Hi friends! We are exactly a week away from Parke Henry's first birthday. I cannot believe how fast the year has flown by! Next Friday, January 10th, we plan to celebrate our little man and thank God for the blessing of him being a part of our family. He is not forgotten in our home and is talked about often. The kids (especially Landry) are excited for his big day coming up, and we've talked about all the people he is able to celebrate with in Heaven.
I've had a lot of precious friends ask what we plan to do and if we want to plan a party or a get together. Micah and I have talked about this a lot, and here is what we've decided...we are going to celebrate at home with our little family of 5. I don't want to feel like we have to do anything big each year, and I think celebrating in a simple way at home is just perfect. I just want it to be a sweet time where we pull out pictures, and blankets, and clothes and talk about who he was and what a special part of our family he is.
We do want to start a special tradition in addition to our little family party, and we want make it something we can do with the kids each year to celebrate Parke. We know a lot of people do balloon releases, make donations to organizations in their loved ones honor, etc. but we want something that is simple and sweet. He was a baby, so he didn't have a favorite meal or cake I could make every year, he didn't have a favorite color or song that we could work with, so we had to get creative.
We've decided that to mark Parke's birthday each year, we are simply going to blow bubbles. As we talked about it with Landry, she was so excited about how the bubbles would fly up to heaven and make Parke so happy that we were celebrating him. It made me (and IS making me) tear up just thinking about it being Parke's first birthday and how much sweet babies love bubbles being blown all around them. I can't imagine how beautiful his smile and laughter must be!
So...this is where you can join in.
On January 10th, if you have time, would you please blow bubbles with your family in memory of our sweet Parke? It would not only be a blessing to Micah and I to know he is not forgotten, but would also be such an amazing testimony for the kids of how loved their brother was. And, obviously, Landry thinks the more bubbles he receives in Heaven the better! :)
We would love for you to tag us on Facebook in any pictures you're able to snap, or email them to me at lindseyegibson@rocketmail.com. We plan to keep a scrapbook of everyone's bubble pictures to pull out on rough days, future birthdays, and any other time we need a reminder of God's perfect grace.
You can get as creative as you want, or simply walk outside and blow a bubble or two. Breakfast time, bath time, anything!
Micah and I think this is something simple enough that we can keep up with the kids for a long time. We didn't want to start something we couldn't keep doing, and I can picture the kids as teenagers on a future January 10th. We will all be rushing around to get to basketball games or something else, and we will stop to run outside as we are loading in the car to blow a few bubbles up to our sweet Parke. He will never, ever, ever be forgotten in our home.
We would be honored if you joined us in celebrating his special day!
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