Catching Up

I went to visit mom's grave on Saturday. My Dad chose a cemetery that is about an hour away from us so we kind of have to make it a day trip to get there. It is still hard to believe that she has been gone for three months now. So surreal. I have been back to my Dad's house many times, but it still feels so empty.

Kaylie and Liam having fun with the new splash slider. The water pools at the beginning of the slide so when they come sliding down towards it, they splash their hands and face into it. Quite fun and most refreshing. :)

She loves, love, loves getting wet and spending time outside. Just look at the water dripping off of her. Nice shot.

I love the way Liam looks so focused. The streams of water looks pretty cool, too.



Flower from my garden. Photo taken early in the morning (7:30 a.m.)





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Catching Up

4/20/2008 - Adam's Birthday

These are the flowers that Liam chose to bring to the cemetery.

These are the flowers that Kaylie picked out.

Here is the site...with mulch and flowers.
Raking...
Aren't these the coolest gloves? The only reason Liam agreed to pick up leaves. :)

"Did you say you want me to pick up sticks AND rake leaves? Just look around, Mama, this will take me 10 years!



Today is Adam's birthday. We went to the cemetery to clean up around his grave and plant some flowers. What better way to honor his memory than planting flowers and teaching the kids that when someone dies that person still remains a part of the family and has to be remembered.

I asked the kids to help me by picking up sticks from the surrounding grave area. There were sticks EVERYWHERE so they soon got tired of picking sticks and wanted to rake leaves instead. Kaylie was a trooper, she raked, she picked up leaves, she dug a hole to plant the flowers and spread the mulch.

Liam, on the other hand, offered to pick up leaves because he wanted to WEAR the GLOVES I had brought to keep our hands from getting germy and dirty. I don't mind cleaning up, but hate picking up grubs/worms or any other kind of living being with my bare hands. Yuck! Anyway, the novelty of the gloves wore off shortly and he didn't want to help anymore. He has the attention span of a gnat.

While I went to the cemetery to clean up Adam's gravesite, when I saw how unkept the other graves were, I decided to clean them up a bit, too. Liam couldn't understand why I wanted to clean up the other graves, when we didn't even know who the people buried there were. I told him that this was like our Earth Day, when you clean up for the sake of the planet and because it was the right thing to do. In one ear and out the other. Maybe next year, he'll get the point of doing for others.

Later on the afternoon, we all went out for a bike ride around the neighborhood. The kids had a lot of fun...and got their exercise.

4/20/2008 - Adam's Birthday