, I was able to get myself back to normal...and all of that learning experience definitely helped me lose that dreaded baby weight! (I gained 50 with Gavin)

It's not hard to see how weight can creep up on you...just a pound a week ends up being 52 pounds in a year. Oftentimes women don't really notice weight gain until they see themselves in a picture. I would blame the mirrors when I thought my reflection looked fat, and would blame my pants not fitting to being bloated. Can we say denial?!?

But, moving on...I met Rebecca while working with kids at the YMCA while I was pregnant. We laughed as we realized that our due dates were only a week apart, we were both newly expecting. We also realized we both had lost our dads much too soon, were both (unintentionally)doing the baby before marriage thing, and were both looking to rake in some money with a part time job before the baby arrived. Needless to say, we hit it off from the start.

And then for Rebecca, things headed downhill...and quickly. She was diagnosed with severe hypertension and had her baby, Jaleah, via an emergency c-section at 26 weeks. To make a long story short, they spent over 100 days in the NICU with her but she is thriving today!

Back to the weight thing...Rebecca has been brave enough (trust me, this girl has got some balls to do this) to share her battle with weight...publically. Think Biggest Loser type outfits for before and after pictures...and she posted them. I cannot get over how excited I am to follow her journey, and I cannot be more in awe that she was able to post these. I mean come on, I won't even walk around my house letting it "all hang out"...much less let Casey take a picture...much less post it online!

So please, head on over to Rebecca's site to follow her on her journey and cheer her on!