One year ago I drove to the hospital to hold my niece for the first time. She was precious and sweet and snuggly and warm.This weekend we celebrated her first birthday. Throughout her party, she was laughing and crawling and bouncing and reaching over to give her big sister a

For weeks our first grader has been reminding me that soon it would be our turn to bring the snack to Cub Scouts. I haven’t focused much on it, but he has been taking it very seriously.Our turn came the Wednesday before Easter—Spy Wednesday—so I suggested we should bring pretzels.

“People really want to be challenged to be better than even they think they can be,” Father Matthew Buening said.

At some point my parents left it to my older siblings to correct my behavior at St. Rose of Lima in Brooklyn. Two memories stand out, once for slouching as an altar server, the other in a pew, for not washing from my neck and arms the newsprint that had

How did you celebrate April Fools Day?

Each year, we celebrate the most momentous week in all of history, a week filled with turmoil and triumph: Holy Week.

Every day during Lent we pull a slip of paper out of our prayer basket and read the name of the person or people listed there.We’ve prayed for cousins and grandparents, deceased family members and living friends. We share stories about the people we’re praying for, and—when I think of

It was a typical Saturday in late January. My best friend was helping me install a laminate floor in our living room. We took a break to have lunch together, and chitchatted for a bit before he left. Four days later, I received a series of frantic text messages and

Bedtime at the Barberrys is nothing short of a production. There are bathtime adventures, pajama races, and our own version of “circle time” where we discuss the events of the day and our dreams for tomorrow. This is followed by stories, including: perennial favorites like “Goodnight, Goodnight Construction

My grandmother, Marion Thuma Snyder Johnston, told me this story many years ago and said that she wanted to write it someday. She passed away peacefully on March 30, 2017. She didn’t get a chance to put it into writing, so I’m going to make sure that her