Joseph and Julianna Burdon know all about that. Kids need food. Clothes. Furniture, for cryin’ out loud. And when teen son, Daniel, starts thinking about college? Well, might as well lop off an arm and leg and try to sell them on the secondary limbs market.

Joseph loves his family, and he does his best to provide for them. Why, he’s working on an account that just might move the family financial ledger in the right direction. More than that, he believes passionately in what he’s developing: a campaign to support the National Association of Firefighters. Joseph’s father had been a firefighter for decades. So for Joseph, this campaign is important on a host of levels. In a way, it’s about family.

And if that means ignoring his own family members for a few days—or weeks, or maybe months—well, that’s the price a dad must pay right?

No, wife Julianna says. She’s had it up to her eyeballs with Joseph’s job. It’s not like she doesn’t appreciate his work ethic. She knows that on some level, he’s doing it for her and the kids. But fatherhood’s about more than putting meat on the table: It’s about meeting your wife and kids at that table. It’s about going to soccer games and school plays. It’s about going fishing and taking long walks filled with conversation.

And it’s especially about engaging in a small family reunion with Joseph’s mom and dad on the family ranch. It’s especially about spending Easter weekend with each other—particularly when it might be the last Easter they ever have together.

Joseph’s dad, known as Poppa to the grandkids, sick. While no one talks about it much, Joseph and Julianna know he might not have much time left. To spend one last glorious Easter weekend together—boating, fishing, maybe playing a game or two of charades—that’s what’s important, Julianna believes. This is time the family won’t ever get back. The job can wait.

Yeah, yeah, Joseph says. But he’s on the home stretch with this all-important project. He’ll just work a few more hours Easter weekend. Just a few more phone calls. A few more finishing touches on his presentation, scheduled for … Saturday.

The same Saturday that Poppa was going to take the boat on the lake with everyone—maybe for the last time.

Joseph could use a little help with his priorities. Everyone else in the family sees that clearly. But how can they help him see it for himself?

Maybe a little book that Poppa wrote can help—one about a man who always had His priorities straight. Poppa called it Forty-Seven Days With Jesus, and Joseph loved hearing it when he was young. Maybe it’s time that Joseph passed the story onto his own kids. Maybe it’s time he internalized the story’s deeper messages himself.

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You’ve got Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Animal, Rowlf and, of course, Kermit the Frog. They, alongside plenty of others, are famous names in households all across the world.

But every story has its beginning. And Kermit is ready to share it: the story of how the Muppets—approximately—got started.

You see, Kermit wasn’t always the green movie star you know him as today. At one point, he was content simply to play his banjo in his Floridian swamp. But when he hears about an offer of fame in Hollywood that’d give him the opportunity to make millions of people happy, well, he’s as tickled pink as any green frog could be.

Along the way, he meets many others looking to find fame in Hollywood, too, including plenty of the aforementioned names so familiar with us all.

But he also meets a dastardly villain, too: Doc Hopper, a Col. Sanders-like man who’d like Kermit to be the spokesman for his fried frog legs restaurant chain. And let’s just say that he’s got the deep fryers already sizzling in the event that Kermit declines the offer.

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“Every adventure has perils and pitfalls,” Helen Smallbone tells her six children and husband, David, as they huddle on the faded carpet of their “modest” new rental home in Nashville, Tennessee.

Indeed.

Adventure is one word to describe what’s happened to the Smallbone family. And a bravely charitable word at that. Others might have looked at the family’s dire surroundings and desperate situation and chosen another, arguably more honest word: nightmare.

Not long before, Helen’s entrepreneurial husband, David, had been on top of the world. The CCM market was booming in early 1990s, and the Australian Christan concert promoter seemingly could do no wrong, promoting hugely popular bands such as Stryper, for instance.

Life was good for David and Helen and their six kiddos, as they enjoyed a lavish home with a pool table in the living room and a pool to swim in out back. And now, David has the opportunity of a lifetime: overseeing and promoting Amy Grant’s forthcoming concert tour down under. Sure, it will take a lot of money. More than a million dollars, actually, to pull it off. But that figure likely pales compared to the windfall David hopes to bring in.

Helen’s not so sure. “It’s just a lot of money,” she tells her husband. “I feel like we’re putting our lives on the line.”

She continues: “And it’s not just the finances. The kids miss you. I miss you.”

“It’s a two-week tour,” David says as he loads up the contract on the fax machine. Two weeks that, David hopes, will change everything for the Smallbones.

And so they do.

When a recession decimates concert attendance, David’s on the hook for a half-million-dollar shortfall.

“Helen, I’m sorry. No one anticipated this economy. We’re going to lose everything.”

David feels he has no choice but to uproot his family and move to the epicenter of the Christian music industry: Nashville.

Nothing—not one single thing—goes as planned. But in the end, the Smallbone family bands together to trust God, to love one another and to cling to hope that maybe, just maybe, there’s an adventure unfolding that’s bigger than they could have dreamed.

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Garfield thinks his life is pretty good. He was adopted off the street by Jon when he was just a kitten. Shortly after that, Jon also took in Odie, Garfield’s ever-loyal canine sidekick. And the trio has been living in suburban bliss ever since.

But then, on a dark and stormy night, Garfield and Odie are kidnapped. They’re used as bait by a street cat named Jinx to lure Garfield’s wayward dad, Vic, out of hiding.

Turns out that before Garfield came into the picture, Vic and Jinx used to run in the same crew—before Vic abandoned Jinx during a heist, allowing her to get sent to the pound.

Jinx says she doesn’t want revenge, just compensation—one quart of milk for every day she was stuck behind bars. And she’s giving Vic 72 hours to make good … or else.

Garfield doesn’t want anything to do with Vic. As far as he’s concerned, the guy abandoned him, only to show up years later and pull him into a life of crime.

Unfortunately, Jinx’s threat extends to Garfield and Odie as well. So the father and son will have to put aside their differences and learn to work together … or else.

Man, this sure is starting to feel like a Monday.

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The man has a yurt, a pool and much more set up to “survive” in the wild. He proudly—and loudly–proclaims that what he’s got may just be enough to make all eight million of his subscribers come join him in the fun.

But this guy alone is bad enough, Woody thinks. He couldn’t stand eight million more. And so, with surprising finesse, Woody destroys the man’s setup in explosive fashion. But as the wily woodpecker soon finds out, the local park ranger isn’t too pleased with Woody’s shenanigans.

“Those chuckleheads got what they deserved,” Woody protests. “We can’t let loud and annoying creatures who only care about themselves ruin our forest, can we?”

Ranger Walters gives Woody a dry response. “No, we cannot.”

But the ranger argues Woody’s more of a nuisance than that influencer ever could have been. And until Woody can learn that the forest is for more creatures than just him, he’s officially kicked out.

Well, Woody has no idea how he’ll prove to Ranger Walters that he’s a team player. But a nearby camp, Camp Woo Hoo (complete with a “Dedicated to Teamwork” tagline) just might be the solution to his problem: Campers obtain teamwork badges at the end of the season. So Woody figures that’ll be the perfect certification to prove he should be welcomed back into the woods.

But as those campers soon discover, Woody really isn’t a team player. In fact, he’s such a nuisance that his actions threaten to get the camp shut down for good. What’s more, another outsider is all-the-happier to help close the camp for his own nefarious plans. And unless Woody can get his act together, well, both the camp and that coveted badge may be gone for good.

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Twelve-year-old Bea is having a tough go of things. You see, she lost her mom when she was little, and now her dad is sick, too. And he has to have an operation at the same New York City hospital that Bea’s mom was in.

It’s good that Bea’s grandmother lives nearby, so Bea can stay with her. But the tween is finding life difficult right now.

Don’t get me wrong, Dad is still playful and full of jokes, like usual. He’s trying to keep things light and help Bea find fun in life’s tricky moments. But Bea can’t help but stop and tell him, “Sometimes, life doesn’t have to be fun.”

Dad agrees, with an assuring smile and a warm hug. He tells her to go on out and “explore her own story” while she’s here. Figure out how everything fits. But he tells her … to have a little fun, too.

Then something unexpected happens.

After returning to her grandmother’s apartment, Bea spots an odd little figure fliting in and around the building’s shadows. At first, she thinks it’s a young girl. But when getting closer, she realizes this person looks like a 1930s cartoon version of an anthropomorphized butterfly.

Hmmm. How very strange.

Bea secretly follows the creature back to the apartment of a man named Cal. And after forcing him to talk to her, Bea finds out that the amazing-looking character, called Blossom, is none other than an “IF”: an Imaginary Friend.

You see, imaginary friends are often left behind, Cal tells the girl. They help their young human pals through tough times, but then the kids tend to forget all about them once they grow up.

Cal has the ability to see all the left behind imaginary friends in the world. Just as Bea apparently can. And after Cal shows Bea to a retirement home full of bizarre and wonderful IFs, she is ready to lend a hand.

Bea determines to spend her time at grandmother’s helping Cal find new homes for the lonely IFs. And maybe they’ll reconnect some IFs with their now grown-up kids, too.

What Bea doesn’t realize, however, is that there might be a big part of her own story that she’s about to connect with as well.

The post IF appeared first on Plugged In.

But as Thelma, Otis and Reggie step out to perform for the Sparklepalooza talent search, they don’t even get a note out before one judge tells them to move along.

“Look, babe, you just don’t have ‘it,’” the judge says.

She can tell just by appearance that the Rusty Buckets would never make it to stardom. Thelma’s a “forgettable farm pony.” Otis is a donkey; and Reggie, a llama. None of them have the “look” needed to achieve their dreams. So the judges don’t even bother listening to the band play.

It hits Thelma pretty hard. She mopes around the farmstead, imagining just how different her life could’ve been had she been born some fantastical creature—like a unicorn. She sticks a carrot on her forehead to roleplay the dream.

And that’s when a careless truck driver careens down the nearby road, spilling his hyper-specific cargo of pink paint and glitter all over Thelma as he passes. And when Thelma looks at her reflection in a puddle, she’s shocked at just how closely she resembles …

“I’m a unicorn! It’ll be like the old me never existed!”

People take notice, too. After all, most people know unicorns aren’t real. A crowd gathers to ask all the unicorn questions they can think of. And when asked if she can do anything magical, Thelma decides to sing.

But this time, people listen. They cheer. They ask for her autograph. They spread her image across social media and cable news. In less than a day, Thelma has a massive following.

Otis protests. “You’re just gonna let people think you’re a real unicorn now?”

If the unicorn façade is the only way Thelma and her band can get famous, then, yes, yes she will.

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Dawson Gage has loved London Quinn, well, practically forever.

But London—effervescent, free-spirited London—has never requited her “best friend’s” plain-for-all-to-see adoration of her.

Until, maybe, the night she realizes that maybe her lifelong best friend could be more than that. A lingering look, a handhold on the way to ice cream, a sweet smile as she gets out of Dawson’s car and starts across the street.

London never saw the truck. And the driver didn’t see her.

It’s hard to say whose heart is rent more by London’s terrible, senseless death, Dawson or London’s parents, Larry and Louise.

Tears, mourning and the bittersweet possibilities of what could have been haunt them all. The loss is amplified by the fact that London had been set to donate a kidney to Louise, who is slowly succumbing to a kidney disease that will eventually claim her, too, if no donor steps forward.

In the days that follow, a secret slips out. “We should have told her,” Louise tells her husband and Dawson.

“Told her what?” Dawson asks.

London, it turns out, was an in vitro baby.

And there was another embryo. One that Larry and Louise donated to a fertility doctor they knew, agreeing never to seek information about what happened to it.

But Dawson never made such an agreement. And, driven by his own grief and curiosity, he’s determined to find out what happened to this other embryo, this other person—London’s long-lost sibling.

It doesn’t take long. Her name is Andi Allen.

And she looks a lot like London Quinn.

The post Someone Like You appeared first on Plugged In.

But then, out of the, uh, blue, he completely changed.

Megamind decided to become a hero. In so doing, he gained accolades from the cheering masses. He won the girl (otherwise known as intrepid reporter Roxanne Ritchi.) And he realized that saving the innocent was a lot more pleasant than smashing them. (And less clean up, too.)

Hey, he even earned his own fan club. Well, at least he thinks there’s a whole club. He’s really only met the middle school-attending, constantly streaming head of the club, Keiko. But this kid has, like, 500,000 followers and comprehends all that social media stuff that Megamind could never really wrap his ginormous brain around.

So, it was all good. But … then it wasn’t.

The troubles started when his minion (renamed Old Chum due to, ahem, copyright issues) went his own way. Old Chum just felt a bit underappreciated. He figured he should at least be promoted to sidekick.

Then, on top of that, Megamind’s former team of baddies, the Doom Syndicate, has escaped from prison. There’s Lady Doppler, the evil witch of weather. Pierre Pressure, the master of hypnotism. Behemoth, the burning hunk of burning rock. And Lord Nighty-Knight, the master of nightmares. (OK, that last guy is still working on a properly scary, dark name. But you get the gist.)

They’ve all come looking for Megamind, expecting him to be every bit as eeee-villle as they remember. They expect him to have completed Phase Two of his diabolically wicked masterplan.

And that is a problem.

I mean, if he tells them to leave, they’ll surely ask why. And if he tells them why, they’ll get mad. And the first thing villains do when they get mad is break things. And the first thing they’ll break is him. And he is his favorite thing in the whole world!

So, what’s a bad Megamind turned good Megamind supposed to do?!

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When Bagheera the panther found the human baby boy amidst the wreckage of a boat, he wasn’t sure what to do. But he couldn’t help but feel a bit of love for the child, and against his instinct, he gave the kid, Mowgli, to a friendly wolf family to raise. All was well in the jungle once more.

But while most jungle creatures—generally wary of humans—were willing to make an exception for Mowgli, not so with Shere Khan, the tiger. Shere Khan’s terrified of fire, and were it not in the possession of man, he’d wipe them all out—alongside any animal who tries to protect them.

So when the ferocious beast returns to prowl on Mowgli’s side of the jungle, the wolf pack tells Mowgli’s adoptive parents that the child is too much of a risk for them. In an effort to keep the boy safe, Bagheera offers to take Mowgli to a nearby “man village,” only a few days away.

But Mowgli likes the jungle, and he doesn’t want to leave. And he’s quick to gain the support of Baloo, a laid-back “jungle bum” bear who thinks that sending Mowgli to live with the other humans will ruin the boy.

Well, Baloo tries to teach the boy all he knows, and Mowgli would content to live with the “Bare Necessities” of life with Baloo for the rest of his days.

But no amount of back scratching and banana eating will stop Shere Khan from pouncing as soon as he finds Mowgli.

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