Extended family – Page 25 – Letters from Home

Siblings

My brothers say that I was a domineering big sister. I guess if hugs are any indication, I probably was. Look at that grip on Paul’s neck! Look at him struggling for breath while trying to smile with his thumb up for the camera! I don’t think I am domineering anymore. In fact, most of my siblings have made huge changes in their personalities as they have gotten older.

Joe was always the center of attention. Now he is quiet and intense. Paul lived in Joe’s shadow, but now he is more outgoing. My brother Matt hated school and we wondered if he would graduate. He now has a PhD. One of my sisters believed that she was a dog for a few years. She is way over that now. 😉

I think about sibling dynamics all of the time. The oldest child, or oldest child of each gender often feels more responsibility toward siblings. Richard is not the oldest, but he has many characteristics of an oldest child because he is the oldest brother. When we have family gatherings, sibling dynamics continue to be in play and influence behavior.

When I think back to my childhood, I see that my brothers and sisters were so influential in the formation of my sense of responsibility. Through relationships with them, I learned what it means to love faithfully. I would quarrel with my brothers, but avoided speaking negatively about them with others.

I recently watched some old home movies from 30 years ago. I was trying to play the piano, but my brothers were banging on the keys and making faces, one covering his ears in agony. I put up with a lot. Perhaps if the camera hadn’t been rolling, I would have shouted at them.

In one of the early home videos that Richard and I made, I discovered that Daniel did the SAME THING to Paige as she played piano as my brothers did to me. Too funny.

I study the relationships among my own children and smile at their steadiness, but also their evolution. Paige and Daniel have always been good to each other. Timothy and Mark like to clash, but they have become best friends over the past year or so. As a parent, it’s difficult not to allow sibling order to influence the way I treat them. I work hard to not ignore the middle children in my family, but I’m doing a lousy job not spoiling my baby. All well. What can you do? It seems that sibling dynamics are greater than any one person can overcome.

Angels We Have Heard

I keep a copy of this photo close by. My great-grandmother is on the far right. My great-great grandmother is on the far left. My grandmother is the little girl.

I keep this photo for several reasons.

It’s a gathering of the powerful Howard women.
The hats
My great-grandmother (far right) looks so superior, and she WAS.

I wrote the following post a few weeks ago, but I have been afraid to post it for a few reasons.

I don’t want you to see how self-centered and insecure I can be.
I don’t want you to read too much into the angels thing. I believe in angels and they have a work to accomplish, but I’m not obsessed with the doctrine.
It’s *another* post about how scared I am to play the violin at church.

You can read it or skip it. If you don’t like it, that’s ok because I’m pretty sure all of these women in the photo have my back and they think that I am darling.

The Post I Was Hesitant to Publish goes like this:

We attended a party one day before the big church Christmas program in which I was to play the violin. As the entertainment for the party a violin professor with a PhD in violin performance played for us.

It’s not logical and it’s immature, but my confidence plummeted after hearing this violinist.

The next day I was moody and I had a bad rehearsal. How was I going to get my head back together so I could play that evening?

Then came the angels. They were people in my church congregation who stopped me in different settings throughout the day.

“What have you read lately?” one person asked, initiating a discussion that we began earlier this year. Our conversation turned to talents and gifts versus faith as we serve God. He said something like, “God uses people because of their faith, not necessarily their gifts.” This was something I needed to hear. He was the angel sent to remind me to have the faith to be an instrument, and not focus on proficiency alone.

All day people from the choir for whom I was playing the accompaniment were so kind and encouraging.These were the angels who lifted me over my insecurities.

Just before the performance, I ran into my friend who played Tevye in the production of Fiddler on the Roof earlier this year when I got to be the fiddler. We laughed over the adventures of that show. Here was the angel who got my mind off my troubles.

I asked Richard to sit near me while I played, just off to the side. His presence was angelic and helpful. My mom and Paige sat in the congregation and gave me another reason to play my best. Daniel, who was singing in the choir, always gives me a private encouragement before I play. It’s a tender gesture that always goes to my heart.

There were also probably unseen angels who helped me to play without shaking.

I cringe at this fear and weakness that I show when I have to play, but I have learned about faith, true friends, and angels through these experiences of working through it. Someday I’ll be able to get over myself.

The performance came and went. I played and it was just fine… not perfect, but sufficient. Looking back, how could it have been otherwise with such a team rooting for me?

Wrapping Up

IMG_1144-001 Hello, it’s been a while. We’ve been busy wrapping up projects and goals, reading fat books, and being a complete family again.

During the final weeks of the year Richard and I spend a lot of time wrapping up the lessons and events of the year into a video to send to the grandparents. The kids perform their piano pieces and we make a music video where we lip sync a funny song. My favorite part of the video is the slideshow. We choose music to accompany the images from the year. I watch these videos again and again. I love the memories. My Stewart grandparents say that it is part of their Christmas Eve tradition to watch our video each year. It’s a way that we try to reach out to family far away, but I know that I watch these videos more than anyone.

We threw 3 parties. One was a pizza and game party for Daniel and his friends. Next was Timothy’s birthday.

Timothy turned 11 just before Christmas and we threw him the traditional gingerbread house making party and ate red velvet cake. He finished all of the activity pins for Webelos (Scouts) just before his birthday. He earned every one.

The big family party to celebrate my parents’ anniversary was next. Daniel received an autographed cast picture of Studio C from his uncle that evening. Timothy is being a clown. Aside from the slideshow that we presented of my parents’ marriage, I was most proud of the decorations upstairs and lights we hung across the ceiling in the basement to make our stage magical.

With the kids home I have felt so happy because we haven’t had to go anywhere. Someone asked what we did for Christmas. After I said that we had thrown a big family party, they wondered what ELSE we had done. I couldn’t come up with anything big that we had done, but my mind wandered to what was accomplished without leaving the neighborhood.

I played my violin in church. That’s always an epoch in my life.

We made 20 pints of salsa and delivered them to the neighbors since the thought of baking was making me grumpy.

The kids played in a Christmas piano recital.

We were invited to celebrate Joseph Smith’s birthday on December 23rd with two other families up the street for Family Home Evening. This was super fun. We ate stew and cornbread, sang, had a lesson about the Prophet Joseph, and listened to the kids play the piano.

We took the kids to see Frozen in the theater on Christmas Eve afternoon.

We watched Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concerts on video and opened simple gifts. On Christmas morning, the kids were surprised by Legos and technology. My favorite gifts were the exercise balls that the little boys received. They bounce around on them all of the time. It makes me happy to see kids playing like that. We never have great pictures of Christmas celebrations, but you can probably picture us on our sofa in the basement, Christmas lights everywhere and the fire place warming the room. Small gifts inspire hugs and smiles and in the simplicity is the magic.

We rested and watched Christmas movies such as It’s A Wonderful Life and Mr Kruger’s Christmas. Oh, we needed this. The boys went skiing, but I didn’t do much away from home. Shopping was minimal. Daniel and Richard rebuilt the kids’ computer.

Richard and I went out to dinner one evening. We’re still on the search for a good local Mexican restaurant. We have very discriminating tastes, having lived in Texas, Arizona, and Provo, Utah where good Mexican food (or Tex-Mex) is everywhere.

December 31st was the day Paige got her driver license and I tried to finish reading both The Book of Mormon and War and Peace. I only finished The Book of Mormon in time to ring in the new year. Timothy and Mark stayed up until midnight for the first time in their lives, but Timothy was the only one to truly celebrate. He jumped up and went to everyone’s rooms to wish them Happy New Year!

I dressed in layers and loved the bright sunshine reflected from the snow through my windows. I have twirled in place this week because this life makes me so happy.

As January arrived, I was slow to put away the Christmas decorations, but once they were away, I enjoyed the empty shelves and clean slate that appeared in our home.

Things are getting a little busier each day.

Richard’s parents visited and we went to Gladys’s place to wish her a happy birthday.

We went to the airport to welcome Richard’s niece home from her mission. Richard was very clear that he wanted each of us to hold a letter of her name to greet her at the airport. This attention to a decorative detail was a new side of him that I haven’t seen before. He truly wanted to make his niece’s homecoming a special time.

This morning I finished reading War and Peace. When I introduce myself for the next while, I will say, “My name is Angela and I have read War and Peace.” 😉

Part of the end of the year wrap up is the writing of thank you notes and Christmas cards. This brings to mind so many people who have influenced our lives for good throughout the year. On that note, I will end this post. Thank you, Readers, for sharing your time to read about us.

Happy New Year. There will be many more posts to come. Life is precious and worth writing about.

Merry Christmas Party Pictures

Here is a big batch of photos of the family party that we hosted in our home. I love everything about hosting a party. I love the company and the decorating and the cooking; I love how everyone looked their best and how the cousins got to sit together and the adults got to sit at their own table. I loved the costumes for the Nativity and the talent show with all of the piano music. I loved the slideshow that Richard helped me make of my parents’ 40 years of marriage.

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving in Pine Valley

We spent Thanksgiving with Richard’s family in Pine Valley. My memories of the weekend are accompanied by music from the piano and Christmas carols sung by all. I have never seen so many pies. I took a few candid shots to help me remember the time together. The family’s discomfort at being photographed is so obvious in a few of these pictures. All well. I love these dear people.

Little Women

Paige and I watched this movie late into the night last weekend. I always watch this movie with my girl. The first time I watched it was in a theater with my mom and two sisters in December 1994, just a few days before I got engaged. That’s a sweet memory.

It was a weekend to celebrate women. My mom spoke at the Missionary Training Center to all of the sister missionaries on Sunday morning and she invited me and my sisters to attend.

We were told that 39% of the missionaries at the MTC this weekend are sisters. That’s a lot of women. There was real power in that enormous arena. There were other sisters assembled at the “west campus” and we waved via satellite. When they all sang I cried.

They took lots of notes and told me they were excited to go to Taiwan or Scottsdale, Arizona and all over the world. My mom’s words were beautiful and reminded us that The Gospel Blesses Families. It’s quite something to be invited to speak to such a unique and historic audience. It might have been the largest gathering of sister missionaries ever. It was a special thing to see my mother speak with confidence and power to that audience.

I went home to my Young Women at church and told them that they look like the sisters at the MTC. They are nearly the same age and they have the same countenance. Do they understand that they have power through their obedience to covenants? I hope so. Do they understand that they are respected and valuable in their roles at church? I hope so. Do they know that it’s a blessing to be a woman? Oh, because it is!

Some of the best women I know

I went to lunch this week with my mom, sisters, and a sister-in-law (not pictured). They are smart, spiritual, tender, and industrious. I can guarantee that each of them is working on one or more of the following things today: Graphic design, music, sewing, quilting, refinishing, remodeling, building furniture, nurturing children, photography, rescuing someone, or party planning… They inspire me.

A Baptism Day

My niece Ruby was baptized this weekend. This was the cousin shot, and this was the best they could do to hold still after the loooooooong program. They love each other. Can you tell?

My parents were there and I’m grateful that I can see them so often. Sitting with family at baptisms was a blessing that I missed when we lived far away. That little Ruby is such a pretty and kind little girl! She is learning to speak Chinese, too. Wow.

A Wedding Day

It’s a good thing that there are so many photos of this bride (our niece) and groom circulating in the world because we didn’t make it home with a single photo of them.

Here is what the kids and Richard took pictures of on the wedding day in Manti.

Oh, look. There is a picture of the bride with her eyes half closed. It was a beautiful wedding in the Manti temple and there was lots of family and love.

Faithful friends

DSC_2338-001 — The Sanchez family dogs at the Weber, photo by Sarah

Last year Sparky chose to spend every day in his kennel, pouting because the kids were away at school. He’s not pouting in his kennel this year. He’s moved on to the living room where he curls up in a ball and waits for his kids to come home.