Our Third Birthday Contest Winner Is...

Our third and final contest for our two-year birthday celebration was the best piece of practical marriage advice you had to give. Our chosen winner is Chris for his submitted idea: Wall Art vs. Kelly Ripa:

My wife went out and bought one of those corny wall-hanging-inspirational-thought-provoking-home-decor pieces that I was asked to put on the wall that faces our bed. It has a bunch of swirly background stuff on it (so very similar to the Union28.net's "I Love My Wife" T-shirt) that matches the decor stuff in our house, and it reads "ALWAYS KISS ME GOODNIGHT." After I hung it on the wall, I thought to myself that I need to, as Captain Picard would say, "Make it so." I vowed to myself that we would never drift off to sleep without sharing kisses and "I Love You's" with each other.

I recently heard Kelly Ripa say on "The Marriage Ref" game show that it's unrealistic advice to promise to ALWAYS go to bed in a loving, or even a congenial mood. Instead, she suggested making sure you use the resting hours to calm down, and then awaken with a loving/forgiving kiss (in order to start the day off right). I don't know if the $20 wall sign from Target is right, or if Kelly Ripa's the one to believe, but either way, we are trying the night-time smooch. It has worked very well so far, and it has had the following positive effects on our relationship so far:

1. A kiss can bring an end to an argument. (If we are butting heads on a matter, we know we're going to have to kiss before bed, so we'll calm down and come to an agreeable compromise or one of us will come to terms with the other.)
2. A kiss can pause the argument for the day while giving us something to smile about before tomorrow starts. In other words, we take a Time Out to at least say "good night" on a "good note."
3. A kiss can cause an unexpected boo-yah. Neither of us might be in the mood for romance, but as soon as our lips lock, a spark sometimes goes off through our physical touch.
4. A kiss can simply be a kiss. If it's just a normal ho-hum evening, the simplest kiss can bring us both to sleep with a happy smile on our faces.

So, that's what's worked for us, and we're not stopping it any time soon. I hope it helps your readers!

Thanks, Chris! What I like about you sharing this advice is that it is something you have experienced and you have noticed how it's helped your marriage. As a general rule I try not to take marriage advice from Hollywood (though Will Smith might be an exception), so I choose Wall Art on this one.

Well I'm glad you're fond of the swirly art on the "I Love My Wife" shirt because that is exactly what you've won, that and a copy of Dr. Kevin Leman's book Turn Up The Heat.

Thanks for participating in our birthday celebration everyone! I've had fun, and I hope you all have too!

Our Second Birthday Contest Winner Is...

Our second contest for our two-year birthday celebration was the best original date idea picked by my wife. She chose "Picture Day" by Rich:

Look through old pictures. Create a scrapbook of something in the past that you have been meaning to do for a while. You can do this together or each create a page on your own. If scrapbooking isn't your thing, you can create a video slide show or movie set to some of your favorite music. Great thing about this, is that it can be totally free - and it can be fun to do with children too. They would love to see what mom and dad looked like.

Good idea, Rich, and it's one that doesn't cost a lot (if any) money. If scrap booking or slideshow making isn't your thing, what kind of photo project could you do together? Get creative and have fun with it!

Rich won a copy of For Couples Only, a great set of books we have given away before, and one I've highly recommended before.

Tomorrow marks the end of our last birthday contest: What is the best piece of marriage advice you have to give? If you want to enter please use the contact form here (husbands only, please).

Our First Birthday Contest Winner Is...

Well there were only five entries submitted (c'mon guys, this was the easy one too), but by using a random number generator, Gabe (@gabethaman) is our first winner and Trey Morgan (@treymorgan) is our second for the Tell Other People About iamhusband.com referral contest.

Since Gabe was chosen first, you may have your pick from the two prizes being given away in this contest. Will it be the t-shirt or the book? If both of you could send me your mailing addresses using the contact form, I'll get those right out to you!

Remember, there are still two more contests left. Check them out and win!

We've Got A Shortage Of Entries

I'm not sure what's going on exactly, but at this point in our birthday celebration, we have had very few contest entries. If you'd like to get some free stuff, make sure to check out the different contests here. 

There are only four more days until the first contest ends.

The Prizes For Our Birthday Contest

In honor of iamhusband.com's two-year birthday celebration, we will be giving away the following prizes for those who participate in one (or all) of our three contests. Our contests are listed here if you missed them yesterday.

Contest #1 — Tell Other People About iamhusband.com! (Two Winners)

One winner will receive a "My Wife Rocks" shirt provided by Union28.net, and one winner will receive For Men Only, a book about how to figure out the woman you love by Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn. This is a highly recommended book. I have even mentioned it on the blog before.

 

Contest #2 — Best Original Date Idea (One Winner)

The winner of the best original date idea will receive For Couples Only, which is a couples' pack that includes Jeff and Shaunti Feldhahn's books For Men Only and For Women Only. These books are a perfect way to start dialoguing about your relationship with your wife. Remember, reading can help you and your marriage.

Contest #3 — Best Piece of Practical Marriage Advice (One Winner)
The winner of this contest will receive an "I Love My Wife" shirt provided by Union28.net and a copy of Dr. Kevin Leman's book Turn Up The Heat: A Couples' Guide To Sexual Intimacy. Though I can't recommend this book personally, I am a big fan of Dr. Leman's book Sheet Music, which I talked about here. (I actually purchased a copy for myself and will begin to read it soon.)

 

So these are what we're giving away for those who participate in our two-year birthday celebration contest. A special thanks goes out to Union28.net for providing the t-shirts and to Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn for donating their books.

Happy Birthday To iamhusband.com!

Today marks iamhusband.com's two year birthday. It's hard to believe two years have passed since I began this little blog. Since then we have had over 100,000 visits to the site and the number of our subscribers continues to grow. My dream for this site was to help inspire husbands be the husbands I know we all want to be. I hope and pray that iamhusband.com will continue to be a resource for men everywhere to learn to make their marriages better and better everyday.

If this is your first time to the site, I invite you to spend a little time browsing. You can easily check out all our posts using Categories located in the sidebar. Have a look at our most commented on post here. The first article picked up by StumbleUpon was this one. And my favorite piece of marriage advice is found here. We also have an Amazon.com bookstore full of recommended books on marriage here. And we've just recently started compiling a list of good date ideas right here. Don't forget you can subscribe to iamhusband.com and receive email updates (using the form in the sidebar) as well as use any RSS feed reader to subscribe.

And we don't want to let a birthday go by without doing something special, so here's the plan: