Thankful - Day 1 A Good Man

I am thankful for my father-in-law Robert Brinton. For the almost 2 years I got to have him in my life. For the example he was to his sons (especially Jeff!!) and for the legacy he left behind. I am so grateful that families are eternal.

One of the greatest men I've ever known

All of us!

He loved (loves!!) his grandkids

I love and miss him so much!

Ballet Under the Stars - Year 3!

Wowzers! Can you believe it? Jeff and I have actually done something for 3 years in a row! You may remember this post "Our First Kiss" from last year. Well now we have another year of Ballet Under the Stars to put up!

This year, my favorite piece was from "Rubies"

Amazing!!

There were lots of changes from last year to this year! First, we broke down and wore different clothes and we didn't eat chicken like the last few years. Uh oh. We're breaking the trend!

Also, they built a new bridge over Tempe Town Lake 

And most importantly!! We have a baby!! He's the best. Scotty loved the performance. He was memorized by the music and dancing and kept dancing along! 

I hope the video works. It's my first time trying to post a video! Sorry it's sideways. I can't rotate a video. Just tilt your head ; )

(A nice person took this picture of us)

Some things just never change though. We are still as weird as ever :)

I love my family!!!

Since it was the 2nd anniversary of our first kiss, we HAD to take kissing pictures :)

"Don't Blink!"

There's a country song that says, "Don't blink, Life Goes Faster Than You Think"
Seriously. Scotty is almost 11 weeks now! Time flies so fast it's crazy! We're just trying to enjoy every moment of it.

Our little boy has grown so much!

At his 2 month check up:

Weight: 13 lbs 12 oz - 90th Percentile (that's my boy! haha)
Height: 24 in. - 82nd Percentile
Head - I don't remember I'd have to look at the paper but it was only the 75th percentile

He's also learning new things!

• At 10 weeks he started rolling over from his tummy to his back!
• He also started laughing!! It's the cutest thing. When we load the video to the computer I'll post some of them. He just cracks up. I love the sound of a baby laughing. To me, it is one of the sweetest sounds in the world.
• He loves blowing spit bubbles...he thinks it's hilarious!
• He loves books and toys
• He likes licking his monkeys on his carseat straps (kind of gross I know, but funny)
• He holds his head up so well
• He smiles all the time
• He sleeps through the night (and has been since about 3 weeks!)
• He's just perfect!

We love our little boy so much!!!!

PS Jeff and I are still crazy about each other :) Just with such limited time, I can only blog a little and I know you all would prefer to hear about our cute baby instead of us being all mushy ;)

New Years

Both of our families have traditions for New Years and thankfully they don't overlap so we can do both! We spent New Years Eve with my family eating lots of good food, watching movies, playing games, singing karyoke (which I seriously was the worst one... no joke!), and setting off fireworks (although I must admit these ones were kinda lame). We had lots of fun but man was it hard to stay up past midnight! We must be getting old.

On New Years Day we went out to the desert to celebrate with extended family. I knew so many people compared to last year! haha. We had a great time with family, the bon fire, and yes, more food.

Two of the three pictured were pregnant. Bet'cha can't guess which two!

 

(Lucky Carrie. She's already had her baby!)

Happy 2011!!!

I asked Jeff what we'd like to work on this year, or how we could improve things and he said "Hun I think the best thing we can do is buckle our straps and hold on!" It's going to be a crazy, very eventful, WONDERFUL year. Our baby will be here soon so we get to spend all year loving our little boy PLUS Jeff will graduate in December! I know it's a ways off right now, but seriously, the end is in site!!! WOOT!!

Baby Brayden

There is just one problem having the same OBGYN as your sister-in-law... if she goes into labor the same time as your monthly dr's appointment, she gets the doctor :) I didn't get to see my doctor the previous appointment either, but at least this time I approved of his excuse for being absent.

This little boy came into the world

Our New Nephew

Isn't he beautiful?? He's just perfect. His parents couldn't be happier. It was a long (we're talking years), painful, tearful journey to bring him into this world. He's brought so much joy with him though. He's a precious bit of heaven that Heavenly Father thought the world (and 2 wonderful parents) needed right now.
He is just the cutest baby. I am smitten :)

**Word to the wise Brayden, you've got competition coming in about 17 weeks so enjoy it while you can ;)

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!

Happy birthday to the most wonderful woman in my life...my mom. We look nothing alike on the outside, but on the side we are very much alike.

I love her so much. She is incredible. I pray that I can be even half the mother she is because she is that amazing. She has been the greatest example of faith I have ever seen. She has the best sense of humor and we love to laugh. We always say, wherever we go together, it's a party! I'm so grateful for all she's done for me! I'm glad we live so close so I can enjoy her on a regular basis.

I love you so much, Mom!!!

Happy Birthday!!!!

1 + 1 = 3

If you haven't heard yet, we have BIG news!

We are having a baby!! Well, at least we thought it was a baby until we got our 8 week ultrasound and saw that it was really a gummy bear....

Our Gummy Bear: 8 weeks, 2 cm long

Surprisingly enough, we went back at 18 weeks and found this!

A baby!

And.......

'nough said



The doctor says everything is looking great! He's healthy and very active. His favorite past time is kicking mommy's insides. He's already very strong!

We are so excited for our little man to make his entrance into the world! He should be joining us around Feb 26, 2011. Just a couple days after Jeff's birthday... then it can be a happy birthday for both my men!!

I fail at Blogging... So here's an update

Here are the highlights since my last post:

~Jeff and I celebrated our 6-month anniversary! I love you Handsome!!!! I can't believe it's been 6 months already. It's gone by so fast.

~My little brother left on his mission to Boston, Massachusetts. He will be there for 2 years! I love him so much and I am so incredibly proud of him.

~My sister and her family came in town for a couple weeks. It was crazy but fun.

 (That's my mom not my sister, I know, she looks really young and hot, but yes, she is the grandma of these cute kids)

~Jeff's almost finished with his summer semester. He got into the El-Ed program doing Special Ed. AND the government is giving him lots of money to go to school. You know, being married definitely increases your chances of getting Pell Grants!

~ We celebrated the 4th of July

~The 2009-2010 dance year ended at Dance Republic with our annual recital. It went SO well. I'm very proud of my dancers.

~I've been scoring some fantastic deals at the grocery stores. I love couponing!

~We actually socialized and had friends over for a BBQ. I'd call it a success!

~We went up to the Brinton's ranch. So fun!!

~I got assigned to be our ward's Roadshow Director. It's in November.

~oh, and Jeff found out what happens when you're an hour late coming home from work...

Argh!!! Matey! This is what ye get for coming home late!
then I proceed to attack him with my form sword. He finally recovered his senses enough to fight back. We had a lovely sword fight if I can say so myself!


So that's about it for now.
One day I will keep up this blog...

My Bridal Shower - Updated

Since I have been horrible at blogging, I thought I would direct your attention to my lovely sister-in-law to be's blog post about my bridal shower.

Thanks Staci for the beautiful clock and for posting this!

Update: Here are some pictures!

Me and my mom

The Brinton Girls minus 1

My handsome Love came to pick me up afterward

 

The Night I Got Engaged (Not the full story, sorry!)

Jeff's sister, Staci is wonderful and has blogged about several events that have happened in my recent past. Like the night Jeff and I got engaged! She helped Jeff put his plans into action. Read about it here.

Precious Moments Make Up for Everything Else

For the last 3 weeks, my beautiful sister and her 4 children were visiting us.

At times it was crazy, noisy, messy and hair-raising; my body was sore from constantly picking up, putting down or holding one child or another; I was spit up on probably a gazillion times; the children argued with each other, and on one occasion K slugged her big brother M in the eye with a block...on purpose. I haven't been so exhausted in a long, long time. I thought I would go nuts at times and there were times I couldn't wait to go to work in the mornings. So with all of this, you could probably imagine that after 3 weeks, I'd be relieved to have my life back to normal and that I'd be happy to have my house quiet again.

However, although the quiet is nice for a time, I'm finding that I miss them like crazy! Because amidst all of the craziness, it was wonderful having them here. I would take that any day to have them here with me. The giggles; the cuddles; the hugs and kisses; hearing the excited chorus of "Lizzy!!" when I came home from work; holding a tiny hand in mine; being a hero for doing something small; dressing up like ballerina princesses or going on pirate adventures;

singing primary songs; seeing the joy and excitement on my nephew's face when I helped him play a song on the piano; holding my 4-month old nephew close while feeding him or having a squealing conversation because he was so happy; and having one of them randomly run up and give me a hug and tell me "I love you Lizzy."


It's all these precious moments that make everything else worth it. How beautiful it is to have a family. Things like these make me so excited to one day be a mom and have my own little angels.

Kickin' it in Gear

This week, one of my dear friends told me she and her fiancé might come visit me over the holiday weekend! I am so excited!! It isn't for sure yet though. Regardless, my family has been kickin' it in gear getting our house ready for visitors. So many projects that were only half-way finished are getting done, like painting rooms, organizing, and decorating; everything, and I mean everything, is getting a thorough deep cleaning; we might even be getting new furniture--finally! (We decided we'd get new couches a while ago so we put our old ones in a yard sale and only one sold! So we've just had one couch in our family room for over a month now. Haha, It looks ridiculous.)

I really, really hope and pray my friends can come; but if they can't, at least we got alot accomplished! Our house is looking great :) My friends should suggest coming to visit more often! Better yet, they should actually come ;)

Mishap at the Theatre

****My family is so funny. We are always finding something to laugh about, so I thought I'd share those funny moments on my blog! So ladies and gents, sit back and enjoy our "Mishap at the Theatre"

.....Today mom and I worked so hard the entire day. We started out with yard work at 7:30 am, followed by a lovely session of tidy up the garage, and to top it all off we recolored (commonly called painting)her office. We were plum exhausted by the time evening rolled around. Mom had a wedding reception she had to make an appearance at, but then we were going to get in our pj’s, watch a movie and eat ice cream. Lovely. At 6:45 pm, Chris called with “an offer we couldn’t pass up;” tickets to tonight’s show at Hale Theatre. The catch, it started at 7:30. Was it even a possibility that we could make it? It’d be a challenge, I’m not...what are kidding me? When have I ever passed up a challenge like that?! Of course we were going to go!
.....Mom immediately jumped in the car and drove to the wedding reception that was 15 minutes away (yes, calculate that, 15 minutes each way times 2 ways = 30 minutes plus chatting at the reception = late to show). Elysse was at a friend’s and I had no car to get her, so I had to call and ask the parent to drive her home, beautify myself (which took much doing after a long day of work and me with no spec of makeup on), pack food (because we hadn’t eaten dinner yet) and Elysse and I met Mom outside the house at 7:27. Ok, 3 minutes to get to the theatre.
.....My normally law-abiding mother was tearing down the road at a record-breaking 45mph in a 35mph zone telling us innocent children to watch out for police, upon arriving at the theatre parked illegally, and rushed us inside.
.....Chris met us in the lobby, gave us our tickets and bustled us in. The beginning announcements had just ended and the music was starting. “You're in the North section on the fourth row.” Seriously who can tell their directions inside a building? Not me, I’m directionally challenged looking at a compass. “Which way do we turn, right or left?” Chris responded abruptly, “right. 4th row.” So we get in there, turn right and head to the fourth row where there were 3 empty seats awaiting us.
.....The play, “Charley’s Aunt” was incredibly funny. We laughed so hard most of the play. During intermission, I, being bored stiff (who wouldn’t be during a 10-minute intermission?), began examining the surrounding theatre. Directly in front of me was a sign that said “West” on my left, “South” and to my right “North”. Wait, I thought, I thought we were supposed to be sitting in the North section. And as looked to my right once more, there on the fourth row of the north section, were 3 seats, our 3 seats sitting there empty, lonely, and calling out to us that we had sat in the wrong section. We, in our haste, had accidently taken 3 other people’s seats. Now whether they had just sat in another section or if the seats hadn't been sold in the first place, I don’t know. But I pointed this out to my mom and even before the 2nd act started, we were once more, howling with laughter. And there you have it, our mishap at the theatre.

25 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Me

Being jobless I get really bored (as evident by my last post!) so sometimes I do random things like this to keep me from going nuts.
Here are 25 random things about me. I wonder if anyone actually knew all 25 before they had read this note. Hmm....

1.I have big brown eyes which I’ve learned to use to my advantage ;) and I have naturally curly hair that fits my personality to a T.

2.I hate being ignored. When I was little I would go out of my way just to make sure people, especially my dad, would pay attention to me.

3.That leads me to my next point. I am such a daddy’s girl. I love him so much! He is my number one fan. He only ever missed 1 of my dance performances when I lived at home and he’s even flown up to Utah to see me compete in Dancesport.

4.My mom and I are SO much alike on the inside yet look completely different on the outside. Pretty much if you know and like one of us, you are bound to like the other one. And, we both think we’re pretty much amazing ;)

5.I just love my family!! They are my best friends and I love spending time with them. Even though it can get crazy at my house, it is still one of my favorite places to be.

6.I can’t sit still. That’s probably why I love dancing so much! I took my very first ballet class when I was five and I haven’t stopped dancing since: ballet, jazz, hip-hop, lyrical, tap, clogging, folk, and now ballroom.

7.I am lucky enough to have my best friend double as my amazing dance partner.

8.Without even realizing it, I will start playing songs on whatever my fingers are touching as if I’m playing the piano.

9.No worries, I actually do play the piano and I love it. I love playing fast. I once had a group piano class (pointless class!) and my teacher told me I would never be able to play very fast the way I held my fingers when I played. I was the only student in the entire class who could play faster than he could—Ha! in your face slowpoke piano teacher. ;)

10.I love to teach. It doesn’t matter what it is, piano, dance, the Gospel, everything.

11.I am a very happy, positive person. You can’t get me down for too long. Besides that, smiling is so much better than sulking! I just love life! I love sunny days, walking in a light rain, dancing in the snow, rainbows, music, smiles, happy movies, musicals, pink!, happy things!

12.I have a lot of faith. Everything is in the Lord’s hands and I just know things will turn out for the best.

13.A child’s giggle is my favorite sound ever

14.I regret never learning how to play sports

15.I love going to concerts and to the theater. If I could afford it, I’d go to at least one performance every week.

16.I sing really loud in the shower and I wish I had the confidence to sing like that in public

17.I go on random cleaning sprees where I clean everything around me and if you make a mess after one of them you better watch out!

18.I love learning! I want to learn as much as I can.

19.My friends span a range from 4’9” to 6’4” so it kinda looks funny when we’re all together.

20.Speaking of, my friends are amazing and I am so grateful that they are always there for me

21.Ice cream, Ice cream, Ice cream!

22.If I had the choice between living in a huge house and owning cool things or traveling the world, I would travel. I want to go everywhere, see everything. My dream is to go to Paris and try to speak French with the people there (the key word is “try”).

23.I was homeschooled until college and people are surprised at how “normal” I am. (If they only knew!) I started college when I was 16 and just graduated from BYU in Business Management.

24.In one month I got hired on at my first real job and laid off from it because it had to close down

25.I am a very goal oriented person. I love checklists and sometimes I add to the list just so I can cross more things off. I love making goals and pushing myself to reach them. I hate it when someone tells me I can’t do something because I know if I put my mind to it, I can do anything.

Summer Flies...Winter Walks

I borrowed my title from a Charlie Brown book that I have and I only partially agree with it. Yes summer flies, but I'm finding the older I get so does winter! Where does all of this time go?
This summer has flown by so fast! It seems like just last week I was packing up my apartment and coming home. Now I'm packing up my room and getting ready to fly back.
When I got home, I planned on being really social and out going, meeting new people here through my singles ward and institute. Well I never made it to the singles ward because something always kept me from going, whether it was a family vacation or one of my family members was speaking or teaching in my home ward. The peak of my social-ness was when Anna came and visited me =) Very few of my friends from home are still here and single. So pretty much all of my time this summer was spent playing (or working!) with my family. It's been a blast. Chris is getting ready for more auditions so I've helped him get his songs ready (seriously, it may be a beautiful morning, but if I hear someone sing about it one more time...); Elysse is learning to play Chess for school so I've already played probably 20 games with her and she actually won twice! I know, I'm a merciless sister, I should probably let her win more so she'll feel more confident about it, but then how would she really learn?! Dad and I have been to the ballgame, spent time together at Dancesport, and worked on my computer. With my mom, we've decorated my dad's office and it looks so much better than before it flooded, we've also sewn my latin dress and of course our favorite, played duets on the piano. My family just loves to play games and eat ice cream, so of course we've done alot of that too.
It has been a fabulous summer. I've learned so much and I've grown even closer to my family. I'm really glad that I've had this chance to be back with them because it will probably be my last time that I ever live at home. I am so grateful for them. I can definitely see why the church places such high importance on the family. The home is the MTC for life, the relationships we form there and the things we learn are what we take with us into the world.