Author: Angela

I write so my family will always have letters from home.

Happy

My brothers sent this picture to me today. Holy smokes, we were cute. This is me with my brothers Joe and Paul.  I keep looking at this every few minutes, all day long. A little voice is telling me to try to do an oil painting of it.

The Family Dinner Table

I believe in the family dinner ritual. Unfortunately, most nights we are missing one or two people, but I don’t give up. Having everyone around me, being nourished and sharing is the highlight of my day.

Empty chairs make me sad.

Dinner is not always a special occasion. My cooking, our moods, and The Schedule get in the way, but I think that the “dinner time at the table ritual” is special because you can count on it, not because it’s always perfect or fun. My family knows that there will be a meal and that I will expect them to answer a few questions about their day.

Richard fixed two of our broken chairs so we have enough seating for everyone. I love that he did this. I love these old uncomfortable chairs.

I served some leftover baked ziti to the kids around the dinner table last night. My first surprise was that they engulfed it. The next surprise was the conversation that happened as we ate.

We were all feeling comfortable and happy. Mark said, “Mom, our family is different than any other family because our handwriting has monkey tails (I taught the kids to write D’Nealian style), we go to Spring Lake where we have a dinner bell, and we say, ‘Is everybody happy?’ ‘Well, I should say!'”

And so our conversation turned to things which define our family.

Tim added, “We don’t have DS or PS3 or XBox or anything like that and we get really excited about seeing our extended family.”

Daniel said, “We study really hard and we are good students.”

We were interrupted at this point, but I would have added, “We try really hard to make dinner time a good family time.”

I need to remember this little dinner scene to help me press on and keep trying to find ways to sit down together at this table.

I read someplace that the family dinner table is like an altar in the home. It’s a place to teach, train, gather for prayer, and grow in love. It can help families stay together. Amen.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I am enjoying finding new places for our decorations. This year we gained two mantels and a banister. We lost our tall ceilings, but gained built-in bookshelves.

I’m not sure what I’m doing with mantel #2 downstairs.

We had to get rid of our tall tree when we moved, but luckily we still have the tree that Richard and I bought 17 years ago at an after Christmas sale at Ben Franklin. That makes the cost of the tree about $3.50 a year. Bargain!

Silas Marner

As a teenager, I made a decision that my house would be filled with books someday, and I began collecting literature. If my class was studying a text, I would buy my own rather than use a classroom copy. If I had a few extra dollars, it would often go toward the purchase of a classic. My efforts have continued all these years, depending on circumstances. As we packed up the house, I realized that we amassed around 7 bookshelves of books while we were in Arizona. Many of these books were for home school, but since we were so literature-focused, it means that most of our books are useful for everyone.

I have my library.

Have I read all of the books in my library?

Not yet.

This week I picked up the copy of Silas Marner by George Eliot (a woman) that I bought 20 years ago but never read. My maiden name is written in the cover. I read somewhere that Silas Marner was a sublime tale of restoration… you know how people go on when they feel elevated by a book. I finished it today. I loved it.

I’m getting back into reading. During the move I just didn’t have time. After the move, I had no energy. I fell asleep when I tried to read. There were more naps inspired by my reading of Peter the Great: His Life and World than I can remember. Oh, those monarchs! Oh, those battles! Oh, the exhaustion! But I finished Peter in the last few days, too. Hooray.

Thanksgiving weekend

The house feels really empty today after spending 5 great days with these people. The boys had their first Thanksgiving in Utah. We have such a big family network here that I only needed to prepare desserts!

And that’s really all I have to show you from our weekend. We made jello, pies, and dozens of sugar cookies. Richard spent approximately 18 hours raking leaves while we did all of this baking.

And when those autumn cookies were gone, we made some Christmas cookies. This morning I discovered that my children had taken pictures of them on several cameras. Maybe we all thought that if they were properly photographed, they wouldn’t be missed after they were eaten.

My mom came by and she and Paige rocked the polka dots.

Timothy won the school Reflections contest for his short film of Spring Lake.

Mark lost his first tooth. I owe you a picture.

Somehow we also neglected to take pictures of all of the family we saw this weekend. Boo!

The Sanchez Women Honors

The Sanchez women have been through a lot this year. Here is a picture of us in January 2012. Since this photo most of us have dealt with huge changes in our lives. Most notably, we gained a new sister-in-law this month.

  • My mom is finishing college this month. She also housed two families as they went through major life changes.
  • My sister Susan fought a terrible infection this year and is still feeling the effects of it.
  • My sister Sarah helped her husband finish medical school, moved to Utah, and will be moving to a new city this week for a new job. She also ramped up her puppet business.
  • My sister-in-law Becky gave birth to her fourth son.
  • I moved to Utah and gave up my homeschooling career.
  • Care kept us happy through it all with her handmade creations.

I decided that each of these women deserved a medal so I made some. Can you guess which medal belongs to whom?

I presented one to each of them when we went out to lunch this week.

Becky couldn’t be there, but here is everyone else, including our new sister-in-law Stacy. Well done, ladies, well done.

Sweet gestures

My mom took me out to lunch for my birthday. We couldn’t remember the last birthday we spent together. It was warm and sunny and everything tasted good.

My mom brought a home movie that my cousin made of my grandmother’s surprise birthday party. Watching my grandma and great aunt laughing together brought back beautiful memories of family celebrations with them in Salt Lake City when I was a little girl. Susan always had something special to give each guest so we could remember the occasion. The food was always delicious. I have never found anything to equal Great-grandma’s and Aunt Susan’s parties.

Mark was appalled that he had to go to school on my birthday. He said that he should stay home with me and help me with my work, eat with me, and wash my car. What a lovey.

Timothy gave me a diorama of a road leading to some mountains, I think to remind me that my wish to live in the mountains has finally come true.

My cake was cream filled and delicious and Richard got me the book that I wanted.

I was disappointed to watch my friends preaching to one another about the election online. If only everyone could have just come over and given me birthday hugs, I am sure that would have been a better use of everyone’s time.

 

Crinkle crackle swish

We love to walk to school through the fallen leaves. We love having enormous trees, even if they drop so many leaves that it takes all afternoon to collect them.

I just discovered that my favorite tree on my parents’ block was chopped down this year. I have so many memories playing under that tree, jumping into its piles of leaves and the tough crunching sounds those leaves made under my feet as I walked home from school.

I had actually planned on walking through those leaves tomorrow to celebrate my birthday. Yes, that’s really what I was going to do.

I’m a nut for sentimental traditions.

Light

“You is smart. You is kind. You is important.”*

I got a note in the mail this week that said all of this and more from someone I admire. I blushed, I beamed, I bloomed. (Name the Kevin Henkes book.)**

I also opened up my blinds to see that the leaves outside had changed to this vivid yellow color.

A stamp and some pigment. That’s all that it takes to make me happy.

 

* The Help

** Chrysanthemum