$5,000

That's how much money we will win if Eli wins this contest!! Today's the last day to vote for this round! Yikes!

I'm running late (meaning: I'm in my pjs and I need to leave for work in 10 minutes!!!) but I just wanted to say thank you for all the bottle stories! It's good to know there are other bottles out there and good to know I'm not alone! And, I have been trying to get Eli to drink his formula out of a sippy cup so thank you friends!!

I also have a great story to tell you about my first experience with Sprouts, which is new to our little community. But, I have to go, so I'll be back!! 

Have a great day!

Dear Avent, why do you hate me?

So... Eli is teething again. He's getting his top two teeth in (I think... that's what it feels like anyway) and is drooling and chewing on everything again! I feel so bad for him!

Friday night I had a test due at midnight... turned it in at about 11:50 p.m. I hate cutting things close like that. Hopefully I did ok.

We find out if Eli made Round 3 of the contest tonight at midnight... This would be the top 25 so we shall see!

I have to figure out how to get a video from our video camera on here. The other night Eli was playing with my by the couch before bedtime and Wes was in the kitchen getting things cleaned up. I said, "Eli, say hi dadda!" and Eli goes, "hi dadda!!" and Wes and I freaked out!!! He said it like 3 more times and we got it all on video! so so sweet... We loved it. 

Eli is not quite in the "cruising" stage but he has his moments. He loves to stand up all by himself now, he's just barely trying to take some steps by himself while holding on to stuff. gosh I love him.

Also, I'm growing an intense desire to smash all of my Avent bottles into the wall. Does anyone else have a small (or big) hatred of Avent bottles???? It seems like when we first started using them we loved them and never had a problem. But for a while now I have dreaded using them because they LEAK!!!! Does Avent think I have time to clean up and retighten leaky bottles? The answer to that is NO! Bottles are expensive and that is the reason I haven't literally smashed them into the wall. uggh... anyone have any similar problems? or does anyone know of any bottles that don't leak????

I've been sad with my blog because I haven't been able to blog much lately but also that it has been pictureless for the past few blogs! :(  Don't you worry, I'll start snapping some super cute pics again and post them soon!

Only one paper, one interview, one more homework page, and one more final exam to do before this fall session is over! geez...

Happy Sunday friends!

Moving right along...

So.

Monday I was sick. Didn't go to work. blah...

Tuesday I felt much better. Went to work. Around 4:00 I got a headache that seriously did not go away until today. just a little blah...

Today I felt horrible!!! I felt sick to my stomach along with the headache. blah...

Right now I am feeling much better. I've been taking my medicine still, I've eating about half a sleeve of crackers, and I think that's it!

Hopefully whatever this was is gone and I can move on!

Speaking of... I really hope Eli makes it to the next round! Tomorrow is the last day... I'm kind of nervous, once again. :)

I hope your day was much better than mine! It's getting cold over here!  

Update

Well, I'm sick. I have some sort of cold that is bacteria based, which is good since I can take some medicine. But, it's super annoying being sick! 

Eli made the top 100! Thank you SO much for voting for him in Round 1! Can you please vote again for Round 2?

Round 2 starts today and lasts until 11:59 on Thursday! Then it's narrowed to the top 25!

Thanks friends! Hopefully these meds will kick in soon...

being a teacher is hilarious

I am fully aware that telling stories over a blog is kind of hard and when you don't know the kids personally, it is even more difficult to convey their sweet personalities, but I'm going to try.

I teach AP Psychology and we just started the sensation section, which is one of my favorites. Well today we were talking about our vision sense and the different parts of the eye and things like that. I was telling them how we see, like how it literally all works and how it all connects to the brain. We talked about transduction (converting one type of energy into another basically) and how that is what happens in our eyes. We take in light energy through the various parts of our eyes to be picked up by the various receptor cells, etc. 

All of that was going well and we were trucking along until we got to color. There are different color theories, two of which we discuss in class, but they both deal with the same thing: how we see color. 

I showed them a picture of a red cartoon dragon. I posed the question, "what color is the dragon?" Of course they said "red" and then my annoyingly accurate response was "we see the red that is reflecting off of the dragon, but the dragon itself encompasses all the wave lengths except the red one." I went on to tell them that actually, the light energy has no real color, and the color that they are "seeing" is from their minds, and not on the actual surface.

It was at this point where my kids starting putting their hands on their faces, on their heads, up in the air, and looking at me like I was crazy. Comments were being made like "Mrs. Martin! You are blowing my mind!" and "Everything I have ever thought is wrong!" and "Did my Kindergarten teachers lie to me?" 

hahaha... oh my gosh. Seriously. High school kids are so funny. I love their over the top dramatics... seriously. I really do.

Do I really need to say "vote for Eli" again? yes, yes I do :) Thanks friends!

video killed the radio star

and the radio almost hurt my child!

we have this stereo which I've had probably since high school and we never use it so we definitely don't need it. But... we've had it in the living room forever and used during random things. Well, it is no longer in the living room and I'm impressed that it hasn't been smashed to pieces by my husband after what happened today...

Eli is getting really strong, really brave, and really, well, everywhere! He's messing with things I never even thought to childproof, which  brings us to the stereo...

Eli pulled down on it today and it fell on him! Wes said it fell on his left arm and Eli was screaming! Wes checked him out, took him outside, Eli recovered and it totally fine. But Wes was scared to death! as I'm sure any of us 

would be!

So now we're basically obviously getting rid of that poor stereo and the spot that it used to live because Eli is much stronger than that as well. 

Eli and Ebony both love playing with tennis balls and it's so sweet that Ebony act

ually thinks Eli is playing with her! They are so cute!

oh! I had a teacher tell me at school today that Eli wasn't going to win! how rude! let's please prove him wrong!

Click Here!

what a day

Hello friends! Are you enjoying my multiple posts due to a crazy day with KISS FM? Well, apparently there were many cute kiddos left of the poll so they are starting all the votes tomorrow (Oct. 14) and extending the voting one more day, so here is the new schedule:

Voting schedule is as follows:
Round 1 - October 14, 2008 voting opens at 12:01 am - voting ends at 11:59pm October 17, 2008; Round 1 will narrow it down to the Top 100

Round 2 - Top 100 - October 20, 2008 voting opens at 12:01am - voting ends at 11:59pm October 23, 2008; Round 2 will narrow it down to the Top 25

Round 3 - Top 25 - October 27, 2008 voting opens at 12:01am - voting ends at 11:59pm October 30, 2008; Round 3 will narrow it down to the Top 5

Round 4- Top 5 - November 3, 2008 voting opens at 12:01 am - voting ends at 5pm November 6, 2008 Winner announced on November 7, 2008

You will be allowed to vote once per email address, per day, per poll, per computer.

Thank you for voting today! and... may I please ask you to vote again tomorrow (and well, every day?!) Thanks friends!

106.1 KISS FM Most Kissable Baby Contest!

Ok friends! They were super quick in responding and they have added Eli to the baby contest!! (he just tried to eat a lizard by the way)

So, here's what you do:

1. click on the link

2. vote for Eli Martin (he's on the first page)

3. put your email address at the bottom and validate your email

4. vote everyday from every email!

Thanks friends! Here's the link. We can win this!

emailing the station

Well, I called up to the station this morning and this really nice guy said that he has been told to tell anyone with questions about the KISS FM baby contest to email the promotions department. So... that's what I'm doing. 

Hopefully there was just some sort of mistake and that Eli can be added. If not, I will continue to have a knot in my stomach and probably eat the other half of this giant cookie, and maybe they will tell us what didn't work so we know for next time.

hmm...

sad news :(

well I checked the contest website and Eli's picture wasn't on there... it said if a picture wasn't on there then they didn't receive the picture or the paperwork or both. We sent in everything but apparently something didn't work. They don't give you any confirmation so you just hope they get it. Thank you for wanting to vote for our cute and kissable baby! Goodbye $5,000... hahaha... 

well...

I did it. I entered Eli into 106.1 Kiss FM's Most Kissable Baby Contest. Many people told me that it would be such a good idea for us to do that, I agreed, and well, we did it!

Voting starts tomorrow. I have no clue how this works except for a lot of voting must be done in order for him to win. I can't even imagine how many people entered their cute kiddos in the contest, so I'm sure the first round will be the toughest to get through! I think there are 4 rounds, so after this initial floodgate of cute babies, they will be narrowed down to the top 100. 

So, this first round will be a "who knows more people" type thing because I doubt most Kiss FM listeners will scroll through the countless numbers of babies and only decide on one! You can vote one time per email per day I believe. 

The winner gets $5,000! Isn't that awesome? 

Picking the picture was insanely difficult. I know it probably doesn't matter because seriously, all of those pictures were so cute, but we decided on the one that he is sitting on the bench kind of looking off to the left. I will post the pic when I get it... it's not on this computer because...

Wes bought me a new computer!!!!!!! Isn't that so awesome?! He got me a macbook and I love it! He bought a refurbished one, which is cheaper than a brand new one... he's a smart cookie!

So I have now entered the world of the Apple computers. haha... our other computer is almost dead. Not quite completely dead. I mean, you can do some stuff on there really quickly if you be sure and save it before it shuts down again. (which is also why there was a lack of blogging this week)

ok. Voting for Eli starts tomorrow. I'll post the link when I get it. I'm kind of nervous! Isn't that weird? I know it's a contest of cute kids and who knows who, but I'm still nervous! haha... the hardest thing is going to get people to vote every day for each round. ...we'll see! 

My husband's favorite things

Please go check out JJs Photography and leave him a comment to tell him how amazing these pictures are!!

I got tagged! So, here we go!

Wes loves...

his family (and making weird faces in pictures)
his dad's studio in Abilene, Castle Sound
eating dessert
going on vacation
doing Blue Steel
wearing Diesel jeans
his friends
playing guitar

and being a dad :)
I tag Ashley, Susan, Darby, and Taren. :)

My little pumpkin

ugghhh... there are SO many photos to choose from! Here are some of our favorites, and yes... I know... there are A LOT! enjoy friends! :)

And thank you SO much Jeff Johnson for taking these pics! You are amazing friend!

the midnight hours

oh my gosh! We had the BEST time yesterday at the Arboretum! Eli looked adorable, but when does not look adorable? But Jeff's camera is so awesome because it caught all the fine details and just captured the color so well! We took pictures for over an hour and Eli did great! He let us know that he was finished by crawling off the "set" haha... literally!

After we finished we all went to eat and Jeff was loading the pictures onto his computer and we got a little preview. ...my heart was seriously overflowing! So many of those photos were just too sweet for words and I cannot wait to see them again! So Jeff- hurry up! :)

Now I would like to end on that note except that when we put Eli down for bed, we thought our day was over.

wrong.

For some reason Eli woke up around midnight. Honestly he usually wakes up once during the night because he somehow gets himself sitting up and is too sleepy to figure out he needs to lay back down. So Wes or I just go in, lay him back down, and he goes right back to sleep.

Last night however that was SO not the case! This child was up crying and sleeping crying and sleeping for over an hour! We could not figure out what was wrong with him. I don't know if he just was over stimulated or what. We checked him out, nothing looked different on his body, he wasn't running fever, we changed his diaper... just nothing seemed out of place.

Finally much later we gave him some formula, stuck him in bed with us (which he usually doesn't like now) and he went back to sleep. Now he's up, crawling around and playing like last night didn't even happen! Isn't that weird? I still have no idea what was up but he's like new this morning!

Friends and Food

Yesterday was such a fun day because Eli and I got to go on a play date with Catherine and Makayla! We went downtown to the park when I got off work because Cat had the day off for Fair Day! She now teaches at a different school but we used to work together and I miss her! :)

Her daughter is almost a year and a half and is like a perfect little pixie! She's so tiny and beautiful and just toddles around everywhere! Eli did his thing and sat there on the blanket and chewed on all of her cute pink toys!

We had so much fun, especially when Makayla decided to drink my tea and focus on the lemon and pretend that she had a camera/cell phone! beyond adorable...

I'm so excited about today because Eli is going to have some pictures taken at the pumpkin patch! He has those cute new outfits my mom got him and Jeff is so excited to take the pictures! It's going to be super fun so of course I'll share the goods once he emails them to me!

Eli has now learned to clap! It is so adorable! I don't know if you've ever seen Robbie Seay in concert but when he claps after a song he kind of sticks his arms almost straight out infront of him and does a little clap. Well, Eli claps just like that along with adding some spirit fingers in between! haha... really cute...

And since we're well into the 9 month mark he's been trying some new foods, none of which he has liked so far. But, I'm pretty persistent and I know it takes more than one time to like something new. Today was "chicken vegetable dinner" and it smelled kind of like turkey and dressing. weird, I know. well, I'm pretty sure this picture says it all.

Oh I forgot! Yesterday after the park, we came home and it was time for him to eat and take a nap. Well he had been asleep for about an hour and I heard him wake up and start fussing a bit, so I went and got him, brought him back to the living room, and he fell back asleep on my stomach on the couch for another hour. It was so sweet... and I just loved every moment of that even more because I was watching Oprah. I was watching it because it was about a mom who had accidentally left her daughter in the car all day and she ended up dying from the heat. awful. I know. But it was such a good reminder to really slow down and be present in all of life's moments.