I love finding little excuses to have an extra special dinner, play a game, make a fun dessert, or watch a movie.

I like themed days and as I look back at the month of March, I see that I found lots of things to celebrate.

The Big Tree Finally Got Cleared Day

When we first moved here last July, we went on a big walk around the property and discovered that one of the paths in the woods was blocked to vehicle traffic by a big fallen tree.  The idea of clearing it seemed very daunting to our family and so the tree sat and sat through the summer, into fall, and through the cold winter.  

One Saturday in early March, we got together with some friends that live here in Missouri.  They brought a chainsaw, work gloves, and an amazing attitude.  With their help, we were able to get the tree down and chopped up.  We still have to finish clearing it out of the pathway, but the hard part is done!

This was definitely a reason to celebrate.  But I didn’t make a themed dinner around logging.  That would have been cute actually now that I think about it.  We went out for Mexican food. Which was delicious, but had nothing to do with cutting down a tree.

Mario Day

My son told me about this.  I’d never heard of it before, but he saw it on lego.com and thought it looked like a fun reason to celebrate.  MAR 10.  MAR10.  Doesn’t it look like Mario when written like that?  Apparently Lego thinks so.  So we did a fun Mario day with themed food and lots of Mario Nintendo games.  The day happened to fall on Sunday so we had the whole day together as a family.  Perfect.

Pie Day

March 14.  3/14.  3.14.  Yes, math pie.  But you don’t celebrate by doing math.  Unless that’s what you really like to do I guess.  We celebrate by eating pie.  Yes, we ate pie for breakfast.  If my kids had been home with me, we would have had it for lunch.  And we had chicken pie and more dessert pie for dinner.  And that’s about all we did. And I forgot to take a picture…

St. Patrick’s Day

Oh yes.  Another one of those holidays and you wonder why it is even celebrated.  I have to look it up every year.  You can read all about why it is a national holiday here.  But yet again, I love any excuse for something different than the norm.  We all wore green to church.  I made green pancakes for breakfast.  They were supposed to be shamrocks, but that didn’t turn out so well.  We played Gnoming Around.  It’s one of the Grandpa Beck games that you’ve probably heard of.  Super fun!  The girls helped me with the dinner preparation and it turned out much cuter than the pancakes.  I love doing charcuterie boards.  Having the food arranged so nicely just makes it seem more fun to eat!  My mom even sent us her traditional Shamrock chocolate cookies in the mail.  They arrived a little smashed, but were still yummy!  Thanks Mom!

Ethan’s Birthday

Of course, the most important day of the month is our son’s birthday.  And we try to make that as special as possible.  He turned 12 this month.  Such a great age.  He currently loves Legos, reading, weapons, and especially anything Lord of the Rings related.  Many of his gifts were centered around those things and he has been one happy boy.  And I have been one happy mom listening to him play Concerning Hobbits on the piano (we gave him LOTR piano music).  Lily worked especially hard and made him a crocheted dodgeball set. Ethan has been loving playing dodgeball at school and she wanted him to be able to play at home. The homemade crocheted balls in different sizes and colors turned out so cute.

We are so grateful to have Ethan in our family!

Mom’s Movie Night

We have the tradition of a family movie night and a separate game night once a month.  We switch off whose turn it is and this month happened to be my pick. 

I always have a hard time picking a family movie.  I just have too many that I want to do.  Lately, I’ve been feeling like I want to introduce my kids to more of the old classics.  Movies I grew up watching with my grandma.  So I picked Fiddler on the Roof.  We watched it on a Sunday afternoon.  It was amazing.  They just don’t make movies like they used to.  Clean, beautiful music, amazing messages.  I was crying at the end.  Of course I was.  I cry at everything.  But really, it is an amazing movie about dealing with change, children that are growing up and leaving home, loving people who may not make choices we agree with, and somehow finding the courage to keep moving forward despite the challenges we face.  It’s a three hour movie, but much better time spent than the latest super hero film out there.

Upcoming Events

But the month is not over.  It is our spring break this week and we are so excited to go on an adventure.  We are going to go to the St. Louis Arch!  Another national park to check off the list.  I’ll post about our experience there later.

And then of course, the greatest holiday of all lands on the last day of March this year.  Easter.  Where we get to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  What a perfect end to the month.  We are really looking forward to everything we have planned to celebrate that wonderful day. 

We hope that you have had a wonderful month as well.  Find joy in the little things.  Mario Day, Pie Day, St Patrick’s day.  They aren’t big things, but doing something fun creates amazing memories with our family and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.  

Happy March!

~ Rachel