My dad started a new job in Connecticut in 1979, and he and my mom moved their little family to a Cape Cod cottage, a couple of blocks from Lordship’s Russian Beach. I was four, and I doubt they knew it at the time, but they had picked the perfect place for children to grow [...]

Have you noticed the beautiful new banner that appeared as soon as our summer issue came online? I keep wondering what the girl in the painting is reading; is it a large-print copy of the scriptures, or the newest issue of Domino?
The genius behind that beautiful painting is Sharon Furner, a Maryland artist whose work [...]

Next week, my son Isaac will turn four. A week later, we’ll celebrate a first anniversary. The first anniversary of when Isaac got sick. He woke up that morning perfectly healthy, and by late afternoon, he couldn’t walk. When I took him into the doctor the next afternoon (thinking the whole time that he probably [...]

In the house where I grew up, when Mom wasn’t happy, people knew about it. I’d shrink down in my chair when she’d tell restaurant servers that they were too slow. When we had problems at school, she always had our backs. I had a neighbor who lived across the street who got her jollies [...]

Because every baby needs a pair of legwarmers, or three…
This auction item is for three pairs of baby legwarmers, similar to those sold here. You specify if you want them for a boy, a girl or some of both, and if you have any general preferences for style and color. Then I’ll scour the stores [...]

While I was gone on vacation last week, my husband decided to organize the filing cabinet in our study. He pulled out everything in all of the drawers and put them in piles on the computer desk and the surrounding floor. Then he quit. That was six days ago. I have a bad habit of [...]

Last year at this time, I was in a frenzy. My dad’s parents were a month away from celebrating their sixtieth anniversary, and my grandma wanted to have a big party. A really BIG party. She decided it would be fun to have the shindig at a little place about an hour down the road [...]

My kids and I recently got back from a long driving trip. A very long driving trip. We visited eleven states, five zoos, and put more than 3,000 miles on our minivan. Even though I’d be lying if I said the whole thing was fun (the 20-hour death-march from Minnesota to Texas on the last [...]

All across the country families will recognize their fathers, grandfathers, husbands and father figures this Sunday. At our house, we’ll probably have some kind of a nice dessert, grill some steaks, and open a present or two once Eddie gets home from work. This year, Father’s Day isn’t the focus of our weekend, because our [...]

Shelah is a SAHM to four kids (ages 8 to 1) who loves reading, running and chronicling her life in the blogosphere (she also writes here and here). She joined the church as a teenager in Connecticut, and attended BYU from 1993-1997, when she graduated with a degree in English Teaching. She completed a MA [...]