Despite all my best efforts at being more present in the day-to-day of this year, I failed at practicing presence this July. Our family made some great memories while soaking up the best that summer has to offer (slower days, afternoons at the pool, delicious summer fruit), but I found myself physically in summer while mentally preparing for the busier fall season ahead. I am certain there is a balance between being present in the moment without completely neglecting preparations for the future, but that balance currently eludes me. I’m grateful for the rhythm of these monthly recaps that nudges my “presence meter” back towards the right direction.
|| READING LATELY ||
My reading was a little all over the place this month. I had a string of mediocre reads including a cozy fantasy and a multicultural romance that were each marred by heavy-handed “woke” agendas; a historical novel that didn’t quite live up to its premise; and this profound book that was genuinely unforgettable but a tad too literary for my taste. Bookending these so-so reads were two that I LOVED, including this creatively constructed thriller and this family saga that is vying for #1 as my favorite read of the year.
In nonfiction, I read two parenting books (on homeschooling and character building) and this book that was my Word-themed book for the summer. And with the kids, we read and enjoyed two historical novels (coincidentally both by the same author) and finished this Bible storybook that I found to be appropriately tailored to a younger audience while remaining faithful to Scripture and covering more of the full Biblical narrative than most children’s Bibles.
I’ll be sharing full reviews of these titles in the coming weeks.
And a few online reads that caught my attention this month:
The Church Shouldn’t Have to Make You Say Hello from Phylicia Masonheimer @ Every Woman a Theologian
What Children Actually Want From Picture Books from Rachel Bachman @ Excuse My Whimsy
Four Christian Musings on AI Actress Tilly Norwood and Her New Movie from Paul Asay @ Plugged In
|| LISTENING LATELY ||
Some recommendation-worthy podcasts from the month.
The Un-Speakasy with Meghan Daum—What a Long, Strange Tripwire It’s Been
The Daily—The Most American Episode of The Daily, Ever
|| WATCHING LATELY ||
Project Hail Mary—Luke and I don’t watch many shows or movies apart from the kids, so I think this was the first full movie we’ve watched together all year. It only took us three weeks to finish. 😉 It was worth the time investment! I feel like we were the last people in the country to see this one, so you’re likely familiar with the story story of science teacher Ryland Grace who travels across galaxies in an attempt to save the world from a mysterious substance that’s causing the sun to die out. The film was a slow start for me, but I soon warmed to the story thanks to the humorous tone and endearing character of Rocky. I thought the visuals were really well done, and Ryan Gosling did such a good job of conveying Grace’s complex emotions surrounding the mission. Of course the redemption storyline totally got the waterworks going. We plan to re-watch with Charleston, I know he’ll love it and I was surprised how family-friendly it was.
I didn’t think this was a book I would enjoy, but now I might read it, especially since I’ve heard the audiobook is amazing. (For those who have both seen the movie and read the book, how do they compare? Will I get much out of the reading experience if I’ve already seen the film?) My Rating: 4.5 Stars.
|| MONTHLY KID-ISMS ||
CHARLIE-ISMS:
+ “I just thought of the worst part of being a dad. Besides changing diapers, it’s tasting the milk to see if it’s bad.”
+ “Sometimes our family seems like just the right size and sometimes it feels…” Me: “Too big?” Charlie: “No, I was about to say too small. It feels like we’re missing someone.”
+ He celebrated a half-birthday and I told him that he could make a wish, but only half of it would come true. “Okay, I will wish for TWO billion dollars.”
SULLY-ISMS:
+ After falling, and we didn’t know what was hurt: “Owwww, it hurts, it hurts!” Luke: “I’m going to need you to be more specific.” Sully: “It hurts a lot!”
+ Me: “What do you think will happen in our book?” Sully: “I know she’s not going to die because the main character in books never dies.”
+ About a friend: “I am not going to marry her. I just have a crush on her. So there’s a 1% chance I’ll marry her.”
+ Me: “What would you do if you were left alone in the wilderness like Matt in Sign of the Beaver?” Charleston: “Play video games.” Sully, to Charleston: “It happened in the OLDEN days, bruh!”
+ About my skin that was peeling after a sunburn: “It looks like a grocery bag that ripped.” (I’ll never view peeling skin the same way again!)
+ “Did God use special water to make lakes so that it doesn’t just all soak into the soil?”
+ “Should impossible even be a word? Because it’s impossible for something to be impossible because Jesus can do anything.”
+ “A dream is just something that you’re thinking of when you’re sleeping. So why does a dream seem so much more realistic than when you’re thinking awake?”
+ When I bought the twins their first Lunchables: “Cool! Do they have Breakfast-ables and Dinner-ables too?”
+ “Since God can do everything, when I die, can I ask Him to send me back to earth so I can kiss everything goodbye?”
KALI-ISMS:
+ Me: “Can you tell me what taxes are?” Kali: “Yeah, they’re the cars that drive you somewhere.”
+ “Can you get an ice cream that will last seven days? Because National Ice Cream Sundae Day is on a Saturday, and the sundae will have to make it all week to from Sunday.”
+ “If Jesus says to love our enemies, are we supposed to love Satan?”
+ “Let me guess: the bones inside me are dirty because I don’t brush them with a toothbrush like I brush my teeth bones.”
+ Shouting across the house from the bathroom: “Suuuullly, I need you to get me some toilet paper.” Sully: “Ugh, why does it always have to be me?” Kali: “Because that’s what twins are for!”
+ “Owwwww, my knee hurts!” Me: “Why does your knee hurt?” Kali: “Because I touched it.” Me: “Oh. Why did you touch it?” Kali: “Because I wanted to know what it would feel like!”
NICO-ISMS:
+ Nico often hangs out playing on the floor of Luke’s office while I do schoolwork with the kids. He loves when Luke stops working to play with him, but if he has stopped to do ANYTHING else, Nico pounds Luke’s legs and points to the computer saying, “Daddy, WORK!”
+ If any of the kids try to sit on my lap—even if Nico isn’t currently sitting there—he runs over and pushes them off: “NO, MY Mama’s lap!”
+ I didn’t realize he knew how to answer his name, but he heard the twins playing a game across the house saying, “what’s your name,” and he shouted back, “I’m Nico!”
+ He has started referring to himself in the third person. I don’t remember my other kids doing this and I find it totally charming.
+ Every time he coughs or sneezes, to himself: “Scuze me’s. Salud!”
+ Everything he doesn’t know the name for is “this.” (Probably because he often points to things and we don’t know what he wants so we say, “this? This?”)
|| HAPPENINGS & HIGHLIGHTS ||
I was really looking forward to the 4th of July this year—not just because it was the momentous 250, but also because our 4th got rained out last year so it’s been two years since we got to truly celebrate. And the celebrations did not disappoint!
We began the day with a barbecue and some sparklers and smoke bombs at Luke’s parents’ house. It was fun to watch the kids get into these, especially Nico who was a little wary at first but started running around with excitement as soon as he saw the other kids’ enthusiasm.
On the evening of the 4th, we drove to Marble Falls for dinner at a restaurant followed by an amazing firework show over the water. This was Nico’s first time seeing a real firework show: at first there were tears, but he was really into the show by the end, and when it was finished he smiled and cheered saying, “Yay fireworks! Pretty!” So I think they were a hit! Holidays are so much fun with toddlers who bring a whole new sense of wonder to every experience. It was a great day celebrating this country that I love.
The Great Homeschool Convention held at the Kalahari resort has been a staple of our summers for the past several years. We knew going into it this year that it would be a challenge, since childcare isn’t available for kids Nico’s age and we would be attempting to get through sessions with him tagging along. And we were right, it was really tough. For the first and third days of the convention, Luke and I took turns attempting to entertain him through sessions and walking around with him in the hallway; on day two, we decided to tag-team it, with Luke staying home with Nico in the morning and the two of us swapping spots after lunch, allowing each of us to the most out of a few sessions we really wanted to see. Despite the toddler challenges, we got to hear from some great speakers including Andrew Pudewa (founder of IEW [our writing curriculum] on classical education and AI); Connor Boyack (the founder of Tuttle Twins on alternatives to a traditional college degree); and influencers Nick Freitas and John Lovell on all things parenting and marriage. We also went to a few other parenting sessions and one fascinating one on homeopathy, and the kids asked to come to a session by Davy Liu, a professional animator who had them totally starstruck.
And speaking of the kids, they had the BEST time at Giant Cow, the kid component of the convention, where they sang, played games, watched skits, and more. They were especially excited when their team won the big coloring contest, and they had lots of fun with this year’s Christmas theme. Between sessions, we all enjoyed hanging out on the Kalahari grounds and exploring the exhibit hall. We ALMOST got through the convention without making any extra purchases, but Luke—rebel husband that he is ;-)—stole away to buy a homeopathy curriculum . . . which I’m actually pretty excited about.
All in all, it was a great few days of being encouraged as a family and as homeschoolers, and I was repeatedly reminded of what a blessing it is that we get to raise our family in this way.
We are a little behind with helping Kali and Sully to become independent swimmers, so we paid for private lessons for them this month, and they both made tremendous progress in a very short time. They are now both able to swim on their own in the water without their floaties, which is HUGE! Sully is especially confident, but both are really proud of being able to jump into the water and swim across the pool. What a milestone! And of course my other two boys loved all the extra time spent at the pool this month during lessons.
For the past seven years—since the twins were born—Kali and Sully have shared a room, while Charleston always had a room of his own. But for more than a year, the kids have been pushing us to join rooms, with their beds in one room so that the extra room could be turned into their “library.” We’d put off the project for a while, but when they went a month sleeping on one another’s floors just to be in the same room each night, we decided to move forward with the big room switcheroo. We still have a ways to go to make the rooms complete, but the beds are all in one spot and that has been going really well. In the meantime, we are working on completing their library, and they love having full-sized desks of their own. (I’ll share pictures once the rooms are finished!)
With the kids’ room switch-up, the old crib/toddler bed was no longer in use, so we moved it into the master with hopes of transitioning Nico into it at nighttime. We don’t have any immediate plans to move him out of our room since we don’t really have anywhere else for him to go, but we are hoping that getting him to sleep *slightly* apart from us will be a good first step towards his independence. . . but the verdict is still out on whether the new bed situation for him is a success. Stay tuned! In the meantime, it’s regularly being transformed into a fort with my own bed pillows, and it’s become the favorite spot during DEAR time.
The kids had fun participating in our library’s dinosaur-themed summer reading program, and they racked up a ton of reading minutes. Sully was set on maxing out the book tags (you could receive necklace tags for the first 20 logs [each 250 minutes of reading]). . . and once he’d reached the limit, Sully told me he was done reading until after the program was over. (Thankfully that was just a few days.) The kids all earned tons of prizes, and the boys were excited to see their team come in First Place. As you know, we read constantly in our home, so it’s fun that the kids got to get rewarded for something they already enjoy doing. And in fact, I did too: I participated in the adult raffle, and won a gift card to a local boutique!
|| ICYMI: JULY ON THE BLOG ||
Summer’s One Must Read Book 2026
28 Amazon Purchases That Have My Stamp of Approval
Believe it. . . or not? “In this era when we have more access to information than any other time in history, it’s harder than ever to sort fact from fiction, reliable narrator from grifter, actual intelligence from artificial imposter.”
Staying Human “Without my permission and often without my knowledge, machine learning algorithms are shaping my shopping experiences, my entertainment choices, my news consumption, and my daily interactions—even the ones that seem ‘offline.’ So many of my routines, habits, and decisions are shaped by these unseen forces that it can be hard to know where my agency ends and AI step in.“
I’m sad to see summer drifting away, but our family has a lot to look forward to in August including a birthday, the return to our homeschool community days, and potentially some special time with extended family. I hope your July was a memorable one and that August brings you many glittering moments.
The Burning Side is definitely my #1 read of the year so far! So well written and layered!
Yes, to reading PHM (Audio)! The movie adaptation was well done…especially adding the humor! But as you know it can’t capture the depth of the book. My husband and I enjoyed a buddy read of it! I think having the visuals will enhance the reading experience.