I always look forward to the appearance of bluebonnets in mid-March, and it’s usually one the highlights of my year. Sapphire buds appear over night, tiny droplets of blue pooling into floral streams that wind across yards and spill into emerald embankments along the highway.
Unfortunately, this has not been a banner year for bluebonnets here in central Texas; their presence this spring is a muted one, with shriveled petals standing as sad substitutes for the usual sturdy stalks, their typical azure tone replaced by a powdery blue. Without the bluebonnets stealing the scene, my attention has been drawn to the other wildflowers of the season: dainty pink primroses, coral Indian paintbrush, and vibrant, mustard-hued bastard cabbage (don’t be fooled by the awful name, it’s lovely). The floral situation is not what I am used to this time of the year, but it’s still beautiful.
The Texas wildflowers feel like a metaphor for much of my life these past few months. It is not the picturesque scene I had envisioned for our family in 2026; but when I set aside the easier, cheerier 2026 of my imaginings, there are still pockets of loveliness to be enjoyed and celebrated.
|| READING LATELY ||
My reading month got off to a slow start with a rare DNF of this book that is much loved by many of my most trusted book-recommenders; it seems right up my alley, but it just wasn’t holding my attention: when I had only hit the 25% mark after a week of reading, I threw in the towel. From Sipsworth, I moved on to two mostly-forgettable novels including this mystery that was a low point in the series and this family drama that was fine but formulaic. The month was saved by this twist on a fairy tale whose spectacular prose will land it a spot on my Favorites list of the year, even if the ending was not totally to my taste.
In Middle Grade territory, I enjoyed buddy reading this WWII mystery with Charleston, and the kids and I all loved this read-aloud that was nicely timed with my own reading of this novel that was inspired by the series and that I cannot stop recommending.
In nonfiction, I read this beautiful reflection on art and faith as well as this book that offered some much-needed motherly motivation. I was less impressed with this Lenten book for kids that did not bring the Gospel message I was hoping for.
Reviews of all of these titles are coming next Thursday!
And some Substack articles that caught my attention this month:
a toast to breastfeeding from Caroline Chambers at What to Cook As a marathon breastfeeder (four years with each of my older three, and still going strong with Nico at 19 months), I related to a lot of this. . . and already am grieving the day when my journey will come to an end.
Your AI Sermon is Showing from Phylicia at Every Woman a Theologian I am troubled by this phenomenon and thankful for Phylicia’s courage in addressing it, as well as her commitment to a different approach.
Motherhood is Not Rational from Sarah Haider I don’t agree with all of her suggested solutions, but appreciate Sarah’s insight into the phenomenon of declining birth rates.
|| LISTENING LATELY ||
Some podcasts that have entertained and informed this month:
Home Fires—Shepherding Your Small Child with Picture Books
Focus on the Family with Jim Daley—Controlling Your Tongue
Tommee Proffit’s Christmas album became my favorite-ever holiday album last December, and now he has released an incredible album for Holy week. This Easter album puts Proffit’s trademark “big cinema” sound to traditional hymns and I cannot get enough!
|| LOVING LATELY ||
I recently heard a podcast conversation about the Porch Goose trend—which is not something I was familiar with, but which immediately sparked my interest because we had a porch goose growing up and I didn’t know it was “a thing”! I mentioned this to my parents on their recent visit, and shortly after they’d left we had a porch goose delivered to our home as a hospitality gift. I am seriously giddy about this latest addition to our family! Her name is Deborah (courtesy of Charleston, for whom the name Deborah is something of an inside joke) and I just love the whimsy she brings to our front porch. We are looking forward to collecting seasonal costumes for her (she is currently decked out in an Easter dress), and I am contemplating whether I want to take the step of joining The Porch Goose Club of America. Do I have any members among my readers?
Two other additions to our yard this spring are a pair of lovely flame thrower redbud trees. They’re still tiny and we were not expecting buds this spring, so we were surprised and thrilled to spot tiny purple flowers on their branches. This is the first house Luke and I have owned together, and though we’ve lived here six years now, these are the first two trees that we have planted, so their flowering feels significant in the timeline of our family!
|| MONTHLY KID-ISMS ||
CHARLIE-ISMS
+ Me: “How are you feeling about being in middle school next year?” Charleston: “I think I’m handling it the same way I handle water slides: I’m terrified and I’m laughing through it.”
+ “I wonder how many of the presidents’ famous quotes were actually written by their speech writers.”
+ Me to Charlie after a hard afternoon: “Sorry for the ways I let you down.” Charleston: “Don’t worry. It’s only 50% of my emotional damage. 25% is Daddy, and the last 25% is just life.”
+ “I’m sorry Mom. I realized lately that when I complain about school it probably hurts your feelings as my teacher.” (It was so touching to me that he came to this realization on his own.)
+ “Why are they called appetizers? Don’t they make the other food less appetizing because you’ve already eaten?”
+ “You know how you dream of significant things in your day? I guess babies must dream every night since every day is full of new and significant things for them. Or . . . maybe their minds are too young and they just don’t dream at all.”
SULLY-ISMS
+ “My book says a lot of movies are filmed in Hawaii. I think Toy Story may have been filmed there.”
+ Me: “Are you feeling hungry?” Sully: “I think I am hungry for five bags of goldfish crackers.” Me: “Wow you are really hungry!” Sully: “Nope. Not that hungry.”
+ “I wonder what season God made Adam and Eve. Maybe spring because it was a very pretty garden. Probably not winter because they didn’t have clothes and the Bible doesn’t say that they were cold.”
+ “Is it possible to send a text message to someone who doesn’t have a phone? Can you please try?”
KALI-ISMS
+ Me: “Stand back from the counter please, you can watch from a distance.” Kali: “I can’t do that. I don’t have one of those.”
+ “We should just call it playtime instead of quiet playtime since we don’t ever be quiet.”
+ “I’m glad God made the sun because it just makes me smile when there’s a cloud and pieces of sun shine out like angels coming down.”
+ Kali: “I can’t use this dinner plate for my dessert, it has all my leftover dinner on it.” Me (in what was admittedly not the kindest choice of words): “If you want dessert, you’re just going to have to suck it up.” When I returned to the table it was to see her literally sucking leftover dinner crumbs off of her plate.
+ “I feel like it was a special treat when Jesus died on the cross for us to go in Heaven with Him.”
NICO-ISMS
+ Charleston taught Nico to count down when he wants to be picked up. Nico says “upsies” and Charleston says “three,” then Nico fills in with “two,” Charleston says “one,” and Nico shouts “go!” as Charleston swings him into the air. It is adorable.
+ Sully taught Nico to sing Happy Birthday! He doesn’t have all the words down, but he totally has the tune and hums “doo-do doo-do toooo you!!!” He always claps at the end.
+ He is obsessed with throwing things away, even things that are not trash. I found him clearing out my bathroom drawer straight into the trash can.
+ Nico still isn’t doing much walking independently, but he is finally to the point where he prefers cruising and toddling with a push car to crawling when we are at home, and he likes to walk holding our hands when we are out and about. Whenever we are leaving some place, he walks proudly with one hand in mine and the other waving as he says, “bye bye, bye bye” to everyone he sees.
+ Nico’s favorite things to say are “eeeeew” to anything he doesn’t like and “ooooh!” to things that have him impressed. He pipes up with this commentary at the most hilarious times.
|| HAPPENINGS & HIGHLIGHTS ||
This one requires a bit of backstory: my dad is GREAT at giving big, meaningful gifts, and he’s always done something significant for my mom’s milestone birthdays: he had forty massive bouquets of flowers delivered to our house on her fortieth birthday, gifted her fifty items related to her birth year when she turned fifty, designed a county-wide scavenger hunt and correlating homemade gifts for her sixtieth. You get the picture. Dad knew that for Mom’s seventieth birthday, she wanted nothing more than for our whole family to be together. He also knew that she wasn’t thrilled about the number 7-0. So Dad orchestrated a surprise party for my mom a month before her birthday, when she would be 839 months old; 8-3-9 became our theme! My parents already had plans to be in Texas for a visit, and my brother and his wife flew out for the surprise.
Dad ordered 839 jerseys for us all; with the exception of Nico’s jersey, they were unfortunately delivered too late, so we instead wore emergency backup shirts. We had a family photo shoot with a professional photographer, the kids made 839 banners and cards, there was an 839 cake, we had a shrimp buffet (Mom’s favorite food), and we just enjoyed spending time together as a whole family. It was so wonderful, and Mom was definitely surprised! We all got a kick out of having people come up to us asking all about 839; we just told them it’s the new 6-7 and if you know, you know (and if you are reading this, now YOU KNOW!). I love my dad’s ingenuity and that we were able to honor my mom in this unique way.
I turned 42 on March 2nd and it was a really good birthday! Luke took the kids out to breakfast so that I could sleep in, and they came home with flowers and balloons. My morning was filled with presents, cards, and gifts, and that evening we had candles in a faux cake that Luke surprised me with since he knew I didn’t want the real thing; it was the sweetest!
My big birthday event was a tour Inner Space Cavern, which is somewhere I’ve wanted to go since we moved to Texas ten years ago. It is SO neat! Nico melted down at the start of the tour so he and Luke did not get to participate in it with us, which was a huge bummer (although I was extremely grateful to Luke for bowing out so I could enjoy the tour). Afterwards my parents treated us to lunch at Hat Creek; Nico slept through the whole meal which meant we got to enjoy our food in peace—now THAT was a nice birthday gift!
We went on a field trip to Pioneer Farms with our CC group. This place is awesome! We got to explore several 19th-century homes and buildings, from a stagecoach stop and general store to a farm house, dance hall, and more. The trip coincided with our reading of one of the Little House books and my own reading of Caroline, and it was great to get visuals of the types of buildings that existed during the Ingalls’ time. I would love to go back with Luke so that he can experience it too. My parents were able to join us for the tour before heading to the airport for their flight back to California, and it was really special to have them join in.
Luke took the kids to the Bluebonnet Air Show with their cousins and they had such a good time watching the planes. Kali and cousin Brooke accidentally matched in their patriotic dresses, a fun surprise. Luke has always been a huge fan of planes (his brother is a pilot) and he is recruiting fellow aero-enthusiasts!
Charleston participated in the Faces of History event with his CC Essentials class last week. For this capstone project, the kids chose a historic individual from the time period we studied this year (medieval) and spent several months researching and writing a paper that was then consolidated into a shorter presentation in which they took on the role of their “face of history.” Charleston chose Leonardo da Vinci, and the two of us dedicated a lot of time to studying and writing about him over the past several months; in fact, by the end of it, Charleston said he felt like he truly knew Leonardo like a friend (that was the goal!). He worked so hard and he did an amazing job with his presentation. It was so fun to watch this homeschool kid get to “show his stuff,” and to see all the amazing Essentials students dressed as their characters and presenting the papers they’ve worked so hard on. Events like this one are something that was lacking prior to our joining a homeschool coop, and I left the evening feeling proud of all of our kids and grateful for this community.
Last Saturday we attended a community egg hunt and Easter festival. The big kids had fun collecting candy-filled eggs, but it was the baby hunt that totally won the day. This was Nico’s first real egg hunt and he had a total blast. I was impressed that he understood how to pick up the eggs and put them in his basket, and he was just so proud of himself. Watching his big siblings cheer him on totally stole my heart.
We followed up the egg hunt with a trip to Bass Pro for pictures with the Easter Bunny. Apparently Nico’s love for Easter eggs does not translate to a love for the Easter Bunny; he was terrified and that showed in the pictures, but hey—at least the kids still looked cute! I think we have only had one other crying experience with the Easter Bunny or Santa (Charleston cried with Santa when he was two); with four kids across eleven years of photos, that’s not a bad average.
Last Sunday we dyed some eggs that Luke will fill with confetti for an egg hunt on Easter. I love how creative the kids got with their coloring and designs. Even Nico got to help color eggs this year!
|| ICYMI: MARCH ON THE BLOG ||
Our Personal Savior “Throughout His time on earth, Jesus demonstrated a profound understanding of the nuances of every circumstance and setting, acknowledging and adjusting to accomodate the unique needs of each individual touched by His ministry. His approach was the opposite of one-size-fits-all.“
What Have We Lost? “The life of a pioneering family in the mid-1800s was difficult; I won’t sugarcoat that. But as we toured rustic cabins and meandered across fields and played games in an old wooden dance hall, I could not help but consider the things these people had that we don’t. What has been lost as technologies have advanced and our lives have gotten easier?“
Surviving the Spring Slump “Remaining consistent with our routines and schedules MOST of the time makes it possible for us to occasionally take INTENTIONAL (i.e, not haphazard or emotion-driven) breaks from the norm.“
A Myth of Homeschooling (and how we REALLY spend our time) “I think that one of the biggest myths around homeschooling is that homeschool moms spend forty hours per week around a table or engaged in other “educational” activities with our children.“
42 Favorites to Name and to Love “As you’ll see, while I LOVE naming favorites, I’m not always great at narrowing those favorites to a single top choice. Some might call it indecision; I prefer to see it as a sign a sign of an enthusiasm and positivity.“
I hope that your March was one of hope, joy, and lovely new beginnings, and that you have the most beautiful Easter weekend.
