Meeting the Greats

This past weekend, we introduced Aliyah to Great Grandma and Grandpa Sabers.  Eli loves to visit them too and quickly finds his favorite toys to play with once he gets there.  There have been lots of new babies visiting my grandparents lately as quite a few of my cousins have also had babies recently. 

Since we had planned to visit my grandparents on Sunday, I thought I would share pictures with Eli and explain to him now that he is a little older about his other great-grandparents who have passed away.  Once we started engaging in this conversation about how some of his great-grandparents have already died, it quickly became apparent to me I should have invested some time in researching just how to have this type of conversation about death and dying with a 4-year-old.  He had some very intriguing questions that I attempted to answer in a simple and honest way, although I found it a bit of a challenge to try to explain things such as a "soul" when I told him how our souls can go to heaven and that those in heaven can watch over us and we can remember them by visiting the cemetery.

On our way to my grandparents' house that day, we first stopped by our local cemetery in town where Ian's paternal grandparents are buried.  I thought I remembered where to go from when we went to his grandma's graveside service, but we searched and searched and could not locate their gravestone, so we might have to go back when Ian is with us to help navigate.  His maternal grandparents are in a cemetery a little further away.  When we arrived in Earlville, we stopped by the cemetery there to visit my Grandma and Grandpa Winter. 

When we went back to my mom and dad's house afterwards, Joe and the girls also came out to visit Aliyah.  Eli enjoyed Paige's company; he always loves a playmate.  Speaking of more visitors, a friend of mine from college, Randi, stopped by as well to see the newest member of our family.  We enjoyed this past weekend visiting the "greats," along with the other visitors.