Girls To Grow

Nurturing moms in their walk with God

Flowers, Trees and More

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It’s back to our summer learning schedule this week after taking some time off for our trip to visit family. Our theme for this week is flowers and trees (or things closely related to that).

Here are some books we checked out at the library yesterday.

How Plants Grow by Angela Royston
Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Marian B. Jacobs
Amazing Rain Forest by Ted O’Hare
From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer
Dandelion Adventures by L. Patricia Kite
Sunflowers Up Close by Katie Franks
The Desert Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta
The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle
Tropical Rain Forests by Emilie U. Lepthien
A Dandelion’s Life by John Himmelman

It’s so hard to believe that the girls will be heading back to school in just four weeks! I pulled out some addition and subtraction flashcards today and had them review some math facts as part of their “school” time. I also noticed that I need to work with my youngest a bit on her handwriting so that her teacher will be able to read her printing when she gets to class!

Thirteen Things I Love About Summer

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Since we’re sweltering in the heat here this month, I decided it would be good to list thirteen things that I love about summer.

  1. Vacations

  2. Sleeping in a little later

  3. No homework for the kids

  4. Going to the beach

  5. Longer periods of daylight

  6. Not having to pack lunches for the girls

  7. Swimming at the pool

  8. A more relaxed schedule

  9. Trips to visit family

  10. The large variety of fresh produce

  11. Celebrating our wedding anniversary

  12. It’s easier to clothe the girls – simple cotton dresses with flip-flops or sandals works for most any day

  13. Cold treats like ice cream!

Hope you are enjoying your summer wherever you are!!This post is linked to Thursday-13.photo courtesy public domain pictures

Making Summer Memories With Family

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We are back home after spending a week making some special memories with my family. I thought I’d share pictures from a few of the fun things we did!

We found some beautiful gardens to explore.
Later that day we shared a wonderful afternoon with cousins – eating lunch, riding a ferry and a trolley, then finishing the day with ice cream.

We love being with my cousin and her two girls. The four “second” cousins get along so well!

We worked in some shopping, a little one-on-one time for each of my daughters with their Grandmama, and celebrated my sister and her first baby boy (due in September) at her baby shower.
We also traveled to an animal park where the girls got to feed some animals – up close and personal!


God gave us safety, smooth travel and absolutely gorgeous weather for which we are very thankful!

I was so unmotivated when we got home last night that I didn’t do anything – hence today consists of a trip to the grocery store (already done), unpacking and several loads of laundry!!

Book Review: The Hole in Our Gospel by Richard Stearns

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What am I as a Christian doing to live out my faith by ministering to the needs of others? That is the question asked by Richard Stearns in his book The Hole in Our Gospel. He lays a foundation for the responsibility we have as believers in Christ to “show our faith by our works” and then goes on to present the overwhelming needs – physical, emotional and financial – of people around the world. The book concludes with an evaluation of how the church as a whole and people as individuals can respond to this call.

The most enjoyable part of the book for me was when the author shared his personal testimony of salvation and the ways that God worked in his life to bring him to his current position. He does present a compelling case for the underprivileged around the world and it is convicting to realize the personal responsibility I have to share with others the things with which I have been blessed. While in some ways this book may appear to present a reinvention of the social gospel, it is always good to be challenged to use every opportunity to serve Christ by serving others and seeking to meet their needs.

13 Favorite Walt Disney Movies

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This week we were collecting some DVDs to take along with us for the girls to watch in the car during our trip. Several of them are Walt Disney movies, which got me to thinking about my favorite Disney movies. Here would be my top thirteen.

  1. Beauty and the Beast
  2. The Story of Robin Hood
  3. Mary Poppins
  4. Summer Magic
  5. The Parent Trap (1961)
  6. The Apple Dumpling Gang
  7. The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again
  8. Lady and the Tramp
  9. Cinderella
  10. Pollyanna
  11. Peter Pan
  12. Bambi
  13. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

If you have a favorite that’s not on the list, feel free to share!

How Not To Decorate Cupcakes

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As I mentioned in my weekend in review post yesterday, my eight-year-old and I made homemade Flag Cupcakes together on Saturday. We used the One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes recipe from Martha Stewart and the Vanilla Powdered Sugar Frosting from All Recipes. Both were easy to follow and turned out pretty well.

The dilemma came in decorating the cupcakes. We mixed blue food coloring into part of the white icing and my daughter piped the dots onto the cupcakes. The red stripes were supposed to be red licorice, which neither of my girls like. I thought it would be easy enough to substitute a red fruit roll-up cut into strips and laid on top. (In retrospect, I should have just tinted some of the white icing red and piped it on in lines.)

I do buy the packaged fruit snacks from time to time, but don’t know that I’ve ever bought fruit roll-ups – and at this point doubt that I will again. I unrolled one, thinking that I could just lay it across a plate and use a sharp knife to cut it into strips. Nice try – the whole thing adhered to the plate and I could not get it off!

I finally put the plate in the sink and had to soak it in hot water to get the fruit roll-up to come off. Meanwhile, I’m thinking “If it does this on a plate, what does it do to your insides when you eat it???”

My next idea worked a bit better; I unrolled part of a fruit roll-up and laid it on a piece of aluminum foil. After several attempts, I was able to get enough little pieces cut for my daughter to lay three on each cupcake. The finished product looked fine, but I must admit to lifting off the red stripes when I ate my cupcake!

Visit 5 Minutes for Mom and Talk About Tuesday to see what others tackled this week.

July 4th Weekend in Review

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Hope you had a wonderful 4th of July weekend! We were blessed to be able to do several fun things together as a family.

On Friday night we went to a minor league baseball game where the girls got their faces painted…..


…..took in some baseball action…..


…..and ended the evening with some pretty neat fireworks.


On Saturday my eight-year-old and I made July 4th Cupcakes…..


…..and late in the afternoon we headed to a friend’s house for a cookout and some time for the girls to play with friends.

Now we have a couple of days to clean the house and pack our suitcases before we head off to visit my family for a week!

Great Reads

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Here are some articles that I found interesting around the blogosphere this week.

Simple Mom’s post on 10 Great Authors in Children’s Literature was a good resource for those of you looking for writers of children’s books who consistently produce good stories.

Amy at The Finer Things in Life is doing a series on Mommy, Come Home which deals with leaving the work force and becoming a stay-at-home mom. One of this week’s posts was perfect for those who may not yet have children but want to prepare ahead of time so they will be financially able to stay at home with their children in the future.

Although it may be a little late to use these ideas for this July 4th celebration, I loved the decorations shown in this post – Hooked on Red, White and Blue.

Finally, do you ever feel like a crabby mom? I do, more often than I’d like to admit. Jessica at Life as Mom has some suggestions for being a more cheerful mom.

I would like to add a few more blogs to my reader so if you have any suggestions or would like to share the link from one of your “must-read” blogs, please do so in the comments section.

Teach Them Diligently

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And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Deuteronomy 6:6-7

This third verse on my list of five favorite Bible verses related to parenting instructs me to teach the precepts and principles of God to my children as part of our every day life. This helps me know that it is not the church’s nor the Christian school’s job to plant the words of God into my children’s heart, although they may be a help in that area.

My husband and I, as parents, are responsible for teaching our children about God and His commandments. This can be a bit more formal as we sit around the table after supper and talk about Bible principles or some character trait they should have in their lives. It would also involve just being available to talk when they have a question at bedtime about some situation or discussing what they learned in Sunday School during the ride home from church.

The neatest part of this verse is that spiritual instruction can and should happen throughout the day as part of our normal conversation. It’s not relegated to a sit-down teaching time, but just happens as we move throughout our day.

I’m certain that I miss so many opportunities to capture teachable moments, but hope that I will focus more on listening for those times to teach my girls about God and His Word. My husband grabbed a quick moment this past Sunday to do just that. One of our girls was talking about taking money to church to put in the offering and my husband took the chance to ask her about why we give money at church and briefly mentioned what our heart attitude should be as we give.

According to these verses, I am to be diligent about training our daughters in the ways of God. My prayer is that I might be more mindful of this responsibility and look for ways to incorporate it into our daily lives.

photo courtesy public domain pictures

American History

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This week’s summer learning theme is history. We ended up focusing on American history and got the following books at the library yesterday.

The Boston Tea Party by Matt Doeden Both girls wanted to read this book as it is written somewhat like a comic book.
Roanoke The Lost Colony: An Unsolved Mystery from History by Jane Yolen and Heidi Elisabet Yolen Stemple
Let It Begin Here! Lexington & Concord, First Battles of the American Revolution by Dennis Brindell Fradin
How They Lived: An American Pioneer Family by Robin May
The Story of the Statue of Liberty by Natalie Miller
What Do You Know About the Civil War? By Lynn George
The Declaration of Independence by Terry Allan Hicks
Pearl Harbor by Stephen Krensky

My eight-year-old wanted to read a couple of books about World War I and World War II, but I couldn’t find anything at the library that was on her reading level. If you have any suggestions along those lines, please let me know.

We added a couple of other books for pleasure reading: A Little Book of Teddy Bear Tales by Hutchinson Children’s Books and Mole and Shrew All Year Through by Jackie French Koller. My younger daughter has already finished reading her books for the summer reading program at the library; her age group only had to read 15 books. My older daughter had to read 15 hours to get all her prizes and she has read just over 10 hours. Many times she’ll be reading and forget to write the time down on her sheet!

Since we will be going out of town around the middle of next week to visit family, I am going to use next Monday and Tuesday to have them do a little extra writing in their notebooks. We’ve had some fun outings as a family and with friends, so I’m trying to have them write a few sentences or draw a picture about each experience so that they can look back at the end of the summer and remember all the things they did.