Something Virtuous, Lovely and of Good Report and Praiseworthy

Recently my old friend Katie posted about her daughter appearing in an Xfinity commercial featuring a new technology to help visually impaired people navigate in finding movies to watch. Their daughter Emily has been blind since birth. When Katie first sent the link I was curious about what technology could help the blind watch movies...and I wanted to see what part Emily would play in all this. I had no idea that her story and her imagination would be the whole focus of the project -- and the lengths that they went to to bring her vision to life. It was beautiful. I wanted to share it.

Apparently it aired tonight during the Oscars.




They also made a short documentary, narrated by Robert Redford, of the making of Emily's Oz.






Also, the Grove's did an interview this week on the Today show. I love that I got to see the whole family in this one. They are some of our favorite people and they moved out of state several years ago so we haven't had much opportunity to see them.



Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I love this so much. I been smiling and smiling. There is good in the world. Thanks Katie and Tyler - we love you guys! And well done Emily...what a personality!
:)

Middle School

Our resident middle schoolers after the middle school dance today. Noble coordinated with half the boys in the 8th grade in wearing red(ish) bow ties and check out how cute Grace's new kitty skirt is!

Noble is in student government and serves on the dance committee. Today they put on their Valentines dance (almost a week after Valentines -- but who's keeping track?). The kids were largely in charge, so there were a few gliches --- like how the kid tasked with bringing the sound system bailed last minute and Noble had to scramble to get our drums amp packed up and back to the school in time for the dance. All in all it appears to have been a success. It doesn't sound like there was a whole lot of actual dancing going on, but plenty of goodies, balloons, loud music,  and Noble reports that an entire group did the worm across the gym floor.  I call that success!

The Way It's Done

I don't know that my life is busier than other people's lives. We all fill our 24 hours. But keeping up with six kids, a puppy, a husband working 2 jobs (and studying for his CFP), busy church callings (several), the house and bills, the cars (3), volunteering at school, and LAUNDRY....

It takes coordination. 

This morning as I was reviewing my weekly To-Do lists over a bagel and yogurt for breakfast I got the notion to take a snap shot of my clipboard. This clipboard is the secret to keeping things running around here ( project lists, shopping lists, school flyers, Dr.'s reminders, the dog walking schedule, To-Do's, important contacts...).

It seemed to me that it would be so interesting someday to look back at these details of our day-to-day life right now. It's a pretty good summary.

Just a few from the list:

* Yoga, scriptures (repeated)

* Scout Store

*Noble eye exam

*Pooper scoop

* call Midvalley Glass (another broken window)

*Make New Beginnings program

*PAY BILLS

*Basketball practice Jessie

* Ma / Pa Trek Meeting

* laundry (repeated)

I think everyone should take a picture of their To-Do lists for posterity.

River Makes a Visit to the Vet

It was time for River to be neutered.So we made his appointment for last Friday. He spent the weekend laying around looking like this. Poor guy.

In the end it hasn't slowed him up much. I had my fingers crossed it would help bring down the energy a notch. Oh well, we will just have to stick it out till his puppy phase has passed.

Everyday

I take more pictures these days with my phone than with our camera, which is too bad because the photos are not the best quality. But then again, it means that I get more candid moments because the phone is more handy. Here are a few from my phone over the past week or two. Images that tell the story of our life.

The most handsome man in the world lives here.

 #6 had an accident with the kitchen stool one day last week. He fell and hit his ear on the corner of the stool back. He kept waking up after he went to bed that night crying that his ear hurt; I worried that maybe he'd done some internal damage. I asked Mike to give him a blessing and called my dad at 10:30 to come and help (thank you Dad!). I am so grateful for the priesthood. This is Abner after the blessing. All is well. The next day he had no complaints.

 On Friday Tillman had a few school friends come over to "work on a project". Tillman had offered no further information when he asked if his friends could come over so I assumed it would be pretty straight forward and simple - maybe some research, writing, maybe putting together some kind of simple presentation. I learned my lesson: always ask for more information. Turns out it was a bit more elaborate. After dropping them off after school with Noble in charge, I ran to do some quick shopping for dinner. When I walked in the door they met me with their demands: a circuit board, wires, a power source and something to build an electric vehicle with. I stood there for a minute completely confused. What? What kind of project was this? They (in their cryptic 5th grade speak) explained that they had to build something that would move on its own using electricity. I asked if there were any official printed instructions I could look at because the stuff they were telling me made no sense. It seemed pretty complicated. 

Plus, it was due Monday, so his was their only shot at it. And we had like an hour. I drew a blank. 

Noble had been home from school that day incapacitated by a pinched nerve in his shoulder.  As I listened to Tillman and company I became more confused by the second, and I was in the middle of about 20 other things demanding my attention that afternoon. The surprise arrival of this crisis definitely threw me off my groove. Luckily I had Noble.  In desperation I looked to him and asked what we should do. Oh how I love, LOVE this engineering son of mine! Together we were finally able to get clarification about Tillman's project. Noble determined that we needed a small 1.5 v motor that he found on Hobby Lobby's website for less than $4 and a battery pack. And we decided that the vehicle could be constructed out of Legos. So the 5th graders and I ran to Hobby Lobby while Noble searched for gears and components in the Legos. Then he helped (*did most of the work*) put it together and tweaked the design till it functioned. I told Tillman that he had to give some credit to Noble in their presentation.

Noble is AWESOME in a crisis. He's like the Melton version of MacGyver. 

Post Script: Noble visited the Chiropractor the next morning for some intensive therapy for his pinched nerve. He can more-or-less stand up straight now. Notice his kinked posture in the picture. He definitely earned some respect by diligently stepping up that day when he could barely even move. Fist bumps.

Living in the Moment

I wish we could keep these two just like this forever. Every day is a magical adventure with the Super A and Super S. ("Together, we save the galaxy! Super Kids!!!")

One thing on my list of things to accomplish over the Christmas break was to take the older kids over to the Family Search Library in Riverton for some extra help with descendancy research. Here are the fruits of our hour of research.

Tillman left with a burning desire to do more Family History research, so Mike helped him set up his own account and he has been digging in. He went with Grandma Ilean one afternoon for another visit - where he connected a missing child to his family, and printed out the card for temple work. I am telling you, the youth of this church are hastening the work in ways I never imagined.

This year a funny thing happened to me as I packed away the Christmas decorations. I cried. Usually by the time January rolls around, I am ready to pack things up, get back to our routine. But this year as I went to unplug the Christmas village I found myself taking another long look at it. As I took decorations off the tree (especially the ones the kids have made or brought home over the years) I could not hold back the tears. I found myself sadly humming "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".  I know that sounds like the sappiest thing you've ever heard. It all seemed kind of silly to me too, and I wondered why I was feeling this way. I concluded that it must be because I hated to see this Christmas end after the special experiences of love and service we've had this year. I also have to admit that some of my sadness came from knowing that we only have a few more Christmases with all our kids living at home. This makes my heart ache.

Tillman officially graduated from the Cub Scout program. He earned his Webelos badge and Arrow of Light last month and this month got to sign the ceremonial bridge, and become an 11 year old scout.

Mike and Tillman in their Alabama crimson -- supporting the ancestral alma mater. Unfortunately, the Tide was knocked out of the tournament. They are rooting for the Ducks in the championship now. 

You may have heard that a fence is going up for River. Jupiter the Space Donkey got by with an invisible fence, but we needed something more concrete for the next generation. So, getting a family dog just got a LOT more expensive. *sigh*

In reality, a backyard fence is something we probably needed to do anyway...safety, privacy, liability. And since we believe in making people really EARN their money, we waited till January to get them started. (I kind of felt bad about those guys digging post holes all day in the cold.)

Sully watches the BBC Walking with Dinosaurs documentaries at least three times a week. So, for Christmas Sully and Abner got tickets to the Walking with Dinosaurs arena show.
It was really amazing. Also amazing was the fact that Sully would rattle off the names of each of the dinosaurs as they came out before the host ever got a chance to say anything. Sully: "Oh! There's Ornithocheirus!"  And then the host would say, "this is Ornithocheirus..." We thought it was pretty funny. :)

Let's just say that the boys had a fantastic night, especially Sully.
Here's a little taste of the action.

Walking with Dinosuars from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Post Christmas Post

This has been a tender and memorable Christmas. Some good friends in our neighborhood lost their son to Duchenne Muscular Dystrophe last Sunday, 4 days before Christmas. This past month - as it became apparent that he would be passing soon, and especially this past week, there has been an outpouring of the spirit and fellowship in the neighborhood. We found out about his passing together as a ward when the Bishop stood up at the close of the Christmas choir program during sacrament meeting and announced that he'd just received the news. He then delivered a powerful testimony of the Savior, of Christmas and pronounced a blessing upon all of us. This experience has helped us to focus even more on the very real power of Christ's atonement and resurrection, and to follow Alma's direction "to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and...mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort." (Mosiah 18:8-9) In doing so, we have grown closer to each other and to the Savior. This is the miracle of Christmas. We have seen it in action this Christmas. I will never forget it.

We have also made some wonderful memories:

Making popcorn balls to give away (and eat!) with my Grandma Tiede 

(aka "the Popcorn Lady of Gila, New Mexico").

A miraculous evening out with the youth in our ward, buying sub-for-santa gifts for kids from the Angel Tree. Here we are with our group. (We had 5 other groups just like this one at different stores. Each of us buying for a different child.) I thought there was no way we could get all the things we had picked out within our budget, even though Brother Lassig admonished me to have faith. But when Devin the checker found out what we were doing he hooked us up with every discount in the book (and probably off the book). Like an episode of Extreme Couponing we watched in suspense as the total added up until he entered that final discount. 

We ended up 50 cents under budget, and a loud cheer erupted from check stand 9. Devin said it was the best thing that happened to him all day. I think it was probably the best thing that happened to all of us that day too. 

Doing some good in the world.

Making pomanders with Grandma Jacque. One of my favorite Christmas traditions!

 Christmas Eve dinner with most of the Melton clan (we so missed our Michigan Melton's!). 

Look how far little Paxon has come in just a year! What a miracle he is to us.

Watching Abner yawn his way through his preschool Christmas program.

A little video of the action. I love how Abner starts bellowing after Ms. Sandy's 2nd prompt to sing louder. In his defense, she only said louder, nothing about rhythm or articulation.

Rudolf from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

In the spirit of Christmas, I forgave Abner (after I had a little melt down) for doing this. 

2 days before Christmas (yes, that's sharpie -- and yes, Santa somehow overlooked this giant indiscretion -- among many that day).

Christmas morning magic.

This year I did something different. The kids would get 3 gifts each (besides something from Santa) representing the gold, frankincense and myrrh that the wise men brought to the Christ child. Gold would be a gift of wonder (something they wished for), frankincense - a gift of meaning, and myrrh - a gift of usefulness. This helped me to focus and simplify my gift-giving. It made the giving more personal and love-filled for me, as well as directing our thoughts back to the meaning of Christmas. I'm making this our new tradition.

(Somehow I missed getting a picture of Grace -- sorry Grace.)

 A quiet candlelight dinner on Christmas with our kids.

Christmas Day brought another gift of wonder for us (especially the kids): SNOW!!! It made everything so beautiful. There was a short time on Christmas when Mike and Jessie had taken the dog for a long walk, Abner had fallen asleep, and the other kids were quietly playing in the basement -- and I had the living room to myself, the Christmas tree, Christmas music softly playing, soup simmering in the kitchen and snow coming down out the window. I sat by myself on the sofa and just soaked up that perfect moment.

The next day we struck out with the Melton's for a short sledding excursion to the little hill by our old house...perfect for the little boys. Hot chocolate and conversation at our house after.

We spent a cold - but beautiful - night out at Temple Square with the Las Vegas Melton's and Grandpa Howard. It was so nice to spend this time with them.

Mike arranged for the brothers Melton (and Val and Pax and Grace and Grandpa) to go to a Jazz game together. Tim wore his John Stockton and Karl Malone socks.

Here is a clip from the Sullivan Christmas Eve nativity. To me, this is Christmas. I am so grateful for the gift of Christmas.

DSCN7210 from Angie Melton on Vimeo.

Emergency Averted

Today, at church Mike was summoned out of Sunday School by Sully's Primary teachers.

 I was in a meeting when all this went down and couldn't answer my phone. But this was the blow by blow (pun not intended) from Mike in text:

Awesome.

A Night Out with a Couple of 1st Graders

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert is notoriously hard to get tickets for. They offer tickets for only 3 performances, plus an abbreviated Sunday morning sampling. When I heard who the guest performers were going to be this year I so wanted to get tickets. Usually children under 8 are not admitted to these performances, but, under the circumstances, they opened this year's concert to  children as young as 5. I thought Sully would love it. I put the word out among family members to put their names in the lottery to see if any of us could score these coveted tickets. Out of 7 or 8 lottery entries just one, my mom, came away with tickets, which she handed over to us. THANKS MOM!

We invited Sully's cousin Tom to join us for the evening.  Traffic was a mess and it took us longer to get downtown than we hoped. Parking was 4 blocks away from the Conference Center, and we were going to have to scramble to make sure they didn't give away our seats to standby. I held Tom's hand as we all made like super heroes and ran the 4 blocks. I had been getting over a cold, and by about block 2 my lungs were burning. I told Mike that we would have to slow up, but they all wanted to keep running. Tom was disgusted with his running partner, and asked Mike if he could hold his hand instead. (ha ha ha ha)

By the time we lined up to enter the Conference Center I could not stop coughing, and I kept on coughing all night off and on. 

The concert was so much fun. My favorite part? When organist Richard Elliot did "The Twelve Days of Christmas" with the Count. Mike says he almost cried when the choir did the Polish carol "Infant Holy, Infant Lowly". My emotional moment came when Santino Fontana and the Muppets sang "Sing a Song" -- don't know if that means I'm less sophisticated, but that song holds a lot of childhood memories for me. 

Thanks everyone who threw their names in the hat for us to try to help us get tickets. 

It was a magical evening!

Restitution

Recently, Noble tied our not-so-little puppy to one of the dining chairs. Which resulted in this...

I was out of the house when the incident occurred - and Noble called to give me a heads up, hoping to dissipate some of the looming wrath. He told me that the wall had been "dented". When I returned home and saw this gaping hole I admit that I lost my head and YELLED. I really yelled. It had been a stressful day already, and this little crisis seemed disproportionately dire in the moment. A penitent Noble promised he would fix it. I was more than a little doubtful. I assumed this was going to cost a lot of money and/or time, plus how would we ever match the paint?
When Mike got home (and I had calmed down) I rehearsed for him what had happened. Mike assured me that he could fix it, and that he and Noble would take care of it. So a few days later they got to work...

Thanks to YouTube, the paint lady at Lowes (with their genius paint-matching computer), and Mike's can-do attitude Noble has learned an important lesson and my wall has been restored to a nearly pristine state. Also, all those other dings and scratches that have accumulated over the years and needed to be touched up? Bonus. So, in a way I can thank Noble.