No empty chairs

On Thursday the 15th of November it was the 6 year anniversary of the day that Mum died. It's always been a tradition in our family to celebrate the birthdays of our family members who have passed on with a passionfruit sponge & for the last 5 years we've also had that passionfruit sponge on the anniversary of the day that Mum died as well.... but that makes 5 passionfruit sponges a year now & while we do love them, we decided that this anniversary it was time to shake it up a little :)

So instead of a passionfruit sponge we coordinated a potluck dinner with sticky date pudding & the chocolate brownie that Mum loved for dessert. 

Along with that we also prepared a special little FHE that Mum would've loved centered around the "No empty chairs" theme that we talk about in church. Everyone had been instructed to make name cards for their family & to bring them along on the night. Then we blue tacked them to the back of the chairs all around the deck & everyone had to look around for their chair & then sit in it. 

Because Aaron, Cass & the boys live in Oz & Carl wasn't able to make it, we knew we'd have a few empty chairs. Nat, Kris & the boys had to leave straight after dinner as well so that left another 4 chairs empty too :(

Anyways, with every chair on the deck with a name stuck to it, but not all of the chairs with a bottom in it by the time we'd all gone around & found our places, it really illustrated to us all how important it is that there are "no empty chairs" when we leave this earth & pass onto the next life. 

We talked about how as family members we can love & encourage one another along the pathway home, but how ultimately only we can make sure that our chair doesn't end up empty :( 

We then each wrote something on the back of our name card that we have committed to work on over the next year as a kind of special promise to Mumma that we are working towards our goal of making it back to her & the boys someday. We love you our precious Mummy xxx

P.S I couldn't get a photo of all the names on the chairs, but I'll list them all here so you can see how massive our family is getting....

Julie

Kelvin

Matthew

 Vaughan

 Kelvin Jnr

 Aaron

 Cassie

 Matt

 Ethan

 Ben

 Stan

 Renee

Mac

 Spence

 Jo

 Mell

 Faith

Ella

 Seffy

 Pete

 B

Carl

 Kris

 Nat

 Jordy

 Kyky

Whoa & that list is not even finished yet!!!