ABCs

Sneak Peek!

Here's a little sneak peek at what I've been working on for the past couple days. I call it a "sneak peek" but it's really a "this is all that's finished peek".




It's the crib bumper for Naomi's room! Yesterday afternoon I was able to get the material cut and most of the ties completed. I finished them up this morning, along with the piping for the top (the first time I've ever done this-- not as complicated as I expected it to be), and this afternoon I pieced, pinned, and sewed the one side of the bumper shown. As with most of my sewing projects, it started out slow, but the pace should pick up a little as I figure things out and get into a rhythm.

I'm copying the look of some bumpers I've seen online, but am doing it without a pattern so I'm sort of learning as I go. It will be far from perfect but I'm pleased with how the first quarter of the project has turned out. I love all things toile and am excited to finally have it somewhere in our house! The interior of the bumper is a soft ivory minky fabric. The theme of the room is going to be the "Fruits of the Spirit". I'll do some sort of painting with fruit on it and frame some of the fruits listed in Galatians 5. That's the plan anyways. What we don't yet have a plan for is the color of the walls. Right now they're the awful builder beige. Any and all suggestions are appreciated! Should we add a chair rail? One color on the bottom, a different on top? What do you think?

Celebrating Naomi

This past Saturday, my best friend, Shannon, threw a baby shower for me and Naomi at her mom's (Mrs. Nancy) house in Keystone! It was a sweet time with family and close friends who I don't get to see often enough from our old church. Naomi racked up with some adorable outfits, lots of diapers, and some cute baby accessories, including some of the cutest homemade burp cloths you've ever seen (thanks to Mrs. Martha, Shannon's grandmother)!

Shannon and Mrs. Nancy planned a great shower for Charlotte two years ago, but unfortunately we weren't able to make it. Charlotte decided to make her appearance into this world three weeks early so the Sunday morning she was born, Shannon was spreading word to all the ladies in the church that the shower was cancelled on account of me being in labor :)

I know some people think it's tacky to have a baby shower for any child that's not the first, but a friend of mine made a good point to me: Every child deserves to be celebrated! That doesn't mean that I think every child needs a baby shower and I am in no way asking for one for any and all future children of ours, but every child is a gift from God. Every birth should be anxiously anticipated and recognized for the special blessing it is. That's my two cents. **Steps off soap box**

Here's the one decent photo of me from my camera that I approve for blog publication. Apparently, I cannot make an "aww" face without looking like I am trying to pass gas.


But the fun didn't end when the shower ended. Oh no, that would be too easy. When I went to pull the van around to load up all the gifts, I realized it was driving a little funny. I guess it does that when you have a flat tire. It took six of us ladies who were still there, but we managed to get the tire changed (thankfully I had a spare)! Most of the work was actually done by Lacey, the daughter of a friend of the family's. The youngest of us all. She's still in high school and totally whooped us all in the tire-changing department. I'm very grateful the tire went flat when it did and not while I was driving. It was in bad shape- threads sticking out and all. If I had been driving, I'm sure it would have blown rather than just go flat and I can only imagine the damage that could have been done. But God was looking out for me and I was able to get to Tire Kingdom in Middleburg and get four new tires. And a new brake line. And a new something else. I think the guy also said something about taking care of the unicorns jumping around in the engine. Half a million dollars and about three hours later, I was finally headed home!

Profile in Courage

I am even more proud of my last name tonight. Gavin, my wonderful brother-in-law and a Councilman for the city of Keystone Heights, stood up for what he believes is right and voted against an increase of the millage rate for the city. He knew going into the meeting tonight that his opinion was not the popular one and that he would be the only one of five members of the council voting against it, but he stood his ground and confidently voted "nay". The proposed increase would have raised the taxes on the property we own in the city by 62%, but because he believes that other measures should be taken (i.e. cutting or restructuring the budget), he stood his ground. He did this knowing that the majority of the people in the audience at the meeting were in favor of the increase, as they spent two hours making their opinions known, but still felt that now was not the time to increase the taxes by that magnitude or that it should be put on the next ballot for the people to vote on. As the youngest elected official in Clay County history, he has been called naive, but I believe that as he listened to what the Mayor, fellow councilmen and citizens had to say and thoughtfully explained his position in voting against the ordinance, he showed true courage.

In related news, he and the other members of the Rollins family who were there to show support were able to escape the evening without being caught by the lynch mob.

And in unrelated, but equally as noteworthy, news, we made it out of the meeting in time to get some Johnny's for dinner :) And hopefully the Mayor was able to make it home to watch "Dancing With the Stars", as that was an expressed concern of hers.

P.S. Gavin was my date for the senior prom. What a fun story for the kids one day...

Beach Day

On Saturday Charlotte and I took a trip down to Beverly Beach (just north of Flagler) to visit her Grammy and Grampy who were camping there for the weekend. Even though we live less than a thirty minute drive from the ocean, we haven't been there at all this year. Charlotte usually does not like to have her hands or feet dirty, so I wasn't sure how she would react to the stickiness of the sand but she loved it. She even loved playing in the water and thought the waves splashing on her were hilarious. My Aunts Darleen and Diane were there too, so Charlotte also got some loving from her great-aunts (who are "great" in more than just titles:). Here are a few pictures from the day...

Holding on tight to her Grampy's hand as she got her feet wet


As soon as she saw her Grammy sit down in the waves, Charlotte had to do the same


Charlotte's face as she was begging her Grammy for more of her grape drink

Toddler Antics

If you give a toddler a baggie of Cheerios, do not expect them to make it from the bag to the mouth.


If you don't watch a toddler for their every waking second, expect something like this to happen. At least she didn't try flushing it like that. And the toilet was flushed from its previous use before she tried this. Silver lining, right?

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

I know better, I was taught better, and I don't know what I was thinking...

Over two and a half years ago Jared and I were married (newsflash, right?). A couple months after we were married, I took my wedding dress to the local dry cleaner's to have my dress cleaned and preserved. I had previously called and talked to the owner about the process: they sent the dresses away to be cleaned and preserved, and I was told a time frame of 6 months to 1 year before I'd have my dress back. I dropped the dress off, got my regular dry cleaning slip and went off on my merry way. Mistake: I did not sign a contract or get anything in writing. What was I thinking?!

Around six months later, I called to see if my dress had come in. No, it hadn't, but I was told by the owner that he had spoken with the preservation company, all was well with the dress but they just had a surplus of dresses and were working hard to get caught up.

I called around the nine month mark and was told pretty much the same thing.

And that's where I lose track of how many times I called and when those calls were made. But I called every couple months. Sometimes, multiple times per month because it was like pulling teeth to get a call back. Mistake #2: I should have started recording when I called, who I spoke with, and what I was told.

Throughout the last year, I was told that the company took on extra dresses from a company in Louisiana that went out of business after Hurricane Katrina. And I was told about fifteen times that the owner had just recently spoken with the preservation company and my dress should be arriving any day. Finally, about four months ago, I was told that my dress had arrived, cleaned and preserved, but the box was busted in shipping, which ruined the whole "preservation" part of it, so they were sending it back to the company, but that it would not take long to get it fixed and it would be sent directly to me. I asked to have the tracking number and order number sent to me and the owner called and left me a voicemail saying that he would call me a couple days later and give me all that info. I never received the call.

So I called. And called. And called. Someone answered the phone about half of the time. The others it just rang and rang. Any legitimate business should have voicemail! Even if it's just your cell phone's voicemail! Seriously! When the phone was answered, it was always the owner's "uncle". I now believe that this "uncle" was, in fact, the owner, just avoiding having to explain anything to me. The "uncle" always told me his nephew would call me back as soon as he returned from his deliveries. He never did. Every time I called I told him that I had not had a returned call for months. He assured me all of my messages were getting to him and that I would have a call that night. He never called.

So I drafted a letter to him telling him that because he never contacted me to give me the preservation company's contact info with the order number so that I could pursue retrieval of the dress on my own, the only option I had was to ask him for the money to replace my dress. Before I sent it out, I called and spoke with the "uncle" and he was so excited to tell me that my dress was in. He said that the company had gone bankrupt and sent the dress back. It had not been cleaned or preserved, but they had it in their possession. I told him not to do anything with it or to it, that I would be there to pick it up.

I called this morning before leaving to make sure that someone would be there throughout the day. I did not want to drive all the way over there to find it was closed for lunch. He said someone would be there so I packed up and headed over. When I got there I prepped myself and put my game face on. I tend to be too nice and forgiving, but two and a half years, countless unanswered phone calls... keeping those thoughts in the back of my mind helped me keep a ticked-off expression on my face.

I went in, told him I was there to pick up my dress and he acted all excited to see me. He was very nice, apologized profusely and told me the story... (What had happened was...)

Apparently, the company that he sent it off to, he had worked with for over twenty years. They went bankrupt and another company took over their workload. That company went bankrupt, and (if I understood him correctly), the dresses were sent out to about six other companies, but the computerized system that had been used lost track of a lot of the dresses and they are likely to never turn up. The dress that was sent to them that was supposedly my dress (the one that had the preservation box busted during delivery), ended up not being my dress. That particular dress is one of the ones that is floating in Land of the Lost Dresses. But my, thankfully, was returned. Not a thing had been done to it. No cleaning, nothing. It was still hanging in the Jay's Bridal garment bag I dropped it off in.

The owner was very apologetic, seemed sincere, told me he hated that it happened like it did, yadda, yadda, yadda. Usually, the softie that I am, I would have given him a half-hearted "Oh that's okay. I'm just happy I have my dress..." But this time, I went all bridezilla on him and said, "What was most frustrating through this whole process was that you wouldn't return my phone calls." Oooohhhhh! Yeah, I totally laid the smack down with that one. (I don't get it. When I'm "Wedding Planner Brittany", I'm a total wedding nazi. I'm always polite, but very firm in my expectations, and I seem to be respected and taken seriously with that role, however infrequently I play it. But when I'm just "Minivan Mom Brittany", I get much too reserved. I don't know why I couldn't unleash my inner wedding planner on him!) He was at least honest with me and told me that he was avoiding calling me back because he didn't want to tell me the truth of the situation: my dress could possibly be lost and never returned.

But, there's a happy ending to this story: I have my beautiful wedding dress hanging in my closet! If I wasn't carrying an extra 20 pounds in the belly right now, I would totally have been wearing it when Jared got home from work :)

Melissa, if you've made it through this story without keeling over from absolute frustration, I know you taught me better. I hang my head in shame. I now plan to take it to David's Bridal, where they may overcharge, but at least I know I can count on getting it back cleaned and preserved in less than two and a half years!

And because I love my dress so much, I'm gonna show it off!





Photos by Amantez Photography