happy birthday gabe!

We celebrated our sweet Gabe today. He's turning six today in Heaven. We are not sad today, we only rejoice. Rejoice for where he is and that we'll see him again and that he was pure, innocent, good, and perfect. We are thankful for the way his life and death grew our faith, cemented our marriage, and taught us what is really important. And we stand expectantly on the rock solid promise that we will see him again. How sweet the victory!

at gabe's spot

Today we went out to Gabe's spot to change out his summer flowers for his fall ones and let Jonah feed the one duck (and a few idiot geese... seriously, they were idiots). Now, when Jonah says "Quack," he'll know what he's talking about.

Jonah's feeling much better, but he's still throwing up a lot of his food since he has so much mucus and is still coughing some. Today has been much better though. He kept down his lunch and dinner. We won't be going to church tomorrow because I don't want to risk Jonah passing along any lingering germs to the other nursery goers, but if he's still feeling well, we may try to get breakfast and dressing change done early and hit the fair as soon as it opens. I want to go when Matt's off work and at a time when maybe it will be quiet (wishful thinking?), so I think we'll try tomorrow morning. We don't do much, but I thought it would be fun to get some deliciously unhealthy food for lunch and let Jonah see the animals. He really enjoyed the duck/geese today. I can't believe he's really starting to "get" things. This has got to be the best stage yet! Every day he gets smarter and makes me laugh more and more. He climbed the stairs today! AGH! He's growing up!

gabe's day

This post is a long time coming, but I just wanted to write a little about Gabe's Day. We got up and did dressing change as usual, fed Jonah, and then went over to Gabe's Spot. Jonah was kind of fussy, so we didn't get to stay long.


We bought balloons like we did last year and wrote messages to Gabe on them and brought him his very own birthday balloon.


Then we sent them up. This year we walked over to the pond before we released them so as to not have a "get stuck in the trees" incident like last year.

Can you see them? They flew right up in a perfect triangle just like that until they were out of sight.

And there were some ducks. (I don't really know what to say about that.)

When we got up to the lake, we had Gabe's birthday cake.

Jonah was more interested in grabbing the flame than actually blowing it out.

So the funny story of this year - when we were packing up to come home, Matt got the cake out of the fridge to take with us. The plastic lid wasn't on well, and the whole cake (minus the tiny little slice Matt had eaten) fell face down on the floor. So that was it, no more birthday cake. It seems every year (well, there have only been two so far) something goes wrong just to remind us to smile a little through the tears.

It was a very hard day for me this year. But again, I loved getting to do some special "Gabe things" just like last year. I haven't decided what to add to his garden this year, but I'm thinking about a humming bird feeder.

Oh yeah, and his dogwood tree did bloom the week of his birthday. I knew it would. :)

a few pics from the weekend

Hanging out on the deck on Friday.


Playing with his new favorite toy... well, it's a tie between this and my cell phone.


With Aunt Sarah at Gabe's spot on Saturday.

Looking at the ducks with Mommy.

Daddy corralling the ducks for Jonah's viewing pleasure.

Playing with Gabe's flowers.

*******************************

Nothing much new here today. We did get to go to the mall, and for those of you who care, I got a GREAT pair of brown pants - exactly what I wanted - for $21.00 at Eddie Bauer. That's what I'm talkin' about.

*******************************

But really, who cares about brown pants? I'm so pumped about Stellan's successful ablation I'm literally all giddy and fluttery inside. I don't know about you, but I spent most of the day F5 refreshing Jennifer's twitter page every free moment I got. Still praying for the gunk in his lungs and his fever, but man, oh man, GOD IS AWESOME. I knew He was still in the miracle business. HOORAY!