Hope Abigail's 2nd Angel Birthday--Looking Back Part 1

Hope's 2nd Angel Birthday was so much better this year than last year on her 1st Angel Birthday.  Last year I way over planned the day and it was awful.  This year I kept it simple and took time for myself to think and grieve and that made the world of difference.  Overall it went really well, except for the end of the day when we got rained out and had to change plans with our balloon release and luminaries.

I woke up early on her birthday and went outside and sat on a blanket and watched the sunrise.  It was cloudy so I didn't get to see the sun poke it's head over the mountain and slowly rise like last week, but, the clouds made for an assortment of beautiful colors over the mountains.  It seemed like the sky was full of heart shaped clouds--little love notes from my angel girls!! 

As I reflected on how different last weeks sunrise and this weeks sunrise were--I guess it is like my grief journey now--every day is different.  Some days are bright and sunny and filled with hope and joy and other days are dark and gloomy and full of clouds where hardly any sun can get through at all.

Sunrise on Janessa's 3rd Angel Birthday

 

 Last Weeks Sunrise on May 2nd

After I watched the sunrise I decorated Hope's memorial garden in ladybug decorations. I was so happy to see that there were yellow daffodils still blooming next to Hope and Janessa's memorial stones and there were forget-me-not blue flowers blooming too. I planted some seed balls called "Seeds of Hope" in back of their memorial stones.

 Since I couldn't emotionally handle doing homeschool today--we did a field trip and group activity of planting flowers in our barrels and drawing chalk pictures in memory of Hope--it was a lot of fun. I think I will make that a tradition every year to plant flowers on Hopes angel birthday.

Unfortunately we had a major rain storm that hit in the evening and all of our beautiful artwork got washed away.