Dana Burland

I’m sitting in our living room looking at our walls dotted with paint samples and ALL the snow outside. It almost feels like we never left for a holiday break. We spent four days across the state with family, enjoying Cameron’s first holiday season. We met a brand new friend baby Allison, Ben was hit hard and bounced back from a 24-hour flu and we spent lots of time giggling over Cam’s squawky “talk”, toe sucking and generally happy demeanor. When we returned home we were semi surprised by our own fast and furious painting efforts prior to getting out of town. In a night last week we painted the last two bedrooms so they could fume out while we were out of town. While the front part of the house has paint samples everywhere it was fun to feel the satisfaction that the back part of the house is done and feels like ours. It’s bitterly cold in Grand Rapids this week. The below 0 to mid-teen temps combined with a need for a bit of a gut clean out from holiday food binging inspired me...

Happy, happy holidays! This holiday season can be summed up nicely by what you see, and don’t see, in our holiday photo this year. What you see is a happy family in our new house with our best new addition. Look at that sweet little bald boy playing his “who, me?” role perfectly. He really lets us get away with so many antics. He’s the very best boy. What you don’t see is pure exhaustion on behalf of both these pictured parents from that sweet little (at the time) three month old and from moving into that previously mentioned new house. I had a few other bigger and bolder ideas for our holiday card this year but decided on this set up because man, we just needed a quick and easy win. Usually I break out my cheap tripod, set my phone on a self timer and take our holiday picture myself. This year I had a friend coming to take nice photos of us and I figured she’d have the best luck getting a shot with Cam looking at the cam, so I had her do it. And it worked! Our cute boy l...

How, Buster Brown, are we here already?! I say this every time. I mean it every time. This past month has been so fun. Cam is more vocal, we can tell a lot from his inflection. He’s grabbing, reaching and gaining more hand control as evident by how he can spin some of his spinny toys. His neck strength is A+, he can roll from stomach to back and just this past weekend has added “toes” to the list of things that go straight in his mouth. Ben and I have to carry him like a little balled hedgehog now because he’s got those toes in his hands at all times. Several days ago we got our first BIG belly laugh from him. He grins plenty but he really reserves the big laughs for high humor stuff. We’ve started solid foods and he’s doing great! He’s enjoying looking at Christmas lights, all the snow outside, watching me cook in the kitchen and sitting up right in his little lion chair. He’s just the best boy. The very best boy. Likes BEN. All Ben, all the time. He’ll follow h...

Woo hoo! My brother is a graduated Physical Therapist Assistant! E has been working his tail off this past year (and let's be honest the year before that too) in an ultra intense physical therapy assistant program. He's had homework on top of homework on top of exams and presentations and practicals and clinicals and state wide exams and so many other things I hardly understand. It's been a year's worth of REALLY hard work, sacrifices and insane amounts of patience. I'm super, super, came-dangerously-close-to-crying-at-his-very-quick-and-informal-grad-ceremony proud of him. I know he's found the work he's meant to be doing, and I'm so thrilled for him. Go Uncle E!  

Here’s something I regret not doing in our last house: I didn’t make a house binder. This would have been handy when I couldn’t find the paint color I needed to touch up wall scuffs in Cameron’s room. Or when I called the wrong pest control company because I lost the number to the original place. The former owners of our current house left us a ton of great info--manuals for appliances, business cards for trusted lawn care companies, details of paint colors. The other day I was looking for that paint color by room list and almost couldn’t find it. How stupid would it have been to lose such a helpful list? This is why I house bindered. Currently in our house binder is basic info like the year the house was built/our move in date, neighbor’s names and phone numbers, business cards for people/companies we like, our garbage company’s pick up schedule and of course paint color/finish info. I could see adding other good-to-know stuff like age of appliances, to-do lists by season ...

With a 1.5 month old wrapped to my chest and a baseball hat covering my non-washed hair I walked through a house Ben said we absolutely needed to look at. That house is now our house; the biggest reason being it’s in such great shape it needs no immediate attention from two tired new parents. Howeverrrrr… there are things we want to do around here. We’re in no rush, but here’s what’s on our mind and what’s in progress: The Fixtures We’re slowly replacing all gold door knobs/hinges, light switches, light fixtures and ceiling fans. Ben has one sconce down, two ceiling fans up and hardware on two doors swapped. If you squint in the right direction you can see that modern look we’re aiming for start to take shape. Paint When one is married to an expert painter, why would you not paint all the rooms? We have three paint colors chosen thus far and one room 80% painted. That’s pretty good so far! Demo! The upstairs fireplace is very much not our style. So much so that upon putti...