One brisk morning in fall, when the leaves fell from the trees and the wind rattled the windows, my daughter woke with a persistent cough and fever. The kind that makes you pause your list of to-do’s and just be. I soon filled the bathtub and sat beside it, reading her story after story. Because…
On a warm Saturday afternoon, our ten-year old neighbor from Italy stopped by. He’s lived in our community for several years, and I often enjoy chatting with him. He and the rest of the neighborhood gang were taking a break from playing soccer to have an impromptu picnic. One kid brought strawberries, another grapes. My…
Whenever we’ve looked for a new house, a big yard for my children always remains on my list of “non-negotiables.” Both my husband and I grew up with not only large yards but access to the forest without any houses in sight the moment we stepped out of the back door. This gave both of…
“This isn’t one of those boring art classes,” my ten-year-old daughter says, carving a thin pink ribbon from her block without looking up at me. “Not the kind where we don’t have art parties. Should I make a chart, and when you do good, I give you a star, and when there are enough stars,…
My sons and I are learning to whittle. With careful hands and practiced movements we’re each shaving off slivers of basswood to turn our blocks into forms that hopefully look like mushrooms. The first slivers had barely hit our living room floor before a dozen wood creations were crafted in our minds. “I want to…
While a friend and I watched our children playing on the playground, she confided to me, “The only thing I buy for myself is picture frames these days.” We had a comfortable chuckle, and I thought about all the frames hugging the photos in my house: big and small; decorative silver swirls and plain wood;…
I came across something I wrote five years ago on Valentine’s Day that included this gem of a conversation between then seven-year-old Bridger and five-year-old Landon: “Is God married?” Bridger wondered with a giggle. He considered this a very funny and bold kind of question. But it didn’t faze his brother. Landon leaned back, put…
“Don’t worry, he’s the main character so nothing bad will happen to him,” my seven-year-old assures my five-year-old with a matter-of-factness that only a young child can muster. The author reinforces his belief, guiding the protagonist through every battle and hardship with ease. Do bad things happen to good characters? Do heroes ever fail their…
“Do you have any more questions about heaven before I turn the music on?” One child piped in, “No, I just can’t wait to get there.” Another added, “Me either. I can’t wait!” Driving out of our neighborhood and into our day, my children began our trip with questions about the return of Christ and…
One of the questions I’m asked the most about my books has to do, naturally, with inspiration. “You must have loved stories about the Old West and devoured books like Tom Sawyer and by authors like Louis L’Amour,” the inquiry goes. And the truth is, well, not really. Don’t get me wrong. I loved the…
Last fall my boys and I made an early morning run to the dollar store to buy 21 balloons. We ended up standing behind the counter helping the lone, frazzled worker with our unusual order. One cut the string, one tied the string, two held our growing bunch of brightly colored balloons. When we got…
We pulled a plastic case from the fireplace mantle, our special home for three Monarch butterfly eggs we’d received from a friend. The pencil-tip sized eggs stuck to each milkweed leaf, the Monarch mother’s way of keeping her babies out of harm’s way. We studied each one, all of us wondering how we might…
