Dadoo

Granddaddy giving the grand kids a ride on the lawn mower tractor.  I think this was around 1979.

January is a month for birthdays in my family.  You mention someone's birthday is in January and Mother immediately starts reciting everyone in the family who has/had a January birthday.  First on the list is "Mama".  That is Mother's mother, who we affectionately called Grannie; then there is Mother's sister-in-law, my Aunt Nita. Then three of Mother's four grandsons were born in January, but unfortunately she always leaves one out.  I always remind her, but I guess when you are 92 years old, two out of three is not bad.  Then, my dad was also born in January and died a few days before his birthday in 1998.

I always think of him as Dadoo.   I have no idea why I call him that name in my  memory.  It was Dadoo and Mamoo.  I don't know where it came from.  I usually remember the quirky details of things, but for this one I got nothing.  Dadoo was fun.  I have the greatest memories of him.  I feel like he was just here yesterday instead of being gone for 13 years.  I always knew  what he would think of something.  He was not overly opinionated, but you knew where he stood.  Dadoo was also a fun granddaddy.  The kids always loved to spend time with him.  In the early years it was a ride on the lawnmower tractor.  Later, it was a ride in the buggy with old bad Buck. 

It is also my friend Judy's birthday in January.  I forgot to wish her a happy birthday.  So, happy belated birthday my friend!    She and I have been friends for a very long time.  I am very blessed that she has been in my life all these years.

Me and the Judy bug!

It was my son Jamey's birthday yesterday.  He is possibly in his last semester of college.  He is the youth pastor at a church, and really cares about his youth kids.  Jamey's girlfriend, Samantha is wonderful.  She is the girlfriend any mother would pick for their son.  He is a good son and I am very blessed that for the last 24 years he has called me mom.

My Jamey and Samantha:  Jam and Sam at her sister's wedding in January.

January was a good month and February is coming in with some wild weather.  Hope you had a great start to 2011.

Smooches to all,
Linda

Christmas Wrap Up

 Jamey and his girlfriend Samantha

Barbeque from Red Hot and Blue

Jamey and his Grannie pet

 Oh Christmas tree

 Stubbie Claus

Silly Ellie - she hates the camera

Selah - Christmas concert at FBC Irving

Jennifer, Brylan, Walter, Jordan, Alicia and Daniel

Grandcuties:  Daniel - Alicia's Boyfriend, Alicia and Kayla

Jordan

Christmas arrived at my house with some major computer problems.  I really dislike having computer problems.  Thankfully, I have a Droid phone that allows me access to email and Facebook.  Other than that, I had a very relaxing holiday. 

I posted pictures of a few of the holiday highlights.

Jamey and his girlfriend, Samantha, came for a visit.  This is the first time I have gotten to meet her.  She is so sweet.  I really like this girl.

Joe and I always go to a Christmas concert.  This year we went to a Selah concert.  Selah is one of my favorite contemporary groups.  Our Lizzie and Rog went with us.

My oldest sister Inez, decided to retire from her job of 38 years and got married.  Wow, that was a lot of major changes made in a very short period of time.  Our Christmas eve tradition is Christmas eve service at church, and a meal.  The sisters no longer give gifts to each other, but we still give gifts to our mother.  Mother always goes home with a major haul!  This year our new brother in law prepared the Christmas eve meal.  It was excellent. 

The day after Christmas, we enjoyed our holiday visit with Joe's family.  We went south to Beverly and Walters house. I love going to their house because it is never crowded.  They have so much room to spread out and they are wonderful hosts.  Alicia, and her boyfriend Daniel and Kayla are teenagers.  I think they may have to gotten to the age where it is best to buy a gift card.  I made my first visit to Aeropostle to buy their gifts.  I was way out of my element.  But they were very sweet and said they liked what I had picked out.  Jennifer, Dan, Jordan and Brylan were there.  10 month old Brylan was tearing the paper off the box.  I think Jordan was hoping there was a new toy in his box and it was only some boring clothes.  What a bad Gram I was.  For the last several years we have played a trivia game and have little prizes.  It is so much fun.  T
 here are always a couple of gifts that everyone wants.  I never know what they will be.  This year it was that root beer in the brown bottles and a season of McGyver DVD.  Kayla always seems to hold on to the gift everyone would like to have.   

I loved my year end shutdown from work.  I slept late and just lounged around and did a little scrapping.  On Christmas day we did not have to go anywhere and I wore my pajamas all day long.  I even cooked in my pajamas.  I am usually a person who gets dressed first thing.  It was so relaxing.  I did not send out Christmas cards this year.  I don't really have a good excuse, I just did not do it.

My word for this year is reconnect.  I want to reconnect with friends, church and fitness/health.  As always my resolution is to loose weight.  It is 1/11/11 and I have not really established a plan but I really am going to work on it. 

I hope you had holiday filled with memories and special times with family and friends. 

Love,
Linda