Dana Burland

We were home AGAIN today! Snowed in while temps sat below 0 just about all day, with a feels like temp in the -20s. 😱 I did my best to keep our toddler busy and having fun. All the time indoors made me think--wow, what a great gift idea for a 1-2 year old it would be to provide a Box Of Fun. Here are some ideas for what could be inside: Rigatoni noodles Yarn Pipe cleaners Empty toilet paper/paper towel rolls Cotton balls Blue painters tape Plastic straws Golf tees A Kleenex box with different sized holes poked in it All that random--and cheep!--stuff would come in super handy to a family who has to spend any extended time inside with a toddler. With that box alone I could have Cam try to thread noodles on yarn or straws, tape up a luge course of paper towel rolls on a wall for him to drop cotton balls down, map out an obstacle course on the carpet for him to follow in painters tape, push golf tees through a Kleenex box and more and more and more. Tomorrow though we...

Right now--DISCLAIMER! DISCLAIMER! KNOCK ON WOOD! CROSS YOUR FINGERS! LAUGH BECAUSE THIS RIGHT NOW MOMENT IS PROBABLY ALREADY OVER AS I TYPE THIS SENTENCE--my toddler is eating like a champ. Before this moment completely passes (because if I’ve learned anything as a parent in 18 months it’s that you only know each moment and then you know NOTHING) here’s what’s worked well in front of our royal highness: Red Bean Quinoa Chili Pizza Beans One-pan Farro with Tomatoes Crockpot Turkey Meatballs Deconstructed Lasagna Green Smoothies Cucumber, spinach, banana, apple, coconut water whirled around in a blender. Serve either in a bowl with a spoon and fourteen adults supervising or in a cup with a lid and a thick straw. I’ve mixed up other concoctions that have also gone over well but this one is fairly consistently a winner because it’s not a strange brown color like some health smoothies can be. Kodiak cakes Pancakes with extra protein and syrup for dipping fingers, I mean pan...

Just about all of Grand Rapids had a snow day today as we got hit with 7 inches of snow, crazy wind and super low road visibility. My little family stayed put all day. I’m so grateful for work from home flexibility and companies that make staying safe a priority over bodies in the office. We had coconut oil crispy, cinnamon sugar, crunchy almond pancakes for breakfast. They. Were. Yum. Throughout the day we split parenting efforts as a 18 month old doesn’t quite make for a respectful coworker. I had the very best day with my little snowman. We colored, did yoga together, played with puzzles, danced, did lots of hide and go seek and best of all got our hands cold and wet in a tub of snow I brought into the kitchen to play with. Tomorrow we’re back to our regularly scheduled program, but this bonus day was sure great.

555 days, three inches of new hair regrowth, almost never chipping toenail polish and regularly home cooked dinners and packed lunches. This is how long I’ve been a mom for. I can track by time but hair coming back from postpartum fall out and self/family care time say much more about where I am a year and a half in. At 18 months things are very predictable--schedules, sleep and behavior (thankfully!). I’m confident at this stage. I can defuse an upset babe, I’m on top of the laundry, he eats most of what I cook for him and I don’t have to accomplish nearly as much one handed while holding him in the other as I was doing months ago. We play music and sing at night together. I poke around Pinterest every few months to see what else I can do to developmentally stimulate him. I’m collecting empty paper towel or toilet paper rolls right now. I stopped following any Your Baby At This Month sites or apps because I’ve found trusting my intuition and problem solving on my own makes me a ...

She's 90! This weekend we celebrated my grandma for her 90th birthday. We rented out a room at an Italian restaurant and gathered up family and friends to celebrate one of the craziest, most energetic, wildest women I know. I baked cupcakes and hung decorations, my sister sent out invites and made a memory book based on photos and stories of everyone who knows Margie. With my brother and our parents we threw a rockin' party. Here's what I contributed to grandma's memory book: My grandma is crazy and energetic--which might not be a great combo for poor grandpa Phil, but it's an excellent combo in a grandma. The best memories were sleeping over at their house and falling asleep in their bed then being carried to the futon; singing our "we're sneaking some popcorn to the movies tonight" song while popping and, you guessed it, sneaking popcorn into the movies in her huge purses; trying on her shoes from her closet and going up north and all in a...

This is my great grandpa Izzy being interviewed by his grandsons in 1989. Grandpa Izzy was born in 1898 in Poland. He lived through World War I, immigrated to the U.S. just in time for The Great Depression, sent two sons off to fight in World War II, lost his remaining family in Poland during the war, met many grand and great grandchildren and lived to be over 100. I remember him. I remember him being at my birthday parties and being warm and fun. I have 2+ hours of video footage of him telling his life story. Not someone guessing at what they heard from him once—HIM telling it. I didn’t know 90% of it. I remember what he looks like. I forgot about his thick Polish accent and high raspy voice. I have this footage forever now. It’s one of the most important things I own—right next to the recordings I just made of life interviews with my grandparents. If you haven’t interviewed the older generations in your family, do it, do it, do it. You’ll see their eyes light up as the...

We're back from what felt like a humorously, so sadly short trip up north. It was just a weekend away, so it was short, but ugh, no one was ready to leave for home today! Friday night we drove up to my aunt's chalet in Harbor Springs. Saturday we had breakfast together, saw the "big" boys (my dad, brother and husband) off for skiing and snowboarding, and then spent the afternoon just me, my mom and C. We ran some errands and shopped in town and sat and caught up drinking coffee under cozy blankets while C napped. Those slow moments with family, I just love 'em. That night we had dinner, showered C with attention, watched football, drink wine, ate dessert and all fell asleep comically early. Sunday was mostly a travel day back to our homes. We made great timing on the road which gave me enough time to do some week ahead prep things, like lunch making. I made one of my favorite veggie/lentil soups in the InstantPot which meant that my hands-on time was abou...

Ben Wallace, the Pistons basketball player, was in our office last year. I saw him! But I kept my cool and spied from a distance, suppressing my urge to tell him even though I have a Rasheed Wallace jersey, I liked him too. I don’t know why he was in our office, but I know he was in town to open a Pistons affiliate team locally--the Grand Rapids Drive. They’ve been playing basketball at the DeltaPlex for a few months now. We hopped over for a game this past Saturday as a something new to do on date night. The DeltaPlex as a venue is just a bummer. It’s removed from the fun of downtown in a tired industrial park area. The building is old, for a venue it’s quite small, and there’s just not much to love about it. But the game was fun! The smaller venue size meant our standard tickets provided really good seats. There was a huge attempt at keeping the crowd hyped--mascots, a dance squad, a halftime show (a high school cheer-leading team), t-shirts being thrown into the crowd, fan gam...

A couple weeks ago a social media friend of mine posted a before/after photo of a dresser she transformed. Not gonna lie, I flipped between the two photos several times and wondered, wait, which was the before? Hey, as long as she likes it, it's her success. We have a new before/after in our basement. I'd like to think it's clear what's before and what's after, though, of course, everyone has different tastes. Pardon the black TV stand that we placed in there You'll have to forgive my amateur photography skills, the lighting is not totally accurate. In person the cabinet color is not as dark, not as dull. Just trust me on this one. It was a total can't-go-back-now risk to paint the wood, another risk to paint it dark. Everything else in the basement is now bright light gray, white, or beige though. THIS is where I wanted your eye to go when you walked downstairs. Not to the fireplace or office area , not to the Murphy bed . Here. ...

The last time I was in my hometown for over a week was the summer of 2008. I was 21, had a very similar haircut as I do now and stayed with my parents at the same condo they’re at now. I graduated from high school, and a life of living in the same area, three years earlier. It was home. That was 10 years ago, back when I thought bangs were a good idea, before I met my husband--or even knew he was growing up 15 minutes away from me. My high school and elementary school were both still standing (neither are now). I was pretty into Superman shots, a garbage-filled shot glass that went down like rainbow Superman ice cream. This year I took off between Christmas and New Years and spent all of it in my hometown. For the first time in 10 years I was at home for over a week, 11 days split between my parents and parent-in-laws with C. I’m 31. I know I don’t have the patience for bangs. My Nissan picks up from a red light way nicer than my old Saturn. I’m married. I drive past the landma...

Normally I write a year end blog post, recapping each month. I've done it for eight years (eight!) starting when I graduated from college . Oy. Welp, as I say fairly often these days, mamas tired , and I just don't feel like all that work just in the name of tradition. Instead, here's a short recap of the year and what we did to ring in the new one. One of my favorite moments from 2018 was a late November night at dinner with my family. C started waving his arms, pointing and making sounds. Everyone joined in unison, without discussion, repeating his motions and sounds. His face was lit up with excitement, pride and curiosity. It was simple and silly. It reminded me the best parts of childhood are just that: simple and silly. One of the best parts of parenting is seeing our friends and family all-in embrace those moments, him and us. Ugh. Is someone cutting onions in here again? This year for New Years Eve we left C with Grammy and Grandpa to spend the night with ...

And here we are, the last weekend of the year. Ours was spent running around seeing family, chasing a teething toddler, catching up with friends and in such a general (good) whirlwind it feels hard to accurately recap. So I won't. Last January I thought doing weekend recaps would keep me blogging (it did). But it also felt forced when I didn't have much to say. Friends said they liked the recaps anyway, it helped connect them to what was going on with us, and that's so great. In 2019, I won't recap every weekend, but I will do some, and some other stuff. And I hope it keeps that connected feeling.