My mom gets us these wonderful, personalized calendars every year for Christmas. It’s a wonderful tradition she’s started. She gets one for each of our families - so that is a lot of pictures to gather, because, each calendar has a different picture for every month.  I like to look at the pictures on Christmas day when we open it, and then I try not to look again until each month comes upon us. It makes for twelve sweet little surprises throughout the year. Last year’s calendar was a little hard to look at, as a lot of the pics were not only from Dallas, but, from the last few days before we actually moved 700+ miles away from home. Mom, Dad, Mic, Tracy, and DJ did a lot of stuff with the kids those last few days, squeezing in as much fun stuff as they could before we left. They had sleepovers and went to the zoo and all kinds of stuff.  One of the pictures was even of the moving truck. That one really tugged at my heart. It was so cute, though. All four kids - mine and DJ, my nephew - climbed up on the back of the truck when the big door was open, and I think DJ was even lying down ON the ramp, with his oh-so-precious pellow. (Not a misspelling, that is how his mom really says it. Cute, huh?) She’s from Illinois. I guess that is how they say ‘pillow’ in Illinois. Heh. That picture is so adorable - I’ll have to try to take a picture of it so I can show you!

What I can show you right now, though, is a picture of the January 2008 photo(s). It’s so cool, because, it matches so nicely with the walls in my kitchen. Whodathunkit?

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And another thing that I think is really cool about this month’s picture(s) is that they were all taken at one of our three houses. Shawn is at Mic and Tracy’s house, Patrick is at Mom and Dad’s house, and Sammie is here at our house. I just really like that - kind of a symbolic ‘blending of the houses’, you know? The raising of my children has taken place in all three homes, and each home was/is very instrumental in their upbringing. Very cool.

I wonder if February will match the kitchen as well and be symbolically cool, too…hmm….