Kyra Moon

 PAUL: Hey, guys! I'm so glad you two could come to this planning meeting. We need some ideas for how to design the entertainment system in the Chrysler Pacifica minivan. DAN: I am so excited to do this, Paul. I love making travel easier for families. PAUL: Thanks, Dan. I've got this new guy here who also has a lot of ideas. I'll let you two get to work! LUC: Hi, Dan. Let's do this! DAN: Okay, so we had a great design for the Chrysler Town and Country. There was DVD drive up front, and as soon as the CD or DVD was in the disc drive, it started playing automatically. If you wanted to skip a track, you could push a button on a screen or even use a button on the steering wheel. I'd love to keep that simple design moving forward. LUC: I don't know if that's what people want anymore, Dan. Everyone and their kid has a device, so all we need is lots of charger ports throughout the car so every kid can sit and watch. DAN: But people still have their old DVDs and CDs...

 There's a new book that's created quite a stir called "Yesteryear." Lots of people have written reviews about it. They've written reviews about the reviews. Basically, it's about a tradwife influencer who goes back in time and discovers that it really stinks. I actually haven't read the book. But that premise alone reminds me of another story that was last modified 6/9/2001 that I found on my external hard drive tonight. It was never given a title, but the filename was called "oldk." I had to use the "k" so my stories wouldn't get confused with Leslie's. Unlike me, she was and is an excellent fiction writer. I on the other hand described my bedroom pretty well. Anyway, with a glowing recommendation like that, I'm sure you will be blown away by this amazing unfinished story. Kyra had a very regular life. She did her chores, watched TV, played computer, and had strange thoughts. Of course, the story has to be about her life b...

 Rock the halls, no more Smoot-Hawley Fa la la la la la la la la Tis the time to end that folly Fa la la la la la la la la Don, we now can buy apparel Fa la la la la la la la la Ruled by judges in a carrel Fa la la la la la la la la

Winter has been a bit of a bust this year, and it's little wonder that coats and snow pants are $5 at Walmart now. A few days ago, I saw snow in the forecast, so I scheduled a ski lesson for Child #2 since he's been asking forever for it. As it turned out, there was no new snow (I probably jinxed it . . . should have washed my car instead) but we went anyway. After a few rounds on the bunny slope, my confidence was at an all-time high, so Child #1 and I went on the ski lift. As we were going up he let me know that Long Mozy was closed so we only had intermediate and advanced options. I had never done anything intermediate before, but I figured I would be fine, especially when I got off the ski lift so gracefully. I soon found out that the snow on the super steep slope was either icy or like frozen croutons, neither of which made it easy for me to figure out switchbacks or a slow enough pizza stance. At one point, I had to basically sled down. It was probably not good for my sno...

 Fact 1: When a toddler is sad, toddler gets to sit on Mom's lap. Fact 2: A toddler who sees another toddler in Mom's lap immediately gets sad. Fact 3: I often end up with two toddlers on my lap

 3yo watching conference: "It's not agency, it's Agent P!" Kid really likes Phineas and Ferb.

 D&C 88:124 teaches "Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful." However, after a few decades of observation, I think I've concluded that it is easier to "cease to be idle" or "cease to find fault one with another" if you "cease to sleep _shorter_ than is needful." I hope that someday a footnote will be added with this correction.

 I count to six fairly often when we're out and about. And I'm guessing the woman who stopped her walk to stare at us for a solid minute was also counting to six in French.  I guess I could have yelled "Cease!" if I wanted her to stop counting.

 This week, my beloved hometown of Providence celebrates Sauerkraut Days. Early German settlers were the first to introduce fermented cabbage to the region, and it has been a long standing tradition for the town to hold a sauerkraut dinner. (My family never went, though we could always smell it for a few days.) A few years ago, a scavenger hunt was introduced to our city's Sauerkraut Days. A clue is given on social media, and a #10 can or 10-gallon bucket is hidden somewhere in town. It's usually at a historical monument, park, or local business. The person who finds the can first gets a certificate which they turn into the city office for a large gift basket. For those who come later, there are still small prizes available in the can such as chapstick, ping pong balls, mini frisbees, and other small toys. There's also a notebook where you can sign your name and the time you got there.  Each year, the competition to be first becomes more and more cutthroat. Most of the time...

 I saith unto my son, "Go, put on thy shorts." The son answered and said, "I have no shorts." I said unto him, Thou hast well said, I have no shorts. For thou hast five shorts, and none of them are folded and in the drawer.

 Wreck the malls with new Smoot-Hawley Falalalalalalalala Tis no season to be jolly Falalalalalalalala Don, we now are in great peril Falalalalalalalalala Trolled us, got us o'er a barrel Falalalalalalalala

 I told my kids they could use a diaper box to make something. So they made a boat, a car, and a couple of swords. You can still see part of the word Pampers on the swords. Isaiah prophesied that swords would be beaten into plowshares. I wonder if he also saw that diaper boxes would be beaten into swords. I am glad that my children are more familiar with diaper boxes than with real swords. I wish that all children had that

 7yo: I'm filling out "All About My Mom." What's your favorite food? Me: What would you guess? 7yo: Something that you make for yourself . . . Something that the rest of us don't like. Honestly, if I'm going to cook something that's not popular with the kids, it's going to be because I really like it. So he's not wrong.

In honor of an epic date (5/5/25) for Cinco de Mayo, here is an epic adventure I had working on a pinata during May almost 25 years ago. We loved making pinatas back then. We would blow up a balloon and cover it in newspaper strips that had been dipped in a flour-water paste. Then, we would let it try, pop the balloon, and decorate it with tissue paper. This time, we were feeling ambitious, so we taped two balloons together to make it duck-shaped, with a smaller balloon as the head and a larger balloon as the body. Then it was time to decorate it. My sister Kaylie and I would hang out in my bedroom at night, alternating between gluing tissue paper on the pinata and applying the glue directly to our fingers and hands. Once the glue was dry, it was so satisfying to pull it off, especially if it came off in one piece. I have always wondered why it took three times as long to decorate this pinata as our normal pinatas, and this is probably why. Then it was time to fill it with candy. There...

My son just finished his last day of the USU preschool lab, and he came home with a family picture we had sent at the start of the semester and which had been laminated. I handed the photo to my baby, and she beamed when she saw our faces. Then she proceeded to put the photo in her mouth. It reminded me of this quote from Maurice Sendak: "Once a little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters — sometimes very hastily — but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, “Dear Jim: I loved your card.” Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, “Jim loved your card so much he ate it.” That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it." I'm glad that's how Baby Girl feels about her family. She saw us, she loved us, she ate us.

Fame isn't good for the human brain, especially the kind of fame that allows thousands of people to voice their opinions about you on social media. There are many recent examples of people who have received an absolutely outrageous response to something fairly benign that they did or said. In order to not completely fall apart in response to the vile criticisms and accusations, the famous often grow thick skins. "If people are going to assume the worst in me, then I'm just not going to care what they think at all!" Tragically, they start engaging in more and more destructive behaviors. And no one can get through to them. Jesus can save us from this tragic spiral. We don't have to pretend that we always make perfect choices, because He makes perfect choices. We don't have to justify our behavior because He has already justified us by paying for our sins. And then, safe in His love, now that we don't have to be perfect, we can be good. 

"Once upon a time, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. Heaven is the place where good people go when they die, but this man, Fred Rogers, didn't want to go to heaven; he wanted to live in heaven, here, now, in this world, and so one day, when he was talking about all the people he had loved in this life, he looked at me and said, "The connections we make in the course of a life—maybe that's what heaven is, Tom. We make so many connections here on earth. Look at us—I've just met you, but I'm investing in who you are and who you will be, and I can't help it."" When I was a kid, I thought Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood was kind of a boring show. But my kids have been watching it a lot lately thanks to DVDs from the library, and it's been growing on me. He wasn't perfect, but he worked hard every day at controlling his temper and choosing kindness. And because of his good choices, our world is a little bit better. ...

Valentine candy is the most extreme of any holiday. On one end there are the gourmet truffles and Neuhaus fruit-infused chocolates that make you question why you eat any other chocolate. On the other end there is Fun Dip.

Everyone knows that sisters argue about wearing each other's clothes, but I hadn't realized I would have similar arguments with my preteen son. We were trying to get out the door to go skiing today, but first we had to make sure we had ski gear that fit. Last year, I had cobbled together an assortment of boots, skis, and poles from DI for cheap, but this year, since he had supposedly outgrown them, I had shelled out the big bucks at the local ski swap to acquire used boots, skis, and poles of similar quality to the DI ones (the boots had duct tape on them). Since we didn't have any gear that fit me, I asked my sister if I could borrow hers for the day. She gladly obliged, and I drove the 5 minutes to her house to get them. Unfortunately, the boots seemed a little small for me. She reassured me that she could get them on, and as I warbled "Sing, Sweet Nightingale," she tried with all her might to squeeze my foot in.  Unfortunately, I was the ugly stepsister who nee...

 She took a deep breath, inhaling the scents of smoke and corn and ink. No one had found them yet. Then the footsteps started. "We know where you are!" a man yelled. Her heart began to pound, and her throat constricted with fear. "Do we run?" her sister asked. "I think we've got to hide," she replied. "But where?" her sister asked, tears forming in her eyes. "Surely they know this corn better than we do." She looked around desperately, wondering where she and her sister could hide. Then she saw it -- a gap in the corn stalks that would fit them both. "In there!" Clutching the papers to their chests, they wedged themselves in the sheaves as far as they could. "Please don't let there be any earwigs," she prayed silently. Footsteps pounded in sync with her heart. "Once we find you, we're going to burn up that Book of Commandments of yours," they said with a sneer. They then cackled and revved their...