The people we love the most are the ones who know us the best. They know our flaws just as well as they know our strengths. They’ve seen us at our worst and they’ve forgiven us for it. Yet the holidays together can still be a time of…

Let me just start by admitting: I’m writing this to help all of us, myself included. The holiday season – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s – can get a bit out of hand and out of budget sometimes. It can be tempting to get caught up in…

We’ve all got our temperaments and our children do too. It easy to pick out which of my children is the heart-on-her-sleeve mini-me of her father and which one is the spitting absent-minded image of myself. But our children don’t just get…

The Joneses — that family down the street or (nowadays) on Facebook who always have the best of everything. As the outsider looking in, it seems like life is amazing for them. Maybe it’s the car that never breaks down or the house that’s…

June is a big month for weddings. For those of us planning to marry or are already married to non-Catholic spouses, the journey often ends up more difficult than we could have imagined. Once upon a time, Catholics were usually expected to…

Unfortunately, unplanned pregnancies are often seen in a negative light in society. For those of us who face them while married and in good health and financial status, an unplanned pregnancy might add a few months of unplanned stress to…

It’s that time of year again. Time to make a list of resolutions for the new year and forget about them before the month of January comes to an end. Or at least that’s how it usually goes for me. No matter what your resolutions are, if you…

The countdown to Christmas is likely the most exciting time of year for Christian children. Each family has Advent traditions of their own including Advent wreaths, Advent calendars, Jesse trees, and Christmas trees that help build the…