Help with website animations requested

I'm about to publish a website, and one of my friends pointed out that I still have a little work I have to do.

On each of the pages of my website I have an animation that simply fades out, and fades back in, over and over again. Nothing really special. I built the animation using Microsft Picture It! Publishing. They are Quicktime animatied gifs.

My friend said that they are too large and would take forever to load up on a website. They consist of a series of pictures, like a deck of cards that you flip through. The animations range in size from 400 KB, to 2500 KB.

My friend suggested that I use Flash or Shockwave to create the animations, so that they'd be smaller. I'm currently in the process of teaching myself Flash, Dummies book in hand.

Also, I have built my website using Microsft Front Page.

Any suggestions or pointers from the savy webmasters out there would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance for any help you can give.