The winter months have been devoted to cozy projects. My extra minutes in January were spent making our 2012 family album. February’s minutes went to violin practice. This month, my project is to make a third draft of my Grandma Ruth’s history that I began writing in 2008 after spending a week “interviewing” her. I’ve collected many pictures and I’m currently scanning slides so this little history is full of images.
We threw a family Christmas party last night at our house. My mom and I worked on it for about 6 weeks. Here are some photos from the evening.
Place cards for 36 people
Special cookies, most of them decorated by Paige.
Centerpiece and place settings
The little girls’ table
Mom and Dad
My Aunt Kate and her family
Joe’s family
Paul and Care looking great.
Paul and Care and the kids.
Susan and Richard’s family
Sarah and Bryan
Derrick
Happy Stacy
Little David
I loved the family talent show after dinner. The Christmas pageant was beautifully costumed by Susan. The gifts were generous and so much fun.
Happy 39th anniversary! We hope you love the carolers, Mom.
Merry Christmas!
These photos are evidence of many years of dance. The daily and weekly sacrifices that Paige makes to be a dancer are enormous. Paige is graceful and she is strong. We are so proud of her. It’s not easy joining such a tight-knit studio in the middle of Nutcracker rehearsals. She did a beautiful job.
Both sets of grandparents were able to come to the performance! Thank you! Thank you!
My mom took the boys on a quick, impromptu tour of Temple Square since she had an appointment downtown.
True, the lights are beautiful, but as my Mom explains, the real beauty is the temple.
Mark really liked the scale model of the interior of the temple that they found in the visitor’s center.
The big photos were taken by Timothy. He was proud of this photo of the Christus statue.
Thanks, Grandma, for taking them to Temple Square! It was Timothy and Mark’s first trip to see the lights and probably the first trip that Daniel can remember since he was only two years old when he first saw them.
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 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 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.
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.
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.
Timothy enjoys making little films. For the school Reflections contest he decided to show what it was like to explore the Secret Garden at Spring Lake. The theme of Reflections this year is “The Magic of a Moment.” The music he chose is from the 1993 soundtrack from The Secret Garden.
I think his little film is charming and it captures a really beautiful afternoon.
Timothy is such a sweetheart.
We finally remembered to take a photo at a BYU football game. My mom is the BYU student who makes these tickets in the student section possible. Richard has gone to every game and I go to the night games with him and we call it a date. For Saturday games, Richard takes one or two of our boys with him. It’s a little bit tricky to go to games when there is so much to do on the weekends, but we couldn’t pass up this opportunity. My mom graduates soon and we’re savoring life here. It’s the right thing to do.