Dana Daily

I generally work at home on Wednesdays, but I needed to be in the office today. It was also a long day for Sal. We have a date night planned for this Saturday, but neither of us felt like cooking. We headed to Eat-n-Park for a quick dinner with Seth. The traditional gift for third anniversaries is leather so I bought Sal a card with our initials engraved in leather hearts on the front. I also found him a leather steering wheel cover with the Indians logo on it. He gave me a black and white Mickey and Minnie card with the most perfect message inside. He also gave me one of our wedding pictures engraved in leather and framed. It's so cool. Sal is truly is an awesome husband, a wonderful stepfather and role model, and a great daddy. We have our little moments, like every couple, but I wouldn't hesitate to do it all over and there's no one else I'd rather be "doing life" with. I can't wait for the rest of our forever.

When I was a kid we had set routines for each one, which was great, but over the years times changed and it was really difficult to break from tradition. For example, every year my maternal grandparents hosted Thanksgiving so we would drive to their farmhouse for the quintessential Thanksgiving experience. When my grandfather passed in 1997, it left me reeling. I felt like the holidays would never be the same, and in reality that was true. They haven't been the same since, and it took a long time for me to find the joy in Thanksgiving again. I put a good show and pretended we were moving on, but I still longed for the Thanksgiving of my childhood. After over-thinking and reflecting on the holidays, I decided our Thanksgivings wouldn't be the same year after year. I want to change them up, do different things, celebrate different places, etc so that my children don't fall into the "holidays are ruined because they're not the same anymore" trap. This is why ...

I really hate to cook and bake, and spend time in my kitchen in general. It's just not my thing and I get Sal to do as much of it as possible. It's something I want to like, I just don't. That said, I come from a long line of women who, at the bare minimum, actually like to cook so I know more about it than I should. The recipe I found said that using an immersion blender would give the cranberries a smooth texture, and that's what I want. I'm not into chunks :-) Lucky for me, Target had small appliances on sale for 20% off so I bought one. This is weird too. As much as I hate spending time in the kitchen, I love kitchen gadgets. I actually use my steamer, a mini food processor, and now my immersion blender pretty regularly. Anyway, we bought fresh cranberries at Shop N Save and I went to town making the cranberry sauce. It was as easy as I had hoped, and Seth and I loved watching the cranberries pop, although at first he thought it was pop-porn (popcorn). W...

Remember that stomach bug from hell Seth had last month? Well, Sarah came down with it Sunday. In the middle of the afternoon she ran into the bathroom to throw up. With her though I wasn't sure if it was maybe just related to her sinus issues, but when she got sick again later in the evening, I knew that it wasn't. Sure enough, Monday she was feeling fine, but knowing what we were up against I kept her home from school. Her dad texted me this morning and said she had been vomiting for three hours already. I told him I was sure she was at the tail-end of it, but that it's a bad one. She did recover more easily than Seth had and didn't require a trip to Children's. I'm thinking it's going to be one hell of a winter.

Sal and I had a few errands to run this morning, and we were able to get everything done before church at noon. Our first stop was a quick trip to Target, but then we decided to run to Borics next door and get Seth a big boy haircut. He used to have beautiful curls, but a few haircuts ago those were all cut and now he just had straggly waves. It was time for a big boy cut. The stylist kept his hair longish on top and razored the sides. He looks so grown up now. It's next to impossible to take pictures of him because he runs toward the camera, but here's one I snagged. The weather was nice enough this evening that we took a walk around the neighborhood before dinner. Our neighbors across the street put up their Christmas decorations already, so I made it a point to bust out our new inflatable turkey. I always swore I'd never do inflatables, but we've gone to the dark side. Seth loves it so that makes it worth it.

With Seth's having one illness after another this month, my plan was to keep him inside and let the girls do the trick-or-treating. However, Sal was having none of this. So, yesterday, the day before Halloween, we hit three different stories before finding a Mickey costume at Toys R Us at 75% off. This darling costumer was only $8.75, and I had a gift card. A total score. Seth met "MiMi" this past summer when we went to Disney and instantly recognized the costume. The girls costumes were purchased online weeks ago. Sarah had been talking about being a witch since last Halloween, and Emmy was sold on something with a tutu. I did not try Seth's costume on prior to trick-or-treat so he had no idea what was going on or why. He was fine with it until I put the hood one. He freaked. However, he soon got over it when he realized he was outside and going to go for a walk. This little guy walked for over 1.5 hours collecting goodies and treats from the neighbors. We di...