Baked Alaska

What could Lil' Monster being smiling about? 

 The weather!!!!!

 

 And the fact, that he FINALLY gets to use the "HOT" tag for our daily calendar.
Several months ago, Lil' Monster complained because we 'never' could use the HOT tag on his daily calendar. He kept asking when we could. I explained, up here in AK we might not ever use it.
Boy, am I glad I was wrong!

 Right now up here in Alaska, we are cookin'.
We LOVE it.
This is our third summer here and we are toasting at lovely mid 70's temperatures. The past several years we were lucky to get into the 50s and 60s. The rain poured and poured.
Summer Solstice meant more daylight - it sure didn't seem like it with the grey skies. We were told that was the norm. How sad it made us. Then we have had two long, snowy, and bitter winters. In fact not 4 weeks ago we had snow and temps in the 20s. For the last several weeks we have had constant sun and temperatures that have been utter bliss.
This Summer Solstice we might just have to stay up all night to see that the sun really does give us 20 hours of sunshine!!!
We have been truly blessed!

Feels like heaven.

Don't you just love he is wearing a long sleeved sweater still? He doesn't own many "warm weather" clothes. The summer clothes he does have, he has already worn and I am currently washing them.

Sunday Play

In our home, we try to make Sunday's different than any other day of the week.

We are commanded to keep the Sabbath Day holy. (Exodus 20:8)

We interpret that to be more than just going to church for a few hours.

A day consists of 24 hours.

That can be a very long time with children.

We are not so strict like the puritans of old, where meetings and reading the bible all day was all you did.

But we don't want to be so relaxed about it, that we consider it a free day to play, catch up on chores, sleep all day, or laze around.

We have come up with some solutions.

After church attendance, we encourage quiet activities like reading (scriptures, church magazines, or other uplifting books), journaling, letter writing, goal setting, watching a spiritual and uplifting movie, calling family and friends, serving others, and sitting with each other simply talking.

Yet, even these activities can be quite difficult with young children.

Young children like to play, not sit quietly.

So, we have set aside certain toys and games for Sunday use only.

These items are not played with at all during the week.

This not only keeps the novelty of them alive; but it also is a way for our child to mark that the Sabbath Day is a different day than the rest.

A few of these toys are scriptural action figures.
They are great fun for our son.
They definitely keep him entertained and busy.