Mid Summer Moodboard
stay here a little longer
July has a rhythm all its own. The frantic pace of early summer has worn off, we’re in the middle of our last two weeks of camp, and the long, slow stretch of late summer is coming into view. The days when nobody knows what time it is, and dinner might be cereal, and everyone’s a little sun-tired by 4 pm.
And here’s my honest confession: I do better with a plan, and so do my boys. The vacation weeks, the camp routines, the days with somewhere to be. Those are our sweet spots, and I’m so grateful we get to have them.
It’s the wide-open nothing that makes me nervous. The unscheduled weeks ahead are when the “I’m bored”s multiply, and it would be easy to start counting down to meeting teachers and a quiet house.
But here’s what I keep bumping into: these are the days I’m going to miss. Not just the big vacation days, but the unremarkable Tuesdays with popsicle wrappers on the counter and a board game that never got put away. Summer is half over, and so is this exact version of my boys.
So the mood for mid-summer is simple: stay a little longer. Not do more or make it magical. Just stay. One more inning, one more chapter, one more scoop.
Here’s what staying a little longer actually looks like around here lately:
Fireworks on a blanket with the whole crew, watching my boys watch the sky. We spend every 4th of July at my parents’ in the mountains, and it is the most magical place to watch your kids grow up: catching fireflies at dusk, stomping in creeks, and swimming in ice-cold lakes… nothing better.
Fishing days and baseball cards spread across the floor. This is their season right now, and I’m trying to be a student of it instead of just the schedule keeper. Boy mom tip: We finally organized Jones's collection with three binders from Amazon. One for National League teams, one for the American League, and one just for his most prized cards. Add these sleeves and dividers (I wrote the team names with Sharpie), and suddenly the floor situation has a system.
A little less screentime, a little more connection. Board games at the table have been our answer. We all have a favorite, and it’s so much fun to watch their little brains work things out as we play together. I can never resist a pretty take on a classic game, and this Monopoly/Sorry set is perfection!! Even though it’s not a board game, we have a version of this golf game, and the boys love it as well!
Keeping cool with sweet treats sounds like the perfect way to round out the Summer weeks and celebrate our July birthdays (Jones, my niece, and my dad!). These cute mini ceramic bowls are perfect for a little scoop after dinner! Bonus: The Perfect Scoop book with a bright colored scoop tied on top makes the most fun hostess gift for any summer get-together. Or even better, a back-to-school gift for teachers, considering it’s still hot as blue blazes out there. Tie the scoop on the book and call it a win.
Staying up for World Cup games, because soccer has been life in our house this summer. Bedtime has gotten loose, and I’ve decided not to fight it. Some things are worth being tired for the next morning.
Your Summer Permission Slip…
To Stay Here a Little Longer
Here’s the thing about mid-summer that nobody really names: it’s the season of feeling two things at once.
By July, the shine has worn off. The camp weeks are winding down, the snack drawer is a war zone, and you’ve refereed the same argument fourteen different ways. Somewhere in your head, a countdown has quietly started. First day of school. First quiet morning. First cup of coffee you get to finish while it’s still hot.
And you feel guilty about that countdown, don’t you? Because in the very same breath, you know this summer is one you’ll never get back.
I feel it every time I look up from whatever I’m doing and actually see them. The tan lines and the popsicle-stained shirts. The baseball cards spread across the floor in a system only they understand. The way they come in from outside smelling like sunscreen and grass and boy.
This exact version of my sons, the one that exists right now in July, is already on its way to becoming someone new. By next summer, they’ll be different. Taller. Cooler. A little further from me.
So I’ve stopped trying to pick a side. I can be tired and tender at the same time. I can want a break and want to freeze the clock. Wanting the school year back doesn’t mean I’m wasting the season, and loving this summer doesn’t mean I have to do it perfectly, with the crafts and the bucket list and the magic. Nobody is grading my July.
What these days actually ask of me is smaller and harder than magic: just stay. Stay at the table after dinner when they’re still talking. Stay up for the game even though I’ll pay for it tomorrow. Stay on the porch for one more inning of whatever they’ve invented in the backyard. The staying is the thing. Not the doing.
So this month, I’m giving you permission to stay here a little longer. Permission to be counting down and holding on at the very same time. Permission to let the day be long, to let bedtime slide, to let the summer be ordinary. Both things are true. Both things are allowed.
What I’m Holding Onto in Mid-Summer:
This verse comes from the road to Emmaus, just days after the crucifixion. Two of Jesus’s followers are walking home, heartbroken and confused, when a stranger joins them on the road. They don’t recognize Him. When they reach the village, evening is coming, and they ask Him to stay.
And here’s the part I can’t get past: He stays.
Jesus, freshly risen, with every reason to be anywhere else, doesn’t say no. He isn’t too busy. He sits down at their table, takes the bread, and breaks it. And in that ordinary moment of staying, their eyes are opened. They realize the risen Savior has been with them the whole time.
The miracle didn’t happen on the road. It happened at the table, because He stayed.
That’s what I’m holding onto in the middle of summer. If Jesus made time to sit, eat, and linger, what am I missing when I don’t? How many eyes-opened moments am I rushing right past because I won’t stay at the table, stay on the porch, stay in the slow?
What I’m Consuming
Summer reading is my love language. There’s something about this season that lets me read for the joy of it, on the porch, at the pool, in the ten minutes before I fall asleep. Here’s what’s been in my hands this Summer, plus what Jones and I have been reading together at night.
The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett
The author of The Help finally gave us a second novel, and it was worth the fifteen-year wait. Depression-era Mississippi, an eleven-year-old orphan named Meg who will absolutely steal your heart, and a cast of underestimated women doing whatever it takes to survive. It's a big book, over 600 pages, but I never wanted to put it down. Funny and heartbreaking in the same chapter, which is my favorite kind of story. If you loved The Help, this one belongs on your summer list.
The Body Teaches the Soul by Justin Whitmel Earley
This one is about how our physical habits, the eating, sleeping, moving, and resting, are not separate from our spiritual life. They're part of it. As someone who tends to treat her body like a machine that exists to get things done, I needed this. It's practical without being preachy, and I walked away convicted in the best way. Highly recommend if you've ever wondered why your soul feels off when your body is running on fumes. And now his book Habits of the Household has jumped to the top of my list.
Bonus: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Jones and I have been reading this together at night, and I have been waiting YEARS for this moment. Digging into these books with my boys is everything I hoped it would be. Our house rule: no movie until the book is finished, and a special movie night alone with mom and dad when it’s done!
And since we're talking about what's filling our shelves...
If you're in a season of wanting to point your boys toward God but not sure where to start, I made something for you. My Raising Boys Who Know God resource guide is a roundup of the books, Bibles, devotionals, and tools we actually use in our house, organized by age so that you can skip the overwhelmed Amazon scroll. It's the guide I wish someone had handed me a few years ago.
What’s Helping… savoring the last bit of summer
If we're going to stay here a little longer, we might as well make it smell good and dress the part. Here's what's helping us savor the back half of summer, from the $12 shorts my boys live in to the candles I can't stop lighting. Technically warming.
$12 Walmart shorts for the boys
These look way more expensive than they are, and my boys actually wear them without complaint, which is the whole battle. Lightweight, comfortable, and at $12 a pair, I genuinely do not care what happens to them. Popsicle drips, creek mud, whatever July throws at them.
Candle warmer
My mother-in-law gave me two of these for my birthday, and I get it now. No flame to remember to blow out, which matters in a house where I’m being called to referee something every eleven minutes, and it makes the whole house smell like heaven. It’s the one thing that makes my home feel put together even when it absolutely is not. I love keeping one in our guest room. That way, I can turn it on before we have someone stay, and the room smells lovely!
Ice cream pint candles
Ceramic candles that look like ice cream pints and smell like the flavors, yes please! Vanilla shake, lemon ice, cotton candy. They’re almost too cute to burn, and they’re my whole mid-summer mood in candle form. These would also make the sweetest little hostess gift.
Echo Dot Kids speaker
We gave Jones one for his birthday so he can play music in his room, and it has quietly become a bedtime hero. He loves falling asleep to music, and now he can do it without needing my phone or me. He also loves asking about his favorite sports teams and for silly jokes. Wins all around.
Fun accessories that dress up any outfit
My summer uniform is basically the same five things on repeat, so accessories are doing the heavy lifting. This raffia bag from Madewell with a colorful bag charm, striped sunnies, a rainbow beaded necklace, a brown scalloped bandana, and aviators in a fun color. Proof that you can be in the same denim shorts for the third day and still feel like you tried.
What I’m Paying Attention To…
The whole point of staying a little longer is that you start to see things. Here's what's caught my attention in the middle of the Summer.
How they’ve grown into summer. Last year, I was managing every hour. This year, my boys wake up with their own plans: cards to sort, games to invent, a whole world in the backyard that doesn’t need me to build it. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of “Mooommmmm, what do we doooo’s” to go around, but I’ve let the pressure go to fix it. I’m watching them become the big kids I used to squint at across the pool, and I’m paying attention to how good this age actually is, instead of only noticing after it’s passed.
Where God shows up when I stay. The Emmaus story has been sitting with me all month. Jesus was recognized at the table, in the staying, not on the road. So I’m paying attention to my own tables: dinner that stretches long, the porch after dark, the extra chapter at bedtime. If He meets us in the lingering, I don’t want to be the one who rushes off.
The countdown I keep catching myself doing. School starts in a matter of weeks, and I can feel the part of me that’s already there, planning routines and quiet mornings. I’m paying attention to that pull, not to shame it, but to keep choosing today instead. There will be plenty of quiet mornings soon. There will not be many long, stretching summer days.
Being present while it’s still now. Jones turned 9 this July, and I can’t quit doing the math: a third grader and a first grader this year, which doesn’t even feel real. I know how it happens: the day-to-day rush swallows whole seasons before I’ve noticed they started. So I’m paying attention to now. Not the version of them I’m nostalgic for or the version that’s coming, but the 9-year-old and the 6-year-old sitting at my table this exact summer.
Somewhere between the last camp pickup and the first school supply list, I keep hearing that quiet invitation: Stay at the table. Stay on the porch. Stay in the slow, unremarkable middle of it, because that’s where the good stuff has been hiding all along.
The disciples on the road to Emmaus almost missed Him. He would have kept walking if they hadn’t asked Him to stay. I don’t want to find out what I’d miss by rushing to the next thing.
So here’s to the back half of summer. To long dinners and loose bedtimes, to one more inning and one more chapter and one more scoop. The season is already leaving. We don’t have to leave with it.
Stay here a little longer, friend. It’s worth it.
XOXO, Blair
For all the goodies mentioned in this post, CLICK HERE!
Loved this one, Blair!!!!