Names in the running.

What other names were you considering for your children?  I love hearing these.  I don't know why, but there's something so fun about learning what you could have been.  The other name my parents were considering for me?  Ariel Dawn.

Thank you, Mom & Dad, for sticking with your guns and naming me Chelsea Diane.  Because Ariel?  I would have been tortured come Little Mermaid.

My kids had several names in consideration.  For Ben, the top runners were:

Kingston Allan (although this was my favorite, hubby NEVER would have gone for it and I'm kind of glad in hindsight)
Parker Allan
Leo Benjamin (this was the other name we took to the hospital, but the second he was born we knew he was not a Leo)
Benjamin Allan (obviously)

Adalyn was going to be:

Alexis Mae (called Lexie - this was pretty much her decided-upon name until about a month before she was born)
Lola Mae
Charlotte Grace
Juliette Grace
Adalyn Mae

(If she was a he, it was pretty much decided that she would be Levi because it was the only boy name left that we both liked, though I would have pushed HARD for Silas because it's my favorite boy name now.)

We narrowed it down to Lola and Adalyn a few hours before she was born and then we sat there with her on my chest for an hour before naming her.  We went back and forth between Lola and Adalyn a million times.  In the end, I got the final say and chose Adalyn because I thought Tim liked it more.  A month after she was born I confessed to Tim that I regretted not naming her Lola, and he told me it was his favorite.  I remember spending a good two or three weeks after that trying to find a way we could change her name to Lola without coming off as straight-up CRAZY, but in the end she was Adalyn and now I can't imagine her as anything but.  My sweet little Addie Bear.  :)

PS - I suppose now is as good a time as any to explain her name.  Once upon a time, before Adalyn was a twinkle in my eye, a girl on a message board I'm part of (Dec 2008 babies) named her daughter Adeline.  For some reason, I always pronounced this "Add-ah-lynn."   One day, many, many months later, someone asked her how she pronounced her daughter's name. She responded with the logical answer, "Add-ah-LINE."  Right.  But when I got to really thinking about it, I thought "Add-ah-LYNN" was a pretty name, too.  Hence, Adalyn. I didn't love the spelling.  Well, still don't love the spelling.  But I didn't want to spell it Adeline and have her name mispronounced all her life and I didn't love Adalynn, so she became Adalyn.  And I love it now. It's TOTALLY her.  Mae came from both my grandma and my hubby's grandma's middle names.  Rewind to Ben: his middle name, Allan, is a combination of my dad's middle name (Alan) and hubby's dad's first name (Allen).  So it was only fitting that once we found out both my grandma AND his grandma's middle name was Mae, our daughter would share that.  :)

Happy Valentine's Day & this cutie turns one month!

It's hard to believe that it's been a full month since Adalyn was born!  Things have changed a lot in the past few weeks.  I believe last time I blogged about her, I bragged about having a second easy-as-pie child.  Ha!  Boy did I jinx myself.  I've heard a lot that a baby's personality can drastically change at the 2 to 3 week mark.  Addie proved that right.  She's not a difficult baby per se, just not easy like Ben.  If she's awake, I'd say 80% of the time she's fussing.  She doesn't really like to be touched.  But she does need to be held, so our Ergo and sling (from Erin Kate Creations - it ROCKS!!!!) are getting a good workout.  She just has...attitude.  In true girl fashion, I suppose.  She still sleeps great, though, so I almost feel like I'm not allowed to complain about anything else.  She only wakes up one or two times a night!  Mama needs her sleep, so I'm seriously praising God for having an easier sleeper this time!  

We're also in full-on hair loss and baby acne mode.  Ah, it's fabulous.  Girlfriend will undoubtedly have the bald head with the strip of hair in the back, just like her brother.  Our bank account is about to take a beating when I load up on cute baby girl hats.  But in exciting news, her hair is getting red!  Like fire red!  I don't think she'll be a true redhead, but I can dream.  I think little red-headed girls are the cutest.

Hope everyone has a splendid Valentine's Day!  We'll be crafting and baking at our house today, then snuggling with my honey tonight.  :)

What Ben can do in 11 minutes.

I recently reorganized Ben's playroom, finding a clever use for our coffee table that we didn't know what to do with.  It's just too big for our tiny living room.  Here's what it looked like all prettied up and organized.









And exactly eleven minutes after waking up, Hurricane Ben whipped his fury on his playroom, leaving this in his wake:











ELEVEN minutes, ya'll.  He has mad skills, I guess.  Also explains why my house is never clean for longer than 30 minute intervals.