checking back in

So it would appear that I pretty much checked out for awhile here. I'm trying to form my excuses, but they are slow in coming. Let's see. I've been really busy. That's true. With Christmas and all. And then my sweet grandbaby coming. It was chaos at the funnest level possible. I loved every single moment of it. Christmas was really wonderful, with just one drawback. One of my sweet daughters couldn't be here because her employer thought she should take her turn and be around just after the holidays. That was really a bummer.

Which brings me to this. Speaking of my kids, I've been trying to keep them off my blog, pictures and names. I don't know if you've noticed, but they are never named. I've used only their titles: daughter, oldest daughter, youngest daughter, teenage daughter, grandbaby. Yeah, I'm pretty tricky if you haven't happened to notice. Also, I've kept their faces off, except my sweet granddaughter (there I go again) since I think that a baby looks pretty much like any baby, except of course to those who love her. That has kind of left me in a really limited situation since my life is really all about my kids pretty much.

Well, I took a little poll and my kids said it's okay to put their pictures on. But I've decided that just for the fun of it, and also to keep their real names from the Internet, I'm going to rename them. Now this took some thought, and like all thoughts that I have, my system for renaming them is slightly strange. Here's how it goes: I took the name that I usually call them, which maybe or maybe doesn't actually begin with the letter of their real name, and then added oodle to it because I just love them oodles and oodles. Don't quite get it? Let me show you. There's Soodle who is married to Joodle and has my sweet grandbaby who is Boodle. Then there's Noodle and of course there's Roodle who is married to Coodle and then there's Poodle. Kind of sounds like a Dr. Seuss book, huh? Now they aren't even necessarily in birth order there. In fact, they're not. So if you know me well and you know what I call my kids, you can figure out who's who; if not, well, it probably doesn't matter that much anyway.

And here's a picture of me with my sweet grandbaby, oh yeah, with Boodle, on her blessing day just last month. I love you oodles and oodles, Boodle.