Garden and BBQ
Garden
Way back in December when we first found out about our new baby having anencephaly, I started planning ways to remember him. Since we live on an acre of land, and it needs trees, my first idea was to plant six trees, one for each member of our family, in the back SW corner of the lot. As time went on, the idea evolved into planting just one tree in a small garden near the house.
After Noah was stillborn in April, two months before his due date, I wanted some way to mask the possible pain of his upcoming due date, June 18th. So, we decided to plant the trees on his due date and invite the family and friends that God has so graciously put in our lives to walk this road with us to help us remember and celebrate.
Way back in December when we first found out about our new baby having anencephaly, I started planning ways to remember him. Since we live on an acre of land, and it needs trees, my first idea was to plant six trees, one for each member of our family, in the back SW corner of the lot. As time went on, the idea evolved into planting just one tree in a small garden near the house.
After Noah was stillborn in April, two months before his due date, I wanted some way to mask the possible pain of his upcoming due date, June 18th. So, we decided to plant the trees on his due date and invite the family and friends that God has so graciously put in our lives to walk this road with us to help us remember and celebrate.
We set the date for Saturday June 19th.
The week before we bought a couple of shrubs, other little flowering plants and a White Poplar in honor of Noah. Tom tilled the ground. The kids helped me collect and place rocks around the garden. My parents came up on the 18th and helped get everything in the ground (we decided it might be kinda weird to have everybody standing around as we put the tree in the ground, so we just did it the day before the BBQ - it turned out that the tree was planted on Noah's actual due date). At the base of the tree we sat the sweetest statue of a little boy holding a glass jar of fireflies that lights up at night (given to us by my parents). It's perfect!
The week before we bought a couple of shrubs, other little flowering plants and a White Poplar in honor of Noah. Tom tilled the ground. The kids helped me collect and place rocks around the garden. My parents came up on the 18th and helped get everything in the ground (we decided it might be kinda weird to have everybody standing around as we put the tree in the ground, so we just did it the day before the BBQ - it turned out that the tree was planted on Noah's actual due date). At the base of the tree we sat the sweetest statue of a little boy holding a glass jar of fireflies that lights up at night (given to us by my parents). It's perfect!
BBQ
On the afternoon of June 19th we had my parents and six other families, including my brother, sister-in-law and their kids, join us for some family fun and BBQ. There were 16 adults and 28 kids - the oldest was 13 years old and the youngest was 7 weeks.
The first thing on the agenda was a huge water balloon and squirt gun fight. It was so much fun! It took 3.5 hours of filling approximately 500 water balloons for an all-out 10 minute war.
After all the water balloons were popped and everybody was soaked, it was a free-for-all. The men BBQ'd (secretly the best part of a BBQ is that I only have to do the prep, Tom man's the grill) and then played horse shoes. The women talked and somewhat monitored the kids. And the kids amused themselves in all sorts of imaginary games.
And mine ate whatever little treats they wanted: Brownie? Sure. Another brownie? Why not. Cake? Of course. Otter pop? Go ahead. I'm sure you could have smelled sugar coming out of their pores, if you could get past the dirt that is.
It was a very sweet (ha, ha, ha) and special day! We might just have to do it again next year
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