Category: Family Time

Some Things I Love

I finished assembling the quilt top, thanks to the gift of an extra day.
ski trip
Tim broke the family speed record for skiing. I wish I didn’t know this.
Tim’s band visited Mark’s band.
Birthday dinner
After 11 years of searching, then waiting for a sale, I bought a piano lamp.
Richard and I spent about 5 hours preparing French food yesterday, and it was really disappointing how awful it tasted. Ours actually looked like this photo. pc: tablespoon.com
Mark at Youth Conference.

This week, as I ran errands and shopped, I was asked a few times if I was planning to do something fun. Yes! We celebrated Richard’s birthday with food, food, presents, food, and desserts. At Costco, someone asked if the next big birthday was the big 4-0, and since the scales have tipped toward 50 for me, this miscalculation has embedded itself in my heart and grown into many private smiles. I love celebrations with family, the preparation, anticipation, and the memories.

And, if you want to see Paige’s 8 beautiful paintings inspired by The Secret Garden, her show is coming up soon. I love seeing Paige’s illustrations.

As for the Daniel, he had the opportunity to meet Elder Uchtdorf and shake his hand last week, and he was invited to share his testimony in Stake conference. He is moving to a new apartment that has hot water. He has been busy assembling emergency kits for each companionship in the mission. With summer holidays coming to an end, they expect more protests and violence in his area, but the kits are more in preparation for earthquakes. He is teaching Rosa and others with his companion who is from Canada. I had my first bad dream about his safety, and I can’t hear The Prayer (Bring Him Home from Les Miserables) or Danny Boy without tears. Still, I love being part of a missionary family.

One thing I do for my calling at church is teach Primary children during ward conferences. I made this visual aid for last Sunday to teach about Isaiah’s “Mountain of the Lord’s House” and it was a lot of work, but the kids really loved the doors and windows. They also loved talking about how temples are like mountains, places to feel peace, quiet, and see beauty and light. I also loved the comment about mountains being places of adventure. I think learning of God’s ways is one of the great adventures of life. I love what I learn as I serve in Primary.

Small Plates

The Come Follow Me curriculum with teens has taught me the power of one or two insights each week. My job is not to cover everything, but to help them identify and remember the insights that come to their minds as they read. These insights and feelings are personal revelation, or what the Lord wants them to learn individually.

I had some wooden books and rings left over from a girls camp and our family used them to make “small plates”. We found art from the Come Follow Me manual to paste on the covers. As you see, not everyone participated in this craft activity. Typical! I could have just as easily bought simple notebooks. The papers are small, just a quarter sheet. As we read a chapter of the Book of Mormon aloud, we focus our attention on a topic from the manual and write down what we learn from reading. If our sons write one insight a week, this adds up to more than 50 insights a year for each of them. 50 pieces of instruction from the Holy Ghost. 50 helps from heaven. If we each write down one insight a week, we will have over 200 lessons gained as a family. Not that I am counting, or even looking at what they write. These are their sacred, small plates.

Reading as a family is a challenge. When we finally sit down to read after all kinds of contortions to make it happen, the family seems to lose all energy, and the dog becomes extra needy, distracting, and playful. It is during these times I call the little dog Satan and wish the teen years weren’t so tricky. But when I listen to the boys pray after we read, I hear their words of thanks for the time spent as a family. The sweetest advice I have been given is to LISTEN to what your teens say in their prayers. This is how they really feel.

This year we’re keeping our study small (focused) and simple (personal, in few words), trusting that great things will come of it. (Alma 37:6)

Paige and Michael’s Wedding Day in Pictures

Good job if you made it to the end of this post. Most pictures are by our niece Rachel (Rachel Angela Photography). Most of my memories, thoughts, and feelings are recorded in my journal, where they will stay. If you were there, I hope you found your face in a photo or two. We are very grateful to all who came and all who showed their support in any way. It really was the very best day.

Testimony

I didn’t realize this is how grown up our family looks. I’ve had lots of moments to reflect on life and our Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness in the past few weeks. This picture (even the absence of our adored missionary) represents all that the Savior has given us: absolutely everything that brings us joy. Here are just a few things this photo represents to me, made possible by our Savior:

repentance and forgiveness

the Gospel of Jesus Christ

covenants and ordinances

marriage

sacrifice

missionary work

miracles of healing and understanding

children

hope

testimony

faith in Christ

obedience to commandments

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

patience

love

Biggest Week So Far

Paige and Michael were married on December 27 in the Salt Lake Temple. Photo by Rachel Angela Photography

Richard and I came away from Paige’s wedding day without a single picture, which tells you what a great time we had. We will post more another day. These are snapshots from family and friends who have taken the time to share with us. Thank you!

Leading up to the wedding, we had a big week, including Timothy’s 17th birthday and Christmas, and a hundred other interactions and lots of music. We saw Star Wars and decorated candy houses, turned in two Eagle Scout applications, and finalized special gifts. I am very happy.

Timothy’s birthday included two trips to Star Wars and gingerbread houses.
My favorite photo from the Sanchez family Christmas pageant
Christmas Day conversation
photo by Rachel Angela Photography

The week of so much paper

This week, the kitchen table in its 104-inch majesty was our repository for stacks of paper for two Eagle projects, merit badge work, hundreds of wedding invitations, and handouts for 40 women for Stake organization training. I really like what all these stacks of paper represent, and neat stacks of paper, some of them so beautiful, were satisfying to see.

Today, though, I am tired. And I hope I didn’t stuff merit badge cards or baptism guidelines in the wedding envelopes by mistake.

That is all I have today. It’s just a full time. (You may know I hate the word busy…)

Sparkle babies

We delayed my birthday dinner to a later night, hopeful that we could spend more time together. After hearing our plans, one of our sons showed us in a variety of ways that this was not where he would like to be.

My reaction when he asked how long this was going to take was to more fully define a line between us. I dug a canyon with steep cliffs, hungry mountain lions hidden in caves, and a raging river below with my words, and retreated to my bed, so hurt that I considered canceling the evening.

“Why do you say one thing when you really mean something else?” The Spirit spoke to my mind. “All you need to tell him is that you want to spend some time with him for your birthday.”

My opportunity came during dinner as my son slumped in the seat beside me, refusing to enjoy the meal.

“I said a lot of things, but what I really meant was that I just wanted to be with you for my birthday,” I said quietly, leaving out the reprimand.

We walked through the mall after dinner and stopped at the Lego store. When he saw my delight at the tiny baby Lego figures, he carefully pulled the box from the shelf when I wasn’t looking, scaled the canyon walls to reach me, ignored the mountain lions of bad memories, and bought them for me.

I think the Lego sparkle babies were his way of saying what he had really meant to say, too.

Snapshots of the week

Dresses and lots of wedding details
A salamander in our sprinkler box
Live music by our friend Jesse; desserts, good food, and celebration.
Up to the challenge
One handed
Dalton’s is for special occasions.
The things you find when you help someone move

Not pictured:

My look of relief when I realized that “making” kids love the Pauline Epistles is not essential to being a good parent.

The happy bride in her dress.

Mark’s concerto performance.

The best apple crisp I have ever made.

The trophy Timothy earned by learning three concertos over three years.

The view of the Salt Lake valley from my car as I explored above the University of Utah while the boys had a class. The trees, dressed in their fall colors, and the sky changing to gray with an approaching winter storm offered the view I needed.

The cake our family made together that tasted so terrible we had to throw it away.

The letter from Daniel’s mission president assuring us all missionaries are safe in their apartments as there are riots going on.

Healing

The dog is healing. He finds comfort in the boys after school and Richard in the evenings. During the day, he is stuck with me, the mean one who forces down medicines, locks him in the mudroom during errands, gags at the smell of his food, and cleans up his messes while muttering threats at him. I have never been a dog person because they scare me. This experience taught me that I like our dog a little bit, after all.

I finished my study of an important topic to me in the Book of Mormon in the early morning hours on Monday. This has been my steady work for months, and considering what it has given me, it seems funny it is only 16 pages. It is my record of reconciling some things I heard in a lesson at church and what the scriptures have to say on the topic. This study helped me see how things really are… And they are not what the teacher said, and not what I thought. Still, I could feel something was off, and now I know. And the Book of Mormon is, as ever, absolutely true, and a perfect manual for life. Amen.