March 2021: a recap

During March, we were in the thick of school life, in between close-ish together birthdays, and starting to come out of winter. Despite much of life outside our home continuing under pandemic conditions, we were rather busy. I don't really sit down much anymore with all of the humans to keep alive, minds to educate, and house to (continually) return to a semblance of order!

Bedtime prayers and devotions can turn into quite a circus sometimes.

One of our neighbors brought the girls gourmet popsicles from a local popsicle place, which kind of helped kicked off outside weather.

Brynn has become a puzzle fiend!

Lily decided that her animals needed a tea party.

She decided humans were welcome, too.

Trumpkin got dibs on the tea. I did make tea- decaf, for sure.

Lily earned a movie on her behavior chart, which everyone enjoyed. It was not lost on me that there was barely room for me on the couch...

We finally took down the streamers from Claire's birthday and turned them into "dancing ribbons" for a couple of days.

Then we played quite a lot of Mary Poppins.

March was when Claire started doing some of her rest time/independent work outside in the sun. Here, her setup included listening to The Penderwicks and stitching away on her little animals.

For Claire's birthday, Amiee gave her a solo trip to Boone! We met her halfway in Winston-Salem for the trade off. The rest of the children assumed they could stowaway and join the fun. Right. Like anyone in this crew could accomplish a successful stowaway situation.

THEY'RE ENTIRELY TOO LOUD FOR THAT.

Trumpkin, Lily's stuffed cat, is always a very active member of our family. One of my greatest daily joys is finding all the scenarios and vignettes that Lily creates for Trumpkin. And yes, I will weep bitter tears when Trumpkin is no longer such an active participant in our daily lives. We don't need to talk about it.

Lily rescued some packing styrofoam and some discarded elastic from the trash and fashioned this very serviceable sun visor for T.

I was bending my head over some stitching (how Ma Ingalls does THAT sound??) and didn't realize until I sat back up that Lily had tucked Trumpkin here to keep me company.

After I read the newsletter from some missionaries we follow, Lily asked if she could have it. A while later, I found Trumpkin catching up on the news.

Again, lots of time together (which seems appropriate as we rang in our one-year anniversary of pandemic life):

Dancing

Got this picture of Lily eating while holding Hallie, which reminded me of this picture...

...of Claire eating while holding Lily! Ha! Isn't that great?

This is circa 2016. One of the original #sistersshotsonsundays.

Lily requested these cutie-cute piggy buns.

Holding hands

"Look, Mommy! I made an 'L' for Lily!"

I'm continuing my goal of getting in more pictures with my children (#proofofmom):

WHEW I look tired here!

We were both holding our babies in this picture, by the way.

Brynn saw me taking the picture before this one and needed to get in on it.

The Boswell family appreciation for coffee (cold coffee, in this case) starts early.

Please note: no babies ingested any coffee in the taking of this picture or otherwise.

And, of course, everybody loves Brad:

Matchy purple

And, perhaps most importantly, I got these stair-steppish pictures of the girls in their matryoshka dresses that Mom got them for Christmas. Can you even handle it? I can't.

Look how happy Hallie is!

March signaled the end of our Year at Home and ushered in hope for the beginnings of a return to normal. I'm so glad I had this crew to keep me busy and laughing!*

*Maybe a little too busy at times and sometimes crying instead of laughing. It's a win-some-lose-some situation.