Photos From a Walk...

...we took in honor of Larkin's & Gramma Becky's birthday May 16th.

Little Blue Eyes.

Sweet grin.

See more pix and video from this walk at Addie's Blog.

Gettin' Exercise...

I have started taking Heidi places and doing things that make her run around to get exercise. So instead of calling this "playing," she says, "I need exercise!" I took her to Sacajawea Park the other day and we spent about two minutes at each spot: a quick slide or two at Pompey's playground, then RUN across the soccer fields to the Merry-go-Round, then RUN to the swings, then RUN to the teeter-totter and back to the car...lots of exercise for mom & James, too! We were sad to find the latch of the baby swing broke, so James couldn't swing very high...:(
But Heidi had fun swinging and singing!
Look at her happy grin!

My Airplane Revelation

"Can you realize even slightly how relatively little we know? As Paul said, 'Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him' (1 Cor. 2:9) ."-Spencer W. Kimball

Read what I just learned about my potential over at Segullah (click).

Wanna read the rest of President Kimball's talk about our potential? Click here.

Senses Working Overtime

(if you're dying to hear the ol' XTC song, click here)

I have been thinking about this post for a long time, since I cleaned out my bathroom products and used up the last of my Bath & Body Works Apothecary Lavender-Vanilla bubble bath, which sent me right down memory lane. I, like most people, have strong scent memories. I heard on TV that this is an anatomical fact because the olfactory centers of the brain have no filters--what we smell is not processed, so it goes into our brains and creates a vivid memory right away. That's really cool, and very animal-like, no?

Some of the most surprisingly vivid and tender memories I have are from when I brought each of my three babies home from the hospital. Each time I was pregnant, as delivery grew nigh, I bought (or was given) a new set of scented soaps and lotions to help me feel pretty before and after delivering the baby.

So here is a list of some of my strongest scent memories:

• B&B Cucumber Melon Body Wash: Newborn Addie, courtesy of myself.
• B&B Apothecary Lavender-Vanilla: Newborn Heidi, courtesy of one of my dear YW, Lauren.
• Victoria's Secret Love Spell Body Spray & Scrub: Newborn James, courtesy of my mom.
• bleach/ chlorine water: mmmm, reminds me of pool water, and on a winter's day when I am sanitizing the linens of my cold-ridden family, the smell of the bleach water in the washer can send me right to a sunny, 105-degree day, playing in the pool in Arizona.
• orange peels, orange blossoms: takes me right to Arizona, too...warm sweet-smelling breezes...yum!
• Creosote, Mesquite=MONSOON RAIN in southern AZ. I'm tellin' you people, if they could bottle that smell...(if you've been in Tucson in August, you know what I am talking about!)
• fresh berries and dill also smell so good and fresh to me, and combined with lemon, can brighten and freshen any dish (berries for sweet, dill for savory, of course)
• Ralph Lauren's Safari for Men: when this scent came out, I loved it and I put the scent cards everywhere, even though I never knew a guy who wore it. I suppose it was the smell of the fantasy man of my early 20's.
• Ciara: The Scent of Grandma Lyn...I can smell it on my kids hours after she has hugged them!
• Dove Soap: Grandma Muriel...soft pink soap in her tiny pink-tiled bathroom.

Also, I had some thoughts about sounds the other night. It was a warm night and we had a fan on. The kids were in bed and the dishwasher was humming. I thought to myself that, aside from the sound of silence, the sound of the dishwasher might be my favorite. It's the sound of my woman's work being done at the end of the day. Ahhhh! I also like to drift off to sleep to the sound of the vacuum, the TV, and/or a fan going...I am a huge fan of white noise. Of course I love to hear my kids giggling, especially when they are making each other laugh.

And sometimes I worry that James will have some primal respose to the Scrubs theme...I am afraid he will suddenly get really hungry or want to suck on something, since I watched a tivo'ed Scrubs episode almost everytime I had to nurse him when he was a tiny baby. His first words will probably be, "I can't do this all on my own, no, I know I''m no Superman."

We'll talk about sight, taste, and touch another day. What are some of YOUR favorite scents & sounds?

Check it Out

I absolutely LOVE this video of Addie we just posted to her blog...it's just so her...skipping along and singing and looking out for her brother and sister. Enjoy!

James & The Otter Pop

Otter Pops became the cuisine du jour last week (5/10-11) when Jill was here and everyone was throwing up. James tried one for the first time (video courtesy of Jill)...






James & an Otter Pop from MelinFamily on Vimeo

All I Ever Knew...

Let me preface this post by acknowledging my dear friends who wish to be Mothers and are not, and/or who have lost their mothers and grandmothers. I always think about you on Mother's Day and remember the little squeeze my heart would feel each Mothers Day in my 20's when I thought I might never be a mother. Thank you for your influence in my life and for blessing my kids' lives, too.

Mothers, Grandmothers, Sisters, Aunts, Girlfriends, Stepmothers...enjoy.

Happy Mother's Day

(I know--JCPenney? Really? But it's such a great commercial, and this version of the song is so beautiful when you imagine it's about mothers!)

PS: Read THIS (click).

Dear Gabriel:

I had a great post planned for your birthday, I really did. Aunt Jill and I even talked about it. But you wanna know how we celebrated? Yep, Bowing to the porcelain god. Everybody over here got a wicked Norvirus and our tummies are still queasy! Shucks. But I hope it was an AWESOME day in your world and you can thank us later for NOT coming to visit you, cuz this virus stinks.

Happy Birthday, you big teenager!

Love, Aunt Jamie

Real Quick

Jill is here with her four kids--spur-of-the-moment fun surprise for Mothers Day! YAY! So I am going to be brief and share some pix from our Sunday walk: Going up the hill on Summit street with our house inthe background. Addie is pushing the kids in the bike trailer and I am talking to mom on the cell phone.
This is our town from the hill by our house. You can see I-90, The Melin Agency, and Dairy Queen (owned by a family in our ward) from this angle.
This is looking south of town toward Paradise Valley...so pretty.
And to cheer up your hump day, here's my sweet, smiley boy!

Have a Happy Wednesday! We're off to have some Cousin Fun!

Behold the Cuteness, Old School Edition

Tom Melin, 1950
Rosalie Melin, 1951

Last night we had a Family Home evening honoring Grandpa & Grandma Melin-- it was partly for Mother's Day (Mom Melin's gift last year was dinner and Family Home Evening with us the first Monday of every month for a year-- this would technically be the end of that gift, but we decided to keep up the tradition as long as we can) and partly for teachign our kids family history and learning more about Grandpa and Grandma.

With the help of Rich's far-flung siblings, we made a pretty little scrapbook of favortie memories with Grandma & Grandpa, including letters and photos and interviews with the grandkids (#11 was just born this week--eleven grandkids in less than 5-1/2 years!). Then I printed out some pictures of them as kids and had the kids guess who was in the pictures. When the kids figured out that we were talking about grandpa & grandma, we played a game. The kids drew cards that had statements on them like, "I was born on June 10 1947 in Lewistown, Montana" or "My dad's name was George" or "I married Rosalie Dotson on September 1, 1966" or "I love to eat popcorn!" They had to figure out who made the statement--grandpa or grandma. It was pretty cool. Addie actually remembers a lot of the facts.

Here's the game board--please note that their anniversary is wrong here--it's 9/1/66, and I totally know that--I don't know why I wrote the zero in my delirium!

The dinner was delicious! I made up a recipe for pork roast which I will now share cuz it rocked:

Pork Tenderloin Roast

olive oil

salt & pepper
1/2 yellow onion

1/2 apple, sliced in wedges

worcestershire sauce

Dorothy Lynch salad dressing
a little water

***

Spray your crock pot with PAM, throw in sliced onion. Grease up your roast with olive oil and cut 4 slits across the top deep and long enough to fit the apple wedges. Then sprinkle a few tablespoons of W. sauce over the roast and in slits, put apple wedges into slits. Pour about 1 cup of Dorothy Lynch dressing over the top of the roast, then salt and and pepper. Put on the lid and cook on low for 5 hours, adding water every two hours or so to keep moist.

The drippings made a tasty gravy over rice, and Angie made some delicious rolls. We also had Costco's Parisienne salad (with the feta, cranberries and candied nuts-- yum!) and mom's choclate chip cookies and ice cream bars for dessert. It was great fun and all the cousins had a great time together (but we missed Liana, Sariah, Jared, TJay, Summer, and Matthew!). I am so grateful to have such awesome in-laws! I love that my kids have such rich heritage on all branches of their family tree.

Couch Potatoes

We recently purchased a dirt cheap set of DVDs featuring old skool cartoons like Popeye and Betty Boop. Our girls are instantly sucked into the 1930's tracter beam, which is perfect for when I need computer time or time to cook dinner...
I like this photo just to compare their profiles....look at Addie's cute little Melin lip and Heidi's playdoh nose! Cutie pies.

I also took in a little TV this week--a lot, actually, with The Mormon Show on PBS, plus American Idol and Must-See on Thursday. And here is what I have to say about that:

1. BLAKEIFY: To make something lame (like a mushy country song or an 80's hairband hit) into something hip-hoppity-jazz-cool with some beat boxin' mixed in, 311 style. Okay, I LOVED Blake Lewis' version of Bon Jovi's "You Give Love a Bad Name" so much, I have probably watched it 10 times. It sounded very 311 (I saw 311 back in 1997 and the lead singer was way cuter than he is in this video...I loved thier muzak, but they were way too drug-culture for me) to me and I find Blake thoroughly entertaining and original (at least by American Idol standards). Look:

2. Scrubs (click here) just about broke my heart. You probably know from reading this blog that I feel a kinship to the cast of Scrubs as if we had all grown up together. Seriously. Something about the show (maybe that the writers are all the same age as me?) just hits my young adulthood nail right on the head. So this past epoisode when Eliot gets engaged and JD is trying super hard to get with her friend, and then he asks himself why he's trying so hard, then answers his own question with the heartwrenching "It should have been me"-- UGH! I felt that! I know I have felt that and I know I made someone else feel that when I got hitched (I 've got it in writing). I wish I could fast forward and see what's going to happen, cuz JD still has that baby out there somewhere with that lyin' urologist from last season...

WHAT!?! Did you just tell me to get a life? Okay, okay...I have one, but I was taking a break this week to get over my chest cold! Gimme a break...I have to stop thinking deep thoughts SOMETIME!

Heh-heh.

PS: Happy Saturday, y'all...git your BelBivDeVoe on.