One week after this battle on land, the girls marched off to fight Dad on a new battlefield.
The strategy: a surprise water attack by boat.
“If you didn’t want to get wet, you shouldn’t have come to the lake.”
Of course, Dad was ready to defend himself and his vessel.
But when shot, he dramatically fell off the boat and sunk underwater…
… only to implement a surprise attack of his own.
Fortunately, he takes really good care of his captives.
I’ll be the first to admit it: It’s not easy living in a house with three females. And that’s why this man deserves some recognition.
And that’s also why my girly-girly girls took up arms and went to battle on Father’s Day.
Fun with Dad was the aim of the game, of course.
Water balloons + water guns = water war.
It was two against one, and that seemed to be a pretty fair match.
Well, it was fair until Dad got lazy.
If you read this post of mine from early spring, you know what books have been on my nightstand and coffee table for the last several weeks. Now that it is summer, the Spring Reading Thing is officially over, and I’m ready to report back about some of the books on my list.
Feathers from My Nest by Beth Moore is a beautiful, heartfelt work that inspires me to savor every moment with my daughters. A long-time fan of Beth’s Bible studies, I was delighted by this peek into her family life and church life, too. Beth is the ultimate storyteller, and so Feathers from My Nest is filled with fantastic stories about bringing up two lovely daughters — some will make you bawl your head off, some will make you roll on the floor, and some will make you do both. I was a little hesitant when I purchased this as an audiobook, but in retropect, I am so glad I did. Hearing Beth read the book while I drove felt like she was riding in the passenger seat of my minivan, telling tales and giving me advice mom-to-mom. It was priceless.
So Long Insecurity also by Beth Moore (I do read other authors, I promise!) sheds so much light on women and why we do or say the things we do and say. The book is very worthwhile, and the powerful prayers in it can be life-changing. I started reading Bringing Up Girls while I was still reading this book, and I found several parallels, especially in regard to culture and women. I think God has a powerful message for women of today, and He’s used both Beth Moore and Dr. Dobson to pen it.
Shepherding a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp is still on my coffee table. I’m only few pages into it, but I plan to make reading it a higher priority since I hear over and over how wonderful this book is.
Also on my reading list are Bringing Up Girls by Dr. James Dobson, The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace, Becoming More Than Just a Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa Ter Keurst, Grace-Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel, and My Heart’s at Home by Jill Savage.
This summer, the girls and I are reading several science books by Gail Gibbons, as well as Mountain Born by Elizabeth Yates and Nora Spicer Unwin. Linnea is 200+ pages into The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, and she is doing her first somewhat independent Bible devotional: Mona Hodgson’s Real Girls of the Bible. Laurel, meanwhile, is working through Life Lessons from the Princess and the Kiss by Jennie Bishop and Susan Henson, and she is listening to me read some of The Secret Garden. We’re only on chapter two because we’ve been distracted by Sandra Boyton books lately.
Happy reading!
Call Crayola. I’m pretty sure God created a new color.
June pink is the sky at 5 a.m.
June pink is the peony that grew in my backyard.
June pink is the peony that grew at the Arboretum.
June pink is the sisterly duo in the backyard, learning about caterpillars.
June pink is the softness of bunny ears.
June pink is that spot upon my hubby’s head that doesn’t grow hair anymore.
And June pink is a spot on the wet nose of a Holstein having breakfast.
Seen any June pink in your neck of the woods?
Last week our homeschool group held its 2nd annual Presentation Day — a wonderful event that allows the students in our group to display some of their hard work and also perform before a live audience. It’s a fantastic way to wrap up the school year, and it’s also good medicine for us moms! When we are all wiped out at the end of the school year, there’s nothing more encouraging and inspiring than seeing the kids put on an incredible program — piano, violin, guitar, skits, poetry, ballet, singing, live science experiments, and even some magic tricks. It’s also really a treat to check out all the amazing projects other homeschoolers have been working on in art, science, history, etc.
Linnea has been studying U.S. history all year — from the Leif Erickson to Thomas Edison, and from Delaware to Hawaii. So she put together a pretty nifty U.S. history display, which included her tri-corn hat, her paper patchwork quilt, her drawing of the Statue of Liberty, her drawing of George Washington, her replica of the Oregon Trail, her replica of Jamestown 1607, and her 93-page U.S. history scrapbook that she labored over diligently all year.
the Oregon Trail replica
She also had several pieces of artwork on display from her Friday art class with Mrs. Henriksen. The one pictured above is one of my favorites.
During the special program, Linnea played “Pink Polka Dots” on piano, and then she recited the poem “Bed in Summer” by Robert Lewis Stevenson.
Laurel recited “To the First Robin” by Louisa May Alcott. Then, accompanied on guitar by their dad, the girls sang “Three Cheers for the Red, White and Blue.”
They did a fantastic job! I’m so proud of them and all their hard work this year. We all have learned so much and made so many great memories together! I’m enjoying summer, but I’m also looking forward to start fresh again in the fall.
It’s National Get Outdoors Day, and I have a confession: I’ve never been wild about camping in a tent.
Something about it just makes me feel like a Boy Scout. My older brother has always been waaaaay into camping, so perhaps that’s why I developed an aversion to it early in life. But nonetheless, I do have some fond memories of camping more times than I can count in the spacious backyard of my childhood home.
One time I camped out with my dear friend Aimee during a sleepover when we were about 12. That experience involved rain and some sort of catastrophic tent collapse around 4 a.m. Sadly, I was so traumatized or lacking in sleep that I blocked out the details. All I remember is laughing about it later until our sides nearly split open.
Like it or not, camping out is one of those outdoorsy things that everyone must do now and then. And recently I realized — in a small fit of mommy guilt — that neither of our daughters had ever spent the night in a tent!
Well, actually, there was that one time… When Linnea was 3, Michael tried a father-daughter backyard camp-out with her. She bounced and fidgeted in excitement for several hours, waaaaay past her usual bedtime. And then finally around 10:30 p.m., snug in her sleeping bag, Linnea was just drifting off to sleep when ka-boom! The fireworks began. It was the 4th of July. Seriously, whose grand idea was that?
Since we were here at home this Memorial Day weekend, I coaxed Michael into buying a six-man tent and pitching it for the girls to play in. They had a high old time indeed, pretending it was their house, playing with their rag dolls, and tracking in grass and other pieces of nature to litter the tent floor. You never saw two kids more eager for bedtime.
We have really long summer days here in the Frozen Tundra, so it’s still broad daylight at 9 p.m. Yet both jumped into their jammies around 7 p.m., hours before the sunset.
To cap off the evening, s’mores had been promised. Unfortunately, it was super windy that evening. Too windy for a fire in the backyard fire pit. At least, that was the conclusion of the former Boy Scout in our family. Since I had all the ingredients and I didn’t want unhappy campers, I decided to do the unthinkable.
I made s’mores in the microwave.
Strike that. I made s’mores in the microwave. I tried to make s’mores in the microwave.
If you haven’t tried this at home, please don’t. The graham cracker box is misleading. You really can’t make s’mores in the microwave. Sure the marshmallow puffs into its gooey, sticky loveliness, but the Hershey bar…
It wasn’t pretty. Laurel’s pajamas took the brunt of the s’more chocolate disaster. And our patio furniture also fell victim to the devastation of dripping chocolate loss.
By 7:30, my three happy campers were ready to call it a night. I kissed them all and headed inside, looking forward to a nice, peaceful evening alone in a quiet house, snuggled up with my laptop. Aaaah. Peace at last.
Some things are too good to be true.
I jumped when the phone rang. Laurel’s sweet little voice was on the other end, on her daddy’s cell phone, begging, “Mommy, will you please, please come outside with us and watch for the stars come out? We miss you.”
Who on earth could deny such a plea from their 4-year-old?
I did the right thing. I shut the laptop, changed clothes, and headed out to watch the stars.
Two hours and lots of giggles later, we were all still anxiously waiting for the first star to come out. Napless Laurel didn’t dare stop moving her mouth or else she’d fall soundly asleep. She talked, talked, talked. Full of endless questions. After a while, that just made Linnea giggle, giggle, giggle. Pretty soon, we were all giggling uncontrollably as Laurel tried so hard to stay awake for the first star.
Eventually the first star did come out. And then another. And another. By the fourth star, Laurel was sawing logs. It was well after 10 p.m. And that’s about when Michael informed me I couldn’t leave because I’d let in too many mosquitos. So I was trapped. In the tent. For the whole night.
At 4 a.m. I awoke, freezing and feeling rocks that I am certain arose underneath the sod just while I was laying there. Ugh! I sneaked back inside my quiet house and into my warm, soft bed. I left my three happy campers sleeping soundly.
Aaaah. Peace at last. For a few hours anyway.
It’s
undeniably
joyous
yet
quite
alarming.
A sound we seem to hear once every weekend in the summertime.
A sound that sends shivers of unpredictable, happy panic up the spines of certain family members.
A sound that sends half of the family dashing for loose change while the other half dashes barefoot into the street.
Oh, the charming and merry sound of the ice cream truck coming down the street! When you’re 4 years old, there’s no better sound in the world.
“He had a freezer full of bomb pops
Push ups, drum sticks and dreamcicles
And a paint chipped change box
Full of sticky quarters, dimes and nickles
It was automatic when we heard that song
Run home and get your money before he’s gone”-Diamond Rio “Sweet Summer”
Forget the bomb pops, push ups, drum sticks and dreamcicles. Laurel has her heart set on Tweetie Bird.
Linnea, meanwhile, focuses in on the chocolate-chip-cookie ice cream sandwich.
She’s been extensively trained to take anything with chocolate this seriously.
Ice cream + babysitters = two four giddy little girls.
Well, my dear readers, I’ve been doing this bloggy thing for nearly three years now, and I am close to reaching my 150th posting and my 100th comment! Woo-hoo!
To celebrate these frivilous literary milestones, I decided to freshen up my blog a bit. I’ve applied a new WordPress theme, which uses a lovely shade of green. Most folks refer to it as sage, but my friend Jonda loving calls it “Diana green” since it’s my favorite color. She knows this because I have painted four rooms of our house in various shades of this color. So why not paint my blog this color, too?
I also rearranged a few of the widgets on the far right sidebar/column/thingy. I even threw my mug shot up there so you wouldn’t think you’d arrived at someone else’s blog by mistake.
Maybe you already noticed that I created an all-new header? I revised the blog name from “Starlight Ink” to “Starlight Writer.” Ink, they tell me, is becoming mostly irrelevant thanks to digital publishing. Sniff, sniff. It’s so sad but probably true. But I digress.
Please note that I added a new tagline in the header: “Shine like stars as you hold out the Word of Life.” This comes from Philippians 2:14-16, one of the verses that originally inspired the blog name. The other, because I know you’re curious, is Daniel 12:3. (Clicking the links will take you to BibleGateway.com, truly the most useful and amazing tool online!)
Anyway, I hope you find the new look cheerful, refreshing, and easy to read. Do let me know what you think. Please leave a reply below — it might just be my 100th comment!
Doesn’t she look as delicate and lovely as a flower?
Here she “sits tall like a dancer” to show off the flowers on the back of her costume.
Linnea’s Ballet 1 class danced to Jack Johnson’s “We Are Going to Be Friends,” from the Curious George movie soundtrack.
Laurel’s Creative Movement class performed skips, twirls and leaps, which were all choreographed by God, as her instructor put it.
She was completely overjoyed with wearing her costume and dancing on the big stage. We weren’t permitted to take pictures during the performance, but here’s a shot from the dress rehearsal.
Aren’t they precious?
Starlight Writer 
