~1~ Our sitter from last summer started back with us this week, and the boys have had a blast. They are staying busy at playgrounds, riding bicycles, baking, building ropes out of duct tape, getting snowballs, going to the library and the dollar movie, and doing who knows what else. The other day they caught...Read More

When I came home at the end of a full day, our children were stalking the kitchen, looking for food. And I had no idea what I would be making for dinner. It’s a good thing I always have chicken in the freezer, I thought. As I pulled it out, though, I noticed the date...Read More

Dusk is falling as we head outside. It’s time to catch fireflies. Our boys run around the yard, chasing the fireflies as they light up and then fade into the dim evening light. Their little hands reach into the bushes, down toward the grass, and up into the sky, as they try to capture the...Read More

When I mention my sister’s baby girl, her eyes light up with pleasure. A few minutes later when she asks about my sister, she is surprised – and ecstatic – to hear that she has a baby.Read More

What is it about hydrangeas? I can’t say they’re my favorite flowers because I’ve said that about azaleas and forsythia and roses and tulips, and I’m obviously very fickle. But we did have hydrangeas on the tables at our wedding, lovely blue blossoms I cut from the bush in my parents’ yard and inserted into...Read More

As a young newspaper reporter in Southcentral Pennsylvania back in July 1999, I was assigned to go to a bookstore on a Friday night for a book release party. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was coming out, and dozens of children were expected to attend—in costume and full of excitement. I had heard...Read More

I love that as Catholics we can go to any Mass anywhere in the world and—even if it’s in another language, it’s the same. I love the beauty of our faith, the statues and the symbols, the bells and the candles, the holy water and the music.Read More

You know when you get a haircut and no one notices for weeks? Or they finally notice and it has been so long that it’s already time for you to get another?Read More