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In case you haven’t heard of Bloggy Giveaways I’m here to tell you a bit about them. About a thousand bloggers have gotten together to have some contests where they give away some fantastic prizes. Here are a few examples of sites you can visit.
Victoria’s Secret $50 giftcard at A Family Completed
Pack of 3 Safe Sippy Cups at Two of a Kind, Working on a Full House
Brand new I-Pod Shuffle at Noobie
Usborne books at pennyraine
There are many many many more sites to visit. You can browse to see what you’re interested in. I, myself, signed up for all the Starbucks gift cards 
Enjoy and happy winning friends!
I couldn’t resist posting a few more shots!
This is Girlie with her Great Grandpa Ron. He taught me how to dance and it looks like he’s starting up lessons for the youngest member of the family.
Over Christmas break we visited with our friend Vee.
While visiting with Vee his Mom made us the best Indian food EVER! I’m not kidding, either. She’s a great cook and makes it seem so easy to do.
Here is my family! My parents Steve and Dee and bro Andy. I had another nice shot of our family with Anne, my brothers girlfriend…but it didn’t turn out well. We all looked spiffy for a wedding this past weekend. Girlie enjoyed dancing with Grandpa Steve and Erik and I realized we don’t dance enough…we forgot some of our “moves!”
This last picture was taken at my parents place. Every day a ton of wild turkeys come in to eat the corn my Dad puts out for them. It’s neat-o to watch them strut up the hill, perch up in the trees, and the best part is watching Girlie run back and forth to look out all the windows at them and say “giggle, giggle, giggle”…her attempt at gobble, gobble, gobble. Ya gotta love free entertainment!
Have a great weekend everyone. We’re celebrating the 5th newest arrival in the last two weeks. It’s a baby palooza around here with all our friends having babies. Sort of makes one wish we had another little one. Oh wait. I’ve got up to four a day…that’s enough for now!
Here are some of recent favorite pictures I’ve taken. Enjoy!
Miss Girlie after waking up from her nap.
Miss Simone. Or as Girlie and the other childcare kiddos call her, “Mone.”
Yes. The cats are still alive. They’re a bit depressed as this year our first ever real Christmas tree thwarted their attempts at destruction of ornaments and all things Christmas in general. I’m sure they’ll just sleep away their winter blues. That is when they’re not running for their lives from the evil child that lives to chase them and pull their tails.
A cool picture I took of my plant. I like this one. Very artsy fartsy
I’m not sure if any of you readers have heard about the big breastfeeding controversy going on with facebook. In case you haven’t, here’s the scoop. Some folks have put pictures up on their pages that show them breastfeeding their child(ren). This is a no no according to facebook and therefore many folks have become angry when their pictures are removed and have either quit using facebook or blogged about it and spread the word to be angry at facebook.
In response to this ongoing and it seems never ending controversy a guy named Phil offered his thoughts. And art.
Check out Phil Hansen’s “test” with facebook. Quite funny what he’s done. It appeared on CNN’s i report and of course…has caused a bit of a stir. CNN has encouraged folks to respond to the “issue” of public breastfeeding through comments and by offering their own video responses. They’re asking this question.
Is public breastfeeding okay?
Duh. Yes. Here are a few of my reasons why it’s a-ok with me and why it should be with you also.
1. It’s the law (in many states) that it’s okay to breastfeed in public. I hope legislators make it legal for the entire breastfeeding population to feed their kids wherever, whenever.
2. It’s really not that difficult to avert your eyes from the boob. The child’s head usually covers up most of it anyway. Quit staring sickos…hee hee, kidding about the sickos part. But, seriously–quit gawking!!!
3. Are you seriously thinking that any sane mother would go into a disgusting bathroom stall at Wal-Mart, plop down on the toilet seat or floor and feed the baby there? WAKE UP AND REALIZE THAT THERE ARE NO EASY PLACES TO GO TO FEED CHILDREN AND THAT BREASTS WERE CONVENIENTLY MADE ON THE BODY FOR FEEDING BABIES!!!!!!!! (that is unless the average person shops at stores where there’s a fancy pants women’s lounge to go sit in and feed your kids.) If I was a store owner I’d make the best women’s rooms around. I know it would bring in customers and I would also have a place to change kids’ diapers in both the mens and womens restrooms. And just a side note. Babies eat a lot and quite frequently. In fact, if I’d been determined to only feed Girlie at home and not when I was running errands, I don’t think I would have ever left home. Consequently, I would have also gone stark raving mad.
4. I’ve heard the argument ‘use a blanket’ so many times. I used a blanket. Girlie ripped it off herself and threw it. Using a blanket to cover her head really distracted her. It probably also made her feel like she was suffocating!! I say if your child is okay with using one, use it. But have a little compassion on the mom who has a blankie throwing kid.
5. I personally didn’t dabble too much in the world of whipping out the boob in public. It made me a bit self conscious and I would usually find a quiet, dark corner or go out to the car (which wasn’t very convenient or private either!) Eventually, I became comfortable with the process and stopped leaving the room if I was with friends or family. It was nice that I could stay in a conversation and not have to get up and leave for a half hour.
6. It saddens me that people get angry at mothers feeding their children. Why aren’t people getting angry about things like
It makes no sense that people are angered over public breastfeeding when near nudity is happening on every magazine stand, Victoria’s Secret front window and on our TVs all across the country.
For all you breastfeeding haters out there here’s my advice. When you walk by a breastfeeding Mom if you must look at her, smile don’t gawk, judge or stare and keep walking away. It’s not like it’s a gory accident scene. Just walk by and know that the baby you just passed is being given a great gift of sustenance and life.
I’m in a blogging slump lately. Too much to do, not enough time to blog, a bit of blogger’s block. Mostly, nothing too terribly entertaining to blog about. There are a few exciting happenings to post about. So, without further ado here are the “highlights” and “lowlights” of my life lately.
* We think the vacuum is on its last leg. Last night it started smoking and smelling pretty much like it was burning up. I didn’t get any vacuuming done and our floor is pretty gross right now. Oh well. Erik’s going to tinker with it again tonight. I’m sure it’ll turn into him swearing like a pirate and then eventually getting it fixed. I’m sure happy to have a hubby who puts up with things like fixing crappy vacuum cleaners.
*Girlie is loving this fun CD I have of kids music. The big childcare kids have loved it for quite a while now and she’s bopping with them and even belting out some lyrics. Too cute. It seems that her words are popping out everywhere now. The other night before bed she climbed up into her chair with a book. When the Daddio asked her if she was going to read it she said, “No, Daddy you read it.” Crazy. She’s a little talking machine now and last year at this time she was finally rolling over for the first time.
*Inauguration was pretty exciting this week. It was amazing to watch history be made and to see so many people excited about politics. I have a lot of fear that things aren’t going to go so good, but I guess that’s sort of like life sometimes. The new Prez will have good things and bad things that he does…I’m hoping for more good of course.
What struck me most during the inauguration happened while I looked at Girlie and the two childcare kiddos there that day. It was so amazing to me to think ahead to when they’re ten or so. They won’t get all the hub bub about having an African American President. To them it will be normal and no big deal. It’s pretty neat to think that their world might not be filled with as much racism as our parents and grandparents world was. At least that’s the goal!
And the best, most exciting thing to happen this week (so far!!)
Drum roll please….
On Feb. 3-4 we’ll be taking a trip to Augustana College where Erik will be having an interview! While Erik is on campus interviewing, I’ll be checking out the hotel’s pool and hot tub…hee hee and probably the quad cities area and a few houses as well!
Still no word from Wheaton on whether Erik got the Professor job there. So. We’re down to two choices still. If both are a no he’ll be starting up more applications for one or two year teaching jobs rather than tenure track jobs. Yipe. This whole graduating and getting a job thing is scary sometimes. It takes all my restraint to not go nuts worrying about selling our house, moving and starting a new life somewhere. Thanks for sticking with me through all of these whiny future fears posts–I appreciate it
