21 July, 2009

Joshua's 4th birthday memories

Today would have been Joshua Ryan's 4th birthday and we wanted to make the day special for those of us in the family who still inhabit this earth. We've done something different every year, but we always make it a strictly family day. This year since we just got back from vacation last night, we decided to keep it around home. Our morning began with cinnamon rolls (what Bridger thought Joshua would like). Then we spent most of the day making mosaic stepping stones--one for each child and a special one for Joshua with everyone contributing. If you can tell in the photo, Bridger made Joshua's body, Ryan made a sun and a flowing river, Asher just sort of made a picture and I made a tree.
We made a birdbath and painted some rocks to adorn the garden and a few to take to his grave. This afternoon we started a new tradition of shopping for some gifts Joshua might like if he was 4 years old and then taking them to the local children's shelter. Tonight we'll flip through his baby book and photo album.I'm looking forward to seeing his stepping stone in the garden for years to come--amongst the growing and dying life in its seasons.

4 comments:

amy said...

Thanks Rachel-- quite a beautiful way for the family to celebrate a beautiful bday.

Charlotte Homan said...

Rachel I would love to know your technique. did you just use reg cement and what did you use to mold them? they are awesome and what a great idea for this special day.

Rachel said...

Actually, we used some leftover cement mix from setting our fence posts so we just mixed it up and then put in the mosaic and handprints on some of them. It was a bit gravely and I know you can get better quality cement so that the handprints show up better, but this was fine for us. For the molds we used those plastic circular things you put under plants to keep them from wetting underneath--totally cheap and reusable.

chaps said...

Thanks for sharing this Rachel