Monday, June 29, 2009

It's My Creation

I think I've mentioned before all my sewing projects that I had, or still have, going on. The quilt is coming along slowly but surely. All the animals are done, I just have to sew together the squares now. Not so fun. It's difficult because I don't have a pattern for this quilt, I've just completely made it up. So don't laugh if you see it and some of the squares look a little uneven or maybe even more like trapezoids than squares. At least the animals look cute, right? So far I've finished three of my projects. That leaves about 8 left. Agh! Here's one of them I've finished. A little girl's dress.

I'm rather proud of it myself, especially considering that there wasn't a pattern for it, I just made it up in my head. I saw a shirt in a magazine, and modified it (a lot actually, first of all it was a woman's shirt, then I added ribbon, the tuxedo folds, and the buttons.) It was difficult, lace can be hard stuff to sew with. I also finished the onesie with the tie. As mentioned earlier they cost about $15 to buy. Mine cost less than a dollar to make with the onesie, the fabric, heat n' bond, and thread. It took about 45 minutes though, but only because heat n' bond doesn't work very well with the onesie fabric, it gummed up my machine a bit. In fact, some of the fabric got stuck and I tried using my seam picker to get it out. Bad idea, because it broke and now that broken off piece is stuck down in there. :( I've decided to make Baby James a blessing outfit, since the ones they sell are so ridiculously expensive. My friend Summer is having a girl about 3 weeks before me. She is an amazing seamstress and made the cutest little girl baby blessing outfit for her baby. You can see it here. She does smocking, ooohhh. I bought a bunch of patterns at Joann's a little over a week ago. They were having this HUGE sale. All their Simplicity patterns were $1.99, and they usually range from $16-$19. So I went a little crazy and bought 15. BUT if you think about it, I saved about $200. Here is the pattern I'm going to use for his baby blessing outfit.

But I'm going to modify it a little, so that instead of looking like overalls the front part won't come up so high. it will look more like suspenders. It's hard to explain, but I'll take a picture when I'm done. I don't want it to come up all the way because he will wear a onesie with a tie on underneath that I want to be visible. A peach colored tie to be exact, so he's not completely in white, there will be a little color. Here are some of the other patterns I bought, these three are my favorite.


Never Meant To Be

So, the Brinton Weekend a little over a week ago never really worked out. Why? The Rain Gods have decided to make Utah the new Oregon/Washington. For the past month and a half it has rained every other day here. That's why the waterpark day didn't work out. But I think it's because I wasn't meant to wear a bathing suit out in public in my current condition. Not the pregnant condition but the fact that I'm a blimp right now, THAT condition. I'm not complaining about the rain. Although it's still pretty hot, it could/would be much much hotter without it.So we all went to Chuckarama's for lunch instead. Not the same but still fun times with the family. I got to see some cousins I haven't seen in a while, as well as my family. As soon as my sis sends some pix I'll post them. Something that was cute that weekend though, my niece Eli LOVES Stephen. She was following him around, and making him pick her up. She wasn't happy unless he was right next to her. If he wasn't carrying her, she would hold his finger, wouldn't let go, and would make him walk with her/follow her around. It was soooo cute though. Maybe she had a little crush, she's turning 2 at the end of the summer.

So, the swine flu is getting worse, last Sunday (not yesterday) they canceled all meetings except for Sacrament, (Which is funny because that where we are all together anyways) because several members of our ward have/had the swine flu. And guess what? Stephen just happens to home teach one of those people, he didn't know but found out when he went home teaching yesterday. The girl send she had it a month ago. But still, I started freaking out when Stephen got home and told me. Just because I get everything.

So... on a lighter note, guess who was screaming hysterically yesterday at church? Me! Why, you ask? Well, during the closing hymn I felt something touching my lower neck/chest area. I looked down thinking one of my hairs had fallen and there I see the most disgusting centipede!!!I started screaming/jumping in my seat slapping at my chest while Stephen has no idea what's going on, is embarrassed and shouting "Relax, RELAX!" Did I? NO. I HATE insects. And it doesn't help that right above our front door (our only door) a couple of feet above it is a hornets' nest. Anyone have a bee-keepers hat? Stephen wants to get ride of it himself, but I worry about him having 50 hornets stinging him and trying to get in through his mouth/nose/ears etc. I guess I've seen "My Girl" one too many times, right?

Saturday, June 27, 2009

Pictures of Brians Head

Here are pictures from our trip a couple of weeks ago.




Here is the spider-infested Cabin.




It actually hailed while we were up there, and rained a lot, so we had to spend most of the time indoors. So we had a nice fire going.




I mentioned we went on a hike; it was really beautiful.






Stephen had a blast, his favorite thing to do is go camping and hiking.




We were talking about how pregnant I am/look, and...





how Valerie still isn't showing, so they took a belly picture of Chris instead.



If you know Stephen, then you know that of course he brought his Boy Scout handbook with him. We were looking at the different animal tracks trying to figure out what was what. We found 5 different kinds, but no bears thank-goodness.







And practiced things like CPR, very very important for every boyscout going out into the WILD. :) Don't worry, they didn't practice the mouth to mouth part. ;)




Stephen challenged Cory to pick him up...



and was slightly embarrassed when he did, so naturally he then had to pick Cory up, but Cory weighs about 155 so Stephen had the slightly simpler challenge. :)




The Happy Couples

Cory and Charisse Stephen



Chris and Valerie Harmon



Handsom Stephen and...me with no make-up on. Well none of the other girls were going to so I didn't either. (Not that I've been wearing that much since I've been pregnant, but I must confess I AM one of those girls that wears mascara when I go camping, and my first year at church girls camp I got ridiculed for it.)


Ahh!! That's love.

P.S. I don't know why Stephen had such goofy faces in all the pictures.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

To Our Papas Jefes...oops, Jeffs

"I'm so glad when daddy comes home, glad as I can be. Clap my hands and shout for joy and climb upon his knee. Wrap my arms around his neck, hold him tight like this. Squeeze his cheeks and give him what? A great big kiss! Muah!"

Jeff Taylor



Any man can be a father. It takes someone special to be a dad.
~ Anonymous

Dad, thank you for teaching me the meaning of honor. I feel less afraid at the prospect of being a father because I have a good example in you to follow. Thank you for always being willing to sacrifice your time and effort for your kids, and for the wonderful memories. I'll never forget your making the effort to educate us in things much more exciting than school, such as taking us to different parts of the world. I love the memories of all the family vacations, the father-son outings, the business trips we got to take turns tagging along, and scout camps when you made surprise visits. I love you. Happy Father's Day.

-Stephen

Jeff Brinton



"Fatherhood is pretending the present you love most is soap-on-a-rope."
~ Bill Cosby

To my Father, whom I love dearly, thank-you for always acting so excited to receive those crazy cheap gifts they had us make in primary. The paper ties, the cheesy safety pin tie tacks, etc. Thank-you for always making time in your busy schedule for me. I can't recall a single daddy-daughter date that you weren't able to make time for. Thank-you for being a loving, kind, and caring father that taught me to always choose the right and make good choices, even when know one was looking or would know except for me and the Lord. I cherish your example, and I Love you more than you'll ever know!!! Happy Father's Day!!!!

-Melly Sue

AND TO ALL THE OTHER FATHERS IN OUR FAMILY(and/or future fathers) AND GRANDFATHERS... HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

GRANDPA KARL TAYLOR (father of many nations)



GRANDPA CALEB JEFFERIS BRINTON III (father of many nations)



KARL TAYLOR (father of Camryn)



AARON BRINTON (father of Emma, Roxanne, and Charlotte)



NATHAN TAYLOR (father of Preston)



TOM DUGGAN (father of Allison and stepfather of Jessica and Laura)



MICHEAL BRAGONJE (future papa)



ROD WINN (father of Caleb, Haley, Brinton, Clara, Annalyse, and Eliza)



IAN HEATH (father of Scarlett)

Friday, June 19, 2009

The Brinton Association


The Brinton 1704 House
I grew up always being very proud of my last name. The Brintons were some of the first people to come over to America. They came over, as many at that time, for religious purposes; they were Quakers. They were helped quite a lot by the local Native Americans in the region (which is today outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) to live out the winter. The native Americans also offered them some of their land. The Brintons wanted to know how much land was theirs to plant and grow things, etc. So the Native Americans said, "As far as you can walk for a day, that's all the land you can have." Of course the Native Americans didn't realize how greedy the white man could be. Both parties had a different idea of what this meant. What the Native Americans had envisioned was someone walking a ways, stopping to smoke their pipe, drink, eat, and then sleep through the night, marking where they were at to be found in the morning and given their piece of land for how far they had walked. Well, The Brintons picked their best man and trained him to walk/jog/run as far as he could without sleeping through the night, stopping as little as possible. Maybe he even went without food, but that part I'm not sure. So the Native Americans woke up the next morning only to find that their generosity had been taken advantage of, and that they had lost a considerable amount of the best land. But it was fair, so they kept their word, and the Brintons kept their land and for a long time were some of the wealthiest people in the region, and even America. My grandfather belonged to what was known as in his time, "The Old Philadelphian Families." He was a Playboy (back when playboy meant something else. No, my grandfather isn't an exhibitionist). No, we're not rich. All the money is gone by now, but the name is the important thing. What does this all have to do with anything? Well, it turns out that the owner of "Seven Peaks",


a water park here in Provo, is a Brinton. And once a year they have a big Brinton reunion and you can go to the park for free with your family if you are a Brinton. In fact there are a lot of Brintons here in Utah. I'm very distantly related to them however because my Brinton side of the family isn't LDS, they're Protestant. The Brintons here in Utah left with the Mormons way back in the 1800's and were ostracized for it. My grandfather just happened to marry a Mormon girl. (And then an exiled Catholic Cuban after their divorce, but that's another story :) So the Brinton Clan, MY Brinton family, or at least some of them (namely my sister Megan, her six kids, my brother Aaron his wife and there three kids, my mom and dad, and my brother Caleb) have all come to Provo for this occasion and are staying up at my Uncle Jim's cabin in Sundance. Which makes me super happy, especially since Stephen and I can't go to cousins camp up in Washington/Oregon next month (it's just too close to my due date). The only downside to this weekend is me at 7 and 1/2 months pregnant in a swimsuit. Frightened? You should be, I just had an appointment today and I've gained a whopping 43 pounds so far. My maternity swimsuit is a joke, I'm exposing waaaaayyyyy too much flesh. But...wish me luck.