Angels in Trees

Angels In Trees

My growing up years were full of outdoor adventures in our small little border town. We had so much freedom to run and play without a care in the world. I remember evenings playing hide and seek, using our whole neighborhood as our playground. On any given night, you could expect to see little heads bobbing past your kitchen window in an effort to not be the one found by the person who was ‘It’, the Finder. Sometimes, we would climb trees or into someone’s garage attic to escape being found. Those memories are precious to me now, as an adult, and I cherish them, at least the ones I can remember. We lived just up the street from a River whose current was swift and water murky brown. We loved to play in that River in the summer and ice fish on it in the winter. To our little minds, there was no danger to avoid, just adventures to go on.

Now, looking back on those times, as an adult and also as a mother, I can see all the potential danger that we avoided. Sure, we all had our fair share of scraped knees and stubbed toes, and even sometimes the breath knocked out of us from a fall, but that is minimal compared to what could have happened. I am so grateful to have these memories and also so thankful to God and His Angels for protecting us from the very real danger that we faced every day, that we didn’t know was there.

One of the little heads that you would have seen bobbing past your window, if you lived in our neighborhood, was my little sister Megan. She was the cutest little girl with pigtails and big blue eyes. Megan would question everything and was quite precocious. She would follow us on our adventures and also adventure on her own. Today, Megan is a mother of three beautiful children, my nieces and nephew, as well as a Flight Attendant. She still loves to explore and travel and also loves to write. During COVID, Megan was laid off from her position as flight attendant, so with her adventurous side grounded, she decided to start a new adventure. During this time, she wrote a children’s book and got it published.

In Megan’s words:

The journey that led me to write the book:

The day that my first daughter was born 21 years ago, was the scariest day of my life. The amount of love that poured out of me as I held her in my arms was indescribable, but with that, came an equal amount of terror, and I was grossly unprepared for that and it overwhelmed me. I thought to myself that I could never live if anything ever happened to her, that nothing can EVER happen to her. As I had lived with anxiety most of my young adult life, I knew the feeling, but this was anxiety that I didn’t know even existed. It was almost debilitating. As the years passed, I learned how to cope with my fear, and I have to say my mother was instrumental in that. She would say to me; ‘give it to God Megan. You are not in control, so stop acting like you are’. Those words really inspired me and I started thinking about it. And for some reason, I started writing about it. When I had all my thoughts on paper, the common thread was a belief that God is in control and if you can put your faith in that, a thousand pounds will come off your shoulders. And I really wanted other parents who were maybe struggling like me, to feel the same way. And that was how ‘Angels in Trees’ was born. So the story follows 5 year old Anna through a journey to find the Angels that her mom told her were out there. When she comes home with no Angel sightings and tells her mom, her mom recounts how many times her Angels were there, but Anna didn’t know. So in every scenario, there are hidden Angels, keeping Anna from danger. I knew that illustration was going to be a huge part of this book, so I enlisted my friend and colleague, Sebastian Farias, to be my illustrator. I love how he found a way to incorporate the Angels into every page, making it fun for kids to find and point out while reading. Sebastian and I were both laid off from our Flight Attendant jobs during COVID, and we decided there was no time like sitting at home with very little to do, to see if we could bring this book to life.

After 15 years of sitting on this manuscript, I decided it was time. I know that parents will find comfort in this story, and I am certain that children, young and old, will also enjoy it. I hope that this book will become a staple in everyone’s library, and a timeless bedtime story.

A few weeks ago I went to visit my sister-in-law and my niece and nephew. She is a great photographer and loves playing around with beautiful elements in photos. I enlisted her to take photos for my website, since I really don’t know a thing about photography and I wanted my photos on the blog to look beautiful and professional but also personal. While I was there, I told her about my sister’s book and how I wanted to do a post about it. To my surprise, she had the book ‘Angels in Trees’ and said that it was one of her 5 year old daughters favorite bedtime stories. She always asks her mom to change the name, Anna, to her own name when they read it together.

Angels In Trees

That afternoon, I had the privilege of reading this very special book, which my sister wrote, to my niece. She was engaged on every single page, as was I. And…my sister-in-law was able to take some very candid pictures of us reading together. It was a very special bonus to my day, not to mention the photos and memories that we now have.

Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

If you are interested in buying this book, you can find it here . For transparency purposes, if you purchase Angels in Trees through this link, I will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

I had started this blog/website very recently and this is my second post. My first one is called ‘The Joy in Letting Go’. I was nervous about it so I sent it to my sisters to review for me. They both loved it and gave me good feedback. My sister Megan, the author of ‘Angels in Trees’ commented:

Angels in Trees author Megan Ricci

"So I love how you talk about ‘giving it to God’ in your blog because that’s how I survived being a mom”.

I thought I would share her comment with you because it ties this post in so nicely with what the blog is all about, giving everything Back to God and how He meets us where we are at and guides our steps forward.

Psalm 143:8

Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life.