Hernias and coordinating outfits.

Dan made it home last night from his trip to Tucson.  His travel schedule this year has been much lighter than last year.  If you will recall last year, he was gone for the majority of the end of summer and into fall and don't forget that he was gone the ENTIRE CHRISTMAS season - from the day after Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. 

...shudder...

That was a long season and an especially long December.  Thankfully it doesn't look like that is going to happen again this year - just regularly schedule normal length trips.

However, poor Dan has an inguinal hernia and is having surgery on Wednesday to repair it.  It should be outpatient if all goes well and then he will be taking Thursday and Friday off to recovery.

Taking care of a sick man is always so much fun!  Really, though, Dan is typically a good patient.  His problem will most likely be wanting to get up and do too much too soon.  He can't stand just sitting around the house doing nothing.  Luckily he has hours and hours of history documentaries saved on the DVR so he should be good. 

The PTO at Sarah's school is doing a neat fundraiser to make money to pay for a special  holiday luncheon for the teachers.  One of the moms at school has a photography business and she is offering free (with donations accepted by the PTO) mini-sessions at Old Salem.  It has been years - 10 to be exact - since we had professional portraits done so I immediately signed up.  Now the fun of coordinating outfits begins.

Sarah has a really cute dress that we got from Target (clearance section for the win!) last week that will be perfect. Coordinating Dan and Peter should be easy - solid colored polo for Peter, plaid dress shirt for Dan.  It's me that's the problem!  I need to find something that will not only look good with everyone's outfit but will make me look 15 pounds lighter.  I'm thinking head to toe Spanx and head to toe black. 

Speaking of dresses for Sarah...we were out shopping for a dress for school pictures when we got the dress from the clearance rack.. It is really cute but it's off the shoulders and it will not work for school. 

Why so picky about the dress code Catholic school???? 

So even thought she couldn't wear it, it was cheap and looks super cute on her so we got it but we couldn't find an appropriate school picture dress.  We found a really cute shirt though and I said, "Why don't we get this and you can wear it with your black pants for the school picture?"  (Because you can only see above the waist anyway.)

But what Sarah heard was, "Why don't we get this and you can wear it with your black pants?"  Apparently the whole "for the school picture" was lost on her because yesterday when I reminded her that school pictures were on the 10th, she asked, "What am I going to wear?"

Needless to say, we exchanged words.

She was horrified at the thought of wearing pants to school on a day when every other girl would be wearing a dress.

So, guess who gets to go to the mall?

Pray for me y'all.