If you haven't seen it yet, I'm going on a pilgrimage to England with Fr. Tim Grumbach! Our friends at Select International Tours have planned the whole thing, and I worked with them to pick the BEST of the best stops for the ultimate Catholic trip.I would love for...
Come to England with me!
You read that right! I’m going on a pilgrimage to England and I’d love to have you join me! View this post on Instagram A post shared by Kendra Tierney (@kendra_tierney) Sign up to join me here! We’ll be spending time in London, visiting the sites of St. Thomas More’s...
CAY Mailbag: Parenting Three-Year-Olds
(question edited for clarity) Hi! I have to ask a parenting question. With our oldest, after reading a few of your blogs, we did time-outs. The "two’s" were a breeze! However, he (and now our second child who is almost 3), went through a challenging stage at age...
How To Start Liturgical Living in the Home (with help from me in 2008)
Health update: Not much to report. Treatments are progressing. We are awaiting test results. We are all in good spirits. Your prayers are SO appreciated. God's will be done. In case you prefer watching/listening to reading . . . this post is also available as a video....
Our Catholic Morning Prayer Routine with Kids
Hey all! Father's Day is coming up soon, and I wanted to share some Catholic Dad Gift Sets we've put together for you guys, along with some free printables and our family favorite movies for the day. You'll find those at the bottom of the post. Note: Since drafting...
Big Families and Sick Kids: Catholic All Year Mailbag Is Back!
Dear Kendra, First, thank you for your blog. I've been reading it for a while now and it's been a big help [to] me as a convert of a few years ago . . . . I wanted to ask how you guys handle sick kids, as we move into our umpteenth minor illness of the year so far. I...
A Christmas Family Movie Night
In our quest to give Advent and Christmas distinctly different characters, we have a strict family policy of not watching Christmas movies during Advent. Then, once Christmas comes, we watch a different family Christmas movie together for each of the “twelve days of...
Being Open to Life Is Being Open to a Person
More from the Catholic All Year mailbag today . . . Question: Dear Kendra, I have followed you for over a year now and it has been wonderful adding more liturgical traditions to our year! I'm pregnant and it's a big shock. We have always been generally open to life,...
How to Encourage Your Kids to Get Tattoos (based on my personal experience)
Hey, it's been a while since we took a peek in the mailbag around here . . . let's see what we've got. QUESTION Hi Kendra, Thank you for all that you do. I enjoy reading your blog. The articles are thoughtfully written and also very helpful. If you are able, I would...
Kids & Tech: What We Do and Why We Mostly Don’t
I’ve received many reader questions on this topic over the years, and just discussed them again this week in a Q&A session after an online talk I gave to a parent group, so I figured it would be a good time to go ahead and get it in a post. Updates on The Catholic...
St. Nicholas Catholic Book Stack
Hey, you ever announce you're going to start blogging again and then behind the scenes stuff goes sideways and then your dad has a stroke and you spend the beginning of Advent dealing with hospitals for the second year in a row, but this time it's 2020 so you can't...
Chapter Books for Perspective and/or Inspiration for All Ages in Times of Trouble and Isolation
Number one requested post when all of this Coronavirus stuff started going down was how to homeschool all of a sudden, so I wrote this. Second was what to do about Mass when there are no public Masses, so I wrote this. And now, third most requested is book...
George Washington’s Rules for Mannerly Cell Phone Use in Company and Around One’s Children
People seem to believe that cell phone use is this new, unprecedented behavior about which there are no established customs that could govern our conduct. George Washington and I beg to differ. The technology might be different, but human desires remain pretty...
When to Expel Your Kid From Homeschool: Circles of Influence and Homeschool vs Regular School
I currently have four kids in "regular" school, three in homeschool (and three not-yet-school-age), so I often get asked why we transition our kids out of homeschooling, and how we make the decision when to do that. This post is my answer to that question. <note:...
The Ultimate Liturgical Library Post: Saint Books for All Year Long
YOU ASKED FOR IT! This is probably my most requested not-yet-posted post ever. So here it is: Every single read aloud we use on saints' days all year long! (This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through those links, I receive a small commission,...
Being Weird Catholics: Seven Ways We Help Our Family Believe in the Real Presence
You've probably heard about the troubling study recently released by the Pew Research Center, stating that only one-third of self-professed Catholics believe in the Catholic Church's teaching that the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ, and nearly half...
Family Movie Nights, Are They Even Possible? . . . Our Favorite Movies (Mostly) Appropriate for All Ages
Just a reminder: The August Prayer Booklet is available in the CAY Marketplace as a print-at-home PDF, and here as a paperback booklet. The first devotion for the month is Our Lady, Queen of Angels and the very cool associated Portiuncula Indulgence of St. Francis of...
A Shortage of Perfect (Chicken) Breasts: Another Princess Bride Birthday Party (with free food tag printables!)
Summer birthday season is happening around here. I've shared some of these photos on social media, but since not everyone is on there, I figured I'd get them on the blog here too. And since the Princess Bride Quote food pun food tags proved pretty popular with you...
Some Thoughts on Scandal (NOT the TV show, as I have at least temporarily learned my lesson)*
It's July! Get this month's booklet of prayers and devotions here as a print-at-home pdf or here as a paperback booklet. The July installment of the Catholic All Year Liturgical Living Show is ready to go, I just need to get it captioned and write a post for it, so it...
Bonfires, Blessings, and Building Community (also eating actual locusts) for the Feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist
The June Catholic All Year Liturgical Living Show is here! The feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist isn't until June 24th (the eve is June 23rd), but I wanted to give you plenty of time on this one, because I'm really hoping some of you are going to want to...
Our One Parenting Rule for a Less Hectic Home
The husband and I were invited to give a parenting talk at our older kids' school last week. We LOVE this school, and just had to say yes. It was a good time, although I will say that it was a different experience than my usual public speaking, as we were giving a...
Changing the World One Casserole at a Time
I don’t want to fall into hyperbole, but the apostolate of bringing a meal really and honestly changed the way I see the world. It changed my heart when it happened to me, and practicing it for others is something that brings me great joy. While I was expecting my...
Feeling Grateful . . . Anyway
New prayer booklets for April, and other new printables for Easter and the sacraments are up in the shop, details at the bottom of the post, or see here. If you're new around here, you can get up to speed on this particular issue here. And the recent, not so great...
Moms of Difficult Toddlers, Rejoice: Catholic Stuff Saturday
It's been a very busy week and is going to be an even busier weekend, but I wanted to pop in here to share some thoughts that really resonated with some of you already, and this week's very excellent Catholic Stuff giveaway. From a social media post . . . Mothers of...
What to Do When They Won’t Stay in Bed
It's been an AGE since we dug something out of the old mailbag. Let's take a peek, shall we? The Question: Hello Kendra, I know you are very busy but I have a few questions from something on your blog. You said the kids can’t get out of bed during nap, how do you...
My Books are in Purgatory, or: a Journey in GIFs. Check Out THESE Books Instead?
Update: the books are back in stock on Amazon! MY SUPERHERO PRAYER BOOKMY FAIRY-TALE PRAYER BOOKMY WOODLAND PRAYER BOOK Well, that book launch didn't go exactly according to plan. I was going to wait to publish this post until I could tell you the books were available...
How to do Santa Without Lying to Your Kids
This is the time of year I start getting emails and Facebook messages from parents who are trying to decide how to handle the cultural traditions surrounding Christmas, and how to balance them with their Catholic faith. There is genuinely a lot of worry that they'll...
How We Discuss Imperfect Heroes with Kids
Happy Columbus Day! This is not a feast of the Catholic Church, of course, but it's a national celebration (at least it WAS a celebration, now it's more like one-more-excuse-to-be-mad-on-Facebook) of a Catholic person with admirable qualities and great failings, both....
Don't We Have This Modesty Thing Backwards?
I tend to get mailbag questions in bunches. All of a sudden, I'll get a flurry of questions on similar topics. Maybe it's Facebook? Maybe it's some sort of hive-mind phenomenon? But there you have it. It's a thing. The most recent wave was on kids and modesty. And the...
The Problem With Every Movie From My Youth: and ten family movies that won't teach your kids to swear like a sailor
Ahhh . . . movie night. It's one of the most beloved parts of our family routine. Our kids don't watch a whole lot of TV, but we do plan on watching a movie together as a family just about every week. We started off watching mostly Disney animated movies, but as the...