Blanket Theory

Trey Davey has developed an affinity for his blanket, which he carries around and occasionally sucks. This activity brings to mind the Charles M. Schulz’ Peanuts comic strip character Linus van Pelt. Both boys have brown hair, usually wear a red shirt, and seem to always be carrying a blue blanket. In fact, the term “security blanket” was coined by Linus, who though young, is unusually smart. Often quoting the Gospels, Linus is quite the philosopher and theologian. Perhaps security blankets help little boys think better. While Linus is burdened with a dog, Snoopy, an older sister, Lucy, and grandmother constantly trying to rid him of his blanket, we’re hoping the blanket’s intellectual magic will work on our Davey.

Red Wagon Ho

It was warm enough recently to get the new red wagon out for the first time. This radio flyer model is very similar to the one daddy and granddaddy played with as children. Constructed of wood and metal, this model has removable sides like farm trailers. It was a first birthday gift from Grandpa and his brothers, Gene Ray and Richard. Back when they owned a hardware store, the Grandma and Grandpa Edds stocked several models of radio flyer wagons, so they knew exactly which model they wanted for their grandsons and spent an entire day searching most of Owensboro’s retailers for this Cadillac model of radio flyers. Benji and Davey enjoyed their first ride of many in their little red wagon.

No Grave Results

On our way home from Florida we stopped in Murfreesboro, Tennessee for lunch. This was my paternal grandmother’s (Kittie Mavis Burnett Edds) hometown. On a whim, we asked the waitress for the large old cemetery’s location. Then we drove over and looked for any ancestors, especially the boys’ great, great grandfather Robert Burnett. We looked for four Murfreesboro family names (Burnett, Rucker, Overall and Allen) and took 50 photos of potential family member headstones. It was a nice break in the driving and an opportunity for the boys to get out of their car seats and climb around the van for exercise. So far, not one of the people we found matched any of the names in our family tree. We’ll have to try another cemetery on our next visit.

Good Morning Sleepyhead

Trey Davey Edds certainly inherited Swiss blood from somebody, as he has always been very punctual for breakfast. Before he was born he would wake Sandy up every morning at 4:00 am, and the routine continued after he was born. Now that the babies sleep through the night, breakfast is at 06:00 a.m. and Davey never fails to wake the entire house for the event. So what happens when we travel to Florida and change to Eastern Time? Well, he adjusted to the new earlier time right away of course. We wouldn’t want to get off schedule. But maybe he was confused on the way home. We stopped at midnight in Dalton, Georgia to spend the night. Not certain where the time zone changes, Trey Davey must have decided to err on the safe side and made his morning call on Eastern Time, which was 5:00 am Central Time. Guess who is the least rested in the photo.

Where’s That Million Dollar Smile?

Benji has the biggest, brightest, most contagious smile around, but he’s often stingy about sharing it. While his brother smiles easily, Benji withholds his smiles for comfortable situations. Granddaddy Roe loves smiles, and he experiments to see just what he can do to successfully extract Benji’s big smile from his sometimes stoic expressions. Because smiles customarily are a sign of pleasure, happiness, or amusement, Granddaddy tried holding him, waving to him and feeding him to get a big Benji smile, but unfortunately found little success. One technique that did yield giant grins was lightly running fingers all around Benji’s head.

Boys Cheer Florida to Title

Sporting their Heisman-winning Quarterback Tim Tebow number 15 football jerseys, Trey Davey and Benji cheered on Grandma Karen’s favorite team, the University of Florida, to a dramatic victory over #1 ranked Oklahoma to win the BCS National Title bowl game. This is Florida’s third college football national championship in the last 13 years. Once appropriately outfitted, the boys ran around the living room floor carrying their Florida footballs and playing the fight-song repeatedly on their Gator mascots. Bedtime came during halftime, but Daddy Dave promised to cheer for them in the second half.

Happy Birthday Grandma Karen

Today is the day, but we had the party on December 30th. For the first time ever, Grandma Karen had Granddad, all three daughters, both son-in-laws plus four grandchildren in attendance for her birthday, and she was in seventh-heaven. Grandma Karen is a proud graduate of the University of Florida and she has been enthusiastically grooming the twins to become big-time Gator fans too. She has bought them Gator footballs, basketballs, stuffed animals, t-shirts, jerseys and more. So it’s only fitting that on her birthday her favorite school is playing The University of Oklahoma in the national championship college football bowl game. Let’s hope they win one for the Grandma.