Memorial Day & Kids

Memorial Day is coming.

When I lost my mom it brought on a new meaning for me.

It became important to me.

...sorry to say it wasn't really before. 

It was nice. It was good. --but it wasn't important to me.

The thing is I want it to be important to my kids to. 

I need them to remember what they can.

So, the past several years we've done something--we've started a tradition. And my kids know what memorial day is now. They remember. And they love it.

I buy a pot of flowers, usually mums, for my grandparents, the hubby's grandparents, my cousin, and of course my momma.

I cut a strip of card stock for each pot. Then the kids pick a person (from above list) and they decorate a wrap for their pot and pick out a set of flowers for them.

Here are a few of our strips:

It never fails, while they are decorating their wrap, they ask questions about their person. They want to know what they liked, what they did. 

Some they met and some they never did. But they want to know more and ask questions no matter what. 

Two years ago L made one for his Great Grandpa Bruce whom he never met, but is named after. He asked me so many questions I ran out of answers and he had a list for his dad when he got home.

And then we deliver them as a family.

One year we got snowed in at home and we couldn't travel to deliver our pots. But we'd made them. We'd remembered our loved ones. We hadn't forgotten the meaning of Memorial Day.

It's something small. Something simple. Something cheap. 

But it means a lot at our house.