Farmer's Market

One really fun feature of Durham is its weekend farmers' market. Durham is legitimately a hipster town, so the farmers' market is a hopping place. We have grand intentions of going more regularly than we do, but alas. We're tiiiiiired on Saturday mornings, guys. 

However, we've been buying local honey for the past several months and have gotten very used it. Including Claire. So, when we ran out, she let us know about it every day for quite a while, prompting us to get in gear and go to the market. I dutifully snapped a few shots for you. Not pictured: the vendors dressed in costumes (it was the Saturday before Halloween). Most of them had some sort of crunchy hippie flair...so maybe they weren't actually costumes?

The Farmers' Market is smack in the middle of downtown Durham and is always really busy. Lots of local produce, dairy, and meat, as well as artisans and musicians. It's a really popular place for folks to Instagram from, and you can find a lot of pictures of it under the hashtag #durm. Because, yes, that is often how "Durham" sounds in a North Carolina accent. It's a whole sub-culture.

Here are my best shots. I did Instagram one of them, but they're not really artsy enough to deserve a #durm. Maybe one day I'll achieve that status.

Holding our honey.

Sister cities of Durham, starting with: Durham, England.

Durham is the "Bull City," so all around town are bike racks shaped like bulls. Claire thinks they are jungle gyms.

Nature in downtown Durham.

And some of the local wildlife. :)

Letter to my Little Lily: 7 Months

Oh Lily,

How have 7 months already gone by? I teared up a little the other day, thinking about how quickly time with you has flown. In just a couple of seconds, my mind went from your little baby self to you graduating from high school and moving to college. I COULD NOT EVEN HANDLE IT. I decided to keep you forever. I hope that doesn't mess with your life plans too much.

This has been such a fun month with you. Your personality has been shining through in the most adorable ways. You love to laugh, you love to watch Claire, and you LOVE interacting with us (especially Claire). You've been jabbering and chattering, trying to tell us all kinds of things. You've been sticking your tongue out again, and I LOVE it. You've taken your rolling up to the next level and can get just about anywhere (including stuck!) that you decide you want to go. I'm still trying to catch it on video. You are a difficult little thing to catch on video...

Stuck.

You're also sitting up (a little) on your own! It's terribly cute, and you're so proud of yourself- until you topple. Then you're terribly offended. Anytime you see Claire doing stuff, you want to be right there with her. And you're SO happy when you feel like you're a part of things. So smiley and so bouncy. Another favorite? "Playing" the piano with Daddy. It's the cutest.

You're eating all kinds of solids! We started with strictly fruit and veggie purees, but we've quickly moved on to little pinches of this and that off of our plates. It's not like I've gone wild and crazy with your introductions to solids, but I'm definitely more liberal with you than I was with your sister...I think we're all ok with that.

There was a pretty dark period of time during this month that you reverted to waking up at 4:00 in the morning for your first feeding. This was definitely not fine with me. Daddy and I had to work quite diligently to break you of that unfortunate habit. Thankfully, you handled things well and got back on a wake-up-at-7 schedule. Let's not repeat this again, ok? It was roughhhh.

The first presidential election of your lifetime happened this month. It wasn't pretty. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in a rather historic election, and things in society got rather ugly. I'm really glad that you were too young to know about how ugly things got because of hurt, misunderstanding, fear, and uncontrolled words. When you're older, I'll tell you about it, and we'll talk about the importance of voting your conscience, standing up for your convictions, valuing and protecting others, demonstrating empathy, seeking peace and reconciliation, and perhaps most importantly, being wise with your words. I've been praying about these things for you and Claire in light of all that has happened surrounding this election.

I want you to know how valuable you are. To me, to Daddy, to everyone who knows you. To Jesus. You are so precious and so loving, and I pray that these things are always a part of who you are. 

We love you so very very much.

Week 27 

You moved so much for every picture I took this week. You were so happy...and everything was very blurry.

Toe-touch!

Week 28

Week 29

Week 30

The tongue. Also? These are my favorite jammies, I think.

7 Months.

Fall Break with Breanne

My friend, Breanne, and I met 8 years ago before we both moved overseas. The backstory of our crazily connected lives is a really interesting one that you should ask me about sometime. We moved to different countries but kept in touch, even planning a vacation together to Austria that was thwarted because of a volcano that erupted in Iceland. 

Yeah. That happened.

It was a big disappointment, but we tried to make up for things when she visited me in Boston our first year there. And then our second year. And all three years that we've been in Durham. Basically, she's the kind of friend that stays with you through the years. Which is very valuable, I think.

Two of her visits (2012 and 2015) were years that I was pregnant and basically zero percent fun, and four of those years, I've had small children that make visiting somewhat complicated. Despite all of that, she still visits, and we still have a good time. Some years, we do fun things like visit Louisa May Alcott's home (2012 in Concord, MA) and visit the Duke Gardens (2014). Other years, we take Claire to her music class and go to Kroger (ahem...2016). But we always have good times of conversation, games, and general merriment. 

We're usually really bad about remembering to take pictures, but I dug up a few from over the years!

From her first visit to Durham (Duke Gardens)

First visit to Durham (back when Claire was wee)

This most recent trip! Playing "hide-and-sink" in our neighborhood.

Breanne brought Claire a set of Cars puzzles. They were a hit!

Snuggles with Lily.

One of the very few pictures of the two of us. You'd think we'd be able to get it together more often...

Thank you, Breanne, for making us a priority! We are thankful for you!

Piano Man (and women)

Brad and I have both played piano for most of our lives. We agreed ages ago (long before we had children and quite possibly before we were even married) that any children we had would also take piano. We have varying and differing opinions about sports/other extracurriculars, but we agree wholeheartedly on piano lessons. We both recognize the value that learning to read music and play the piano have added to our own lives and really want to ensure that our girls have the same experience.

Brad is, unquestionably, the superior musician, but I very much enjoying playing the piano when I get an opportunity. We've talked for a while now about the possibility of acquiring a piano, knowing that the conditions would have to be just right, given that pianos are, generally, not in the budget of a grad student/stay-at-home-mom combo. So, we looked into keyboards for a while but still really wanted an actual piano.

Being the Craiglisters that we are, Brad decided to put an ad on Craigslist that said something along the lines of "grad school student with young family looking for a piano that someone is trying to off-load to a good home." His wording was classier than that, but that's the gist. And lo and behold, we actually had two people contact us with pianos they were trying to get rid of. We've learned that there are "free' pianos to be had- because of how difficult they are to move (because they are DIFFICULT to move, guys).

The one we really wanted (and ultimately got) was located almost an hour away, which was a little disheartening at first. I'll shorten the saga for you, but Brad ended up having to rustle up about 6 guys + a friend with a truck, rearrange the furniture in our dining room*, buy two furniture dollies, hunt up all of our ratchet straps, watch quite a few youtube videos about moving pianos, and rent a small trailer from U-Haul in order to get the piano. AND WE STILL SPENT LESS THAN $100 FOR A BEAUTIFUL UPRIGHT PIANO. Seriously, we're still in shock a few weeks later. The fella selling it was helping his mother downsize and mentioned that she was emotionally attached to the piano, so we sent him this picture of Claire to show his mom:

Granted, it was realllly out-of-tune (we've already started having the pitch raised and getting it tuned: a cost not included in my previous paragraph), but it's a gorgeous piano that the piano tuner said was "an exceptional deal," given that all of its innards are in great condition. Brad has been playing it the most so far, but we've all (all 4 of us) taken turns. We can't wait until the pitch-raising and tuning is finished so that we don't have to constantly check to make sure we're playing the right notes. It's terribly exciting! Hopefully, we can start teaching Claire some basic basics over the next few months. Wish us luck, folks!

Lily approves, too.

*For anyone who has spent time at our house and is wondering where the piano fits: we turned the dining room table parallel with the windows and moved the china cabinets to flank the windows. The piano is on the opposite wall from the windows/china cabinets. And yes, there is, surprisingly, enough room for everything. We measured many times before pulling the trigger, obviously.

Halloween, year 2

Since November 1st last year, Claire has been asking about when we can go trick-or-treating again. To say she loved it is a massive understatement. Interestingly, her first time trick-or-treating was also my first time, as we always did fall festivals at church when I was growing up. There aren't as many churches around here that do festivals, including our church. Last year, we just did our neighborhood, but this year, we joined up with some friends in their (much larger) neighborhood.

And boy, did Claire have the time of her life.

We went around with about 5 other families (several of which had little girls about Claire's age!), got lots and lots of candy, and were dressed up as her favorites: characters from Tangled.

Pascal, Flynn Rider, and Rapunzel

(well, technically, I wasn't really dressed up. I was fighting a wretched cold, felt lousy, and couldn't pull anything together for myself. So, I wore Lily.)

How cute is she as a chameleon? I worked really hard on this costume, as you can see.

She was very excited about about this Rapunzel dress. Also, those door handles are placed so that they look like some sort of hairpiece (as my mom pointed out), but they're just handles to the laundry room.

Three princesses in our group: Anna, Rapunzel, and Elsa. Elsa's family also dressed thematically, and it was so cute.

Claire's haul. We're hardcore rationing, much to her frustration.

Halloween isn't really a big deal around the Boswell house, but it sure is fun to watch Claire have such a blast dressing up and being SO EXCITED after each house she visits. And yes, I've already fielded questions about when she can go trick-or-treating again.

Around here lately: October 2016 edition

This month's collection of hilarious Claire-isms. You're welcome, Future Claire.

I'm so glad that we brought Lily home from the hospital!

Where's the daddy one? We were meeting up with some relatively new friends to spend the morning at the museum, and this was her way of asking where the husband/dad was, as we were just meeting up with the mom and kids.

Do you have a girl? Variation: Do you have a boy? Her way of asking someone if they have children. 

The big people at church got Daddy because they knew Daddy needed me. Claire had an upsetting time in nursery at church one evening, prompting the nursery workers to go get Brad out of Bible study. This was Claire's take on it.

Sometimes, people don't take naps and then they cry at church. This comment goes along with the previous comment. The reason she had an upsetting time at nursery was because she stayed awake during naptime, singing to herself, rather than napping; by the time nursery rolled around, she was way overtired and just waiting to wilt. Which she did.

Right benext to____. her new preposition

Did they come from church? after seeing women wearing dresses on tv.

Claire: I'm going to obey you probably.
Erin: No, "promptly."
Claire: Promtwy.

I'm playing hide and sink.

I don't like righty tighty. I just like lefty loosey.

That sign is like where Madeline lives. The RDU airport now offers a direct flight from Raleigh to Paris. All around the airport, there are banners announcing this and sporting a picture of the Eiffel tower. Claire noticed and made the connection between the Eiffel tower and Madeline.

Oooh wa wa! "Ooh la la!"

Maybe if his heart gets big enough, he'll want to visit us at our hotel. commenting on her interactions with the Grinch at Universal Studios

What were his eyebrows saying? referring to the Grinch's facial expressions

I had a GREAT time on the train! the Hogwarts Express at Universal

I got a picture with my train friends! the conductors of the Hogwarts Express

Mommy, I am waking up. Because it is time for me. Claire breaking the news to me that she was not returning to sleep...at a very early hour...while on vacation at Universal.

Cheering Daddy on at a soccer game. She was quite a hit with both teams.

Bo has been sneaking peanut butter into my mouth. You're sneaky, Bo!

Can it sleep in my bed? In my room? When she becomes inexplicably attached to inanimate objects, she often asks if they can sleep in her bed. When I say "no," she switches to asking if said object can sleep in her room. Most recently, it was two packets of malt vinegar that came with dinner at a restaurant. I don't know, guys.

Nana, I've been watching that green train. And those things going up and down and up and down. announced after pensively watching roller coasters outside the window of a restaurant at Universal for several minutes.

You have a ring in your nose. I'm not going to touch it. To my sister who does, in fact, have a nose ring.

If there was a dinosaur, I would not be happy about it.

This is Joy and her Mommy. I'm holding them because they were scared of the bad guys. playing with two unopened cans of ginger ale

We got a package, so naturally it became a jungle gym/playhouse.

Erin: You could take a nap.
Claire: In the CAR??
asked incredulously, when I responded to her inquiries of what else she could do to occupy her time in the car; this child does not sleep in vehicles.

Burrito fell in the water. She actually meant "Pepito." She was pretending a situation from a Madeline movie and got the details a little confused.

Erin: You can't have my wedding cake because it's gone.
Claire: Don't worry. It will come back and get me married.
She's very fixated on pictures she has recently seen of my wedding cake.

When I was in your tummy, did I make a cake for you?

I want to play a violet when I'm older enough. translation: violin

How old are you, 6 or 28? to me

Mommy, take my picture with Minnie!

Erin: You used to be a little baby like Lily.
Claire: Then I grew up into a big sister called Claire. And you guys put teeth in my mouth.

Eh-corns translation: acorn

I think Lily needs a friend. I will sit with her. while Lily was having a fussy tummy time

Punkin George actually, the Curious George Boo-fest movie

Legs want to be under here 'cause it's their napping spot. while wedging her legs under mine

Are we out of light? we have several blown bulbs that we have yet to replace...