I haven’t been able to get the shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church off my mind. Of course I am always saddened when I hear of a tragic act of violence, but I think this one has affected me so much more than usual because I am a Unitarian Univeralist. The victims of this shooting are members of my community and even though I’ve never met them, I feel bonded with them through our religion. The gunman hated these people because of their values, values I also hold. Hated them enough to kill them even though he’d never even met them. It frightens me to think there are people out there who hate me and my friends so much they want to kill us. Even though we’ve never met. I found some comfort in this blog post a friend sent me.
Cash officially turned four today. Travis took the day off work and we all went to Wonderscope this morning. It’s one of Cash’s favorite places and a perfect place to go on a rainy day like today.
This afternoon Cash and Travis made a huge cardboard box castle complete with a drawbridge and blanket moat.
This entire stack of presents was opened in less than five minutes:
Then after dinner, another Hyvee Thomas cake!
I can’t believe my sweet baby boy is four. I love you Cash. Stop growing up so fast!
Cash had his birthday party at Hyvee on Saturday. I know you’re thinking, “What a mean mom, making your little boy have his birthday party at a grocery store!” I’ll have you know he ASKED to have his party at Hyvee. His preschool went on a tour there in the spring and I guess it was so fun he wanted to have his party there. So about a month ago on one of our weekly shopping trips to my neighborhood Hyvee, I asked the woman who works in the prepared foods area if they do birthday parties. The look on her face said, “What a mean mom, making your little boy have his birthday party at a grocery store!” I told her he ASKED to have his party at Hyvee. She took my phone number and told me that she would make a few calls and let me know what she found out. Luckily, one of her coworkers overheard our conversation and let me know that another nearby Hyvee does do birthday parties. I called that Hyvee and scheduled a make-your-own-pizza party for Cash.
While the pizzas were cooking, the kids grabbed instruments and had a birthday parade around the store. Before we started, our party coodinator Rosie announced Cash’s birthday over the intercom.
Hyvee made the cake too and I was glad to let them. There’s no way I could make a Thomas cake that looked like this:
It was a really fun party and Cash had a blast, even though it was at a grocery store.
We ate out for dinner tonight and as usual I was the last one to finish. As I was finishing, I told Travis that I’m going to have to learn to eat faster in this family because everyone except for me eats their meal in under 10 minutes and then the boys spend the rest of the time going berserk which doesn’t exactly help me finish eating any faster. I jokingly told Travis since he and the boys were done, he could just take the boys out to the car and I could stay in the restaurant and finish my salad in peace. Maybe I was only half-joking. Anyway, Cash heard this and said, “No Mommy, you’re my family and we’ll wait here with you until you get done.” Aw, thanks kid.
And yet so delicious at the same time. Why on earth did I buy them? The bag is almost gone and they’ve been in the house for less than four hours. Check out the EVIL for yourself.
Check out the video my cousin Richard made of the highlights of our family reunion. It’s HERE on his blog. While you’re there, check out his other videos – he’s got some really cool ones on there.
I went to Cash’s first basketball game last night. It was an exercise in slightly controlled chaos. I don’t think any of the kids really knew what they were supposed to be doing but they all seemed to having fun. Cash looked like he was having a good time but he was more of a spectator than a participant. Most of the time there were nine kids at one end of the court and then sweet Cash was waaaaaaaay on the other side of the court watching the other kids and smiling, like he was thinking, “Wow, those kids are fun to watch – I wonder what they’re all doing over there.”
Cash’s game face – very intimidating!
Cash is either on defense or pretending to be an elephant; I’m not really sure which. He has two more games – this Tuesday and Thursday. If you’d like to come, let me know and I’ll give you the details.
This is my brother Andy and his girlfriend Sarah-Catherine doing the salsa in my kitchen on Sunday on day three of the triannual Davis family reunion. My dad has better video that I’ll post later – if you think this is amazing wait until you see the extended version.
The boys and I went blueberry picking this morning. We only picked about a pound because after the second bee buzzed around us Cash started to freak out, causing West to freak out too. Up until the bees swarmed us, Cash was having blast. He quickly learned what a ripe blueberry looks like and only picked those. West’s method of picking was to grab and strip the entire branch of all the blueberries, ripe or not, and all the leaves as well. Luckily he grew bored pretty quickly and spent most of his time eating pretzels so we didn’t destroy too many bushes.
After we were done picking, the boys rode the blueberry train around the patch.
Then we played on the hay bale playground. West didn’t really like touching the hay.
