This is my job. It's what I do.

Here is a glimpse of the magic. I mean, this is not ALL that I do, but it's pretty typical on any given day. Actually, this is a little more chill than usual. A lot of days it's a bit more like a really loud and cranky kind of circus. Those times are nuts.

Untitled from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Maybe it's boring. I don't know. But I think about things like this as subtly important moments of time that at the end of our lives define us...and the world. Simple. Good.

One of my favorite statements of ALL TIME, from Neal A Maxwell, an apostle of  the LDS church :

When the real history of mankind is fully disclosed, will it feature the echoes of gunfire or the shaping sound of lullabies? The great armistices made by military men or the peacemaking of women in homes and in neighborhoods? Will what happened in cradles and kitchens prove to be more controlling than what happened in congresses? When the surf of the centuries has made the great pyramids so much sand, the everlasting family will still be standing, because it is a celestial institution, formed outside telestial time. The women of God know this.

It's nice to think - home can still be good. With all that is happening in the world.

Sometimes it's the Little Things

Like finally breaking down and upgrading the alarm clock. You don't know what an indulgence it is to wake up to something other than a buzzer, until you've done it. Mike is a big snooze-bar fan. That can be torture (for me). When the alarm starts at 5:30AM so that Mike can hit snooze half a dozen times before he "really" wakes up. I've been really tempted to get him the Zen Alarm Clock for several years. But who can justify paying THAT much money for an alarm clock? I haven't. In our beach hotel in Newport this past summer they had the BEST waking soundtracks on their alarm clocks, and we both decided that was the way to go for a good morning. So...we finally shelled out a few bucks this weekend for a docking clock/radio, I downloaded some appropriate relaxation sound from iTunes and....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
The problem is, Mike is TOO relaxed by the gurgling stream/mountain songbirds/ocean waves/piano music and sleeps straight through. I threatened him with Tibetan Bowl tones if nature sounds won't do the trick for him. But I wake up happy every day now. (And thanks to the "sleep" setting we have been lulled happily to sleep every night too.)

Why did we wait so long?

Snowshoeing on Saturday

We got out for a few hours this weekend to Neff's Canyon for a little snowshoeing. It always seems like we put off snowshoeing till it's late in the season and then conditions aren't optimal. We needed the snowshoes more for traction than for buoyancy, since the trail is pretty steep. 

 Grace and T. got a little silly and out of hand on the way out, running downhill at full speed and then sliding and rolling. Once they were wound up like that, It was hard to get things chill enough on the drive home.

We still had a lot of fun. And a good calorie burn too.

Here are some pictures:

Baby and mamma pose for a snowshoeing photo... 5 months and counting. (Baby enjoyed the outing.)

Looking back at the city from Neff's Canyon

Stopping for snacks under a huge pine tree...

Turning 36

I had a birthday this weekend.

I spent it mostly with my family ...and part of it with about a million screaming fans at the Marriott Center in Provo, watching Jimmer Fredette play his last home game for BYU. Thank goodness they won this one. After New Mexico came to town earlier this week, we were a little worried. It was a fun game to see. The kids had a great time - even those who are not big basketball fans. Our kids feel a special connection to Jimmer because one of their teachers at school is his sister. Jessie had a chance to meet him once in her classroom - and it changed her life (I say that only a little bit tongue-and-cheek).

Ice cream stop at Thanksgiving Point on the way home after the game. 

We all had a lot of fun. Even if it ended with Tillman getting sick in the car on the way home. A minor set-back. A little clean up and all was right again with the world.

- At the game with Noble (he was trying to hide from the camera) -

Today was perfect as birthdays go. A beautiful day. (And that's saying something when the occasion is your 36th birthday - the downward slope to 40.) For starters, Mike SHAVED off his beard as a birthday present....Dreams do come true.

We saw my little nephew be blessed at church.
We relaxed at home.
Mike and Grace made a red velvet cake with the number '27' on top for me. Grace said they didn't have the candle numbers 3 or 6 - and since 2 is one less than 3 and 7 one more than 6, it was all the same anyway. I was cool with that logic.
We had dinner with my family at my Mom's and Dad's, where there were lots of crazy kids tearing around outside in the rain and mud with Uncle Sean, babies to hold, and my best friends/siblings to hang out with.

36 isn't so bad.