Where did March go?  Mostly to figuring out our new stay-at-home routine, I suppose.  So here are all the pics from March 2020!  Our amaryllis bloomed and stayed with us for quite awhile.  Thanks again, Aunt Jill and Uncle Jack!

I’m so glad I gave in and let the kids have the first Mister Softee of the year on a warm day after school, since we have not seen the truck again since!

I’m also quite grateful at this point that I made it into the city one night to see some friends, the week before schools closed!  I had this bizarre shark tiki-cocktail.

Sarah loves her bouquet of bead flowers that she received from Gram, family heirlooms from Gram and Great Grandmommy.

Blaine gave his grass-hair man a haircut, the only one anyone around here will be getting for awhile (unless I decide to try to follow a youtube instructional video.  Ha!)

Oh yes!  One more pre-quarantine activity I am so grateful for was that Sarah and I drove up to CT to see the APTA paddle tennis championships!  We got to see a very exciting women’s finals match.

That week we also said goodbye to some of the plants in our backyard, because we were scheduled to start a small landscaping project.

We also said goodbye to the school playground!  🙁  It’s so sad to see all the gates locked and no children playing on it during these beautiful spring days.

We went for a family picnic and hike at Saxon Woods one day.

On Monday, March 16, our homeschooling began.  Our masonry project also began, and gave the kids something to watch!  We did feel bad for all the neighbors working from home, but the work went quickly so it was not too disruptive.

On Tuesday, March 17, we celebrated St. Patrick’s Day by decorating some brownies we’d made the day before.  Also, a new cousin was born!  Uncle Tim and Aunt Liz had a baby girl, Maeve.

We went for a hike at Sheldrake and collected acorns and sweet gum balls and twigs and things to make nature collages.

Here is an early version of our home classroom in our basement, which has been evolving over time.

The work continued.  The kids were excited by having an excavator in the driveway.

Another nature walk, at Manor Park.  Blaine really wanted pinecones and we could not seem to find any!  We finally succeeded at Fountain Park.

A fort in the guest room.

Steamroller day!

Papel picado, an art project the kids enjoyed from the Chatsworth art teacher.

By 3/25, the masonry work was essentially finished!  They moved quickly, fearing their work would be deemed non-essential.  Unfortunately, putting in new plants is on the no-go list so this is what things will look like for awhile.

We’ve been keeping up the routine as much as possible, such as ordering pizza for lunch on Wednesdays.

We’ve also been doing some baking.  Here’s Sarah making our second batch of banana bread using a recipe I got long ago from a friend’s mother, Kathy Butterworth.

Blaine would happily spend every moment reading if he could.  He’s been steadily working his way through a new dragon series called Wings of Fire.  Luckily we’ve been able to get most of the books from the library’s e-book app.

We went back to Sheldrake one beautiful day to try out the reservoir trail, which we’d never done before.  The kids collected some forsythia branches and pretended they were antlered creatures.

Here is page 1 and 2 of a planned 5-page story Sarah is writing about a character called “Tarantula-eye” who is made out of eyes.  Creepy!

Another school assignment was to make a “box collage”.  She designed this rocket ship for hardface.

Another fort!

We went for a hike at the Marshlands Conservancy.  It was beautiful, and we saw deer, turkeys, and a woodpecker.

We have devoted some weekend time to cleaning the house.  So far the kids have been enthusiastic, particularly about cleaning the toilets!  We’ll see if this continues as the novelty wears off.

An obstacle course in the basement, for rainy days and for Blaine’s virtual PT over Zoom.

We have also been trying the virtual art classes through One River.  The kids enjoyed the first session on portrait drawing.  They each drew two portraits of “angry people”.

We’ve also been trying to do some video chats with friends and family to keep up some social connection.  It’s crazy looking back at pictures from last month and realizing what a strange situation we are now in.  I’m grateful we have our health, and a comfortable place to be sheltering in, and each other.