Naming a baby in 2008?

MSN.com has just released the Top 10 boys and girls names of 2007. I don't know how accurate it is since the Social Security Administration hasn't released the "official" list, but it's probably pretty close. Most of you who read this know that I am and have been really interested in names/words for most of my life (since I could read I guess), and this article points out one reason why names are fascinating: many times, the surgence or resurgence of a name reflects things that are happening in our culture. Most of you probably know at least one baby named Addison that was born since "Grey's Anatomy" appeared on TV, and the article points out that Addison climbed 20 spots in just 2007. That's kind of a big deal to name geeks out there. The same kind of thing had the opposite effect in 2006 when the name Katrina dropped from 246 to 382. To read more about the effects current culture has had on naming, go here. Fascinating! The author of the site sponsors a "name of the year" contest, and this year it was Barack. Let's see if the political climate of the United States has an effect on the number of little Baracks born in the United States in the coming years, shall we?

It would be interesting to see if this list took into account the kre8ive spellings of the mainstream names already present on the list (Addyson, Haylee, Ayden, etc.: you know, the parents who want to be "different."), or if those names are just a bit further down the list.

Anyway, if you are planning on having a baby in 2008, there's one list for you. You may want to get your ideas from it, or you may want to avoid it completely. Bottom line, if you love a name, you should go for it no matter how popular or unpopular it is. I mean, I grew up with many other Leslies in my classes (no other Lesleys though), and I was just fine. Anyway, even if you decide on a name for your child and have regrets about it later, a name isn't as permanent as it may seem. You can always change it like these people did. One girl in the article, named Sophie, began going by Isadora at the age of four!

Family Heirlooms

This is probably a normal thing, but I find that the older I get, the more interested I am in family heirlooms. This past week when we were at mom's house we went through a box of old quit tops that my great-grandmother Josie had done but never made into quilts. Mom wanted to know if Erin or I would like any of them. As ugly as some of them were (a lot of them were done in the '60s and the fabric reflected the garish styles of that decade), we hated to say no because a family member had made them. Anyway, I ended up with one and Erin decided to take the rest of the box.

Speaking of heirlooms, I received a gift for Christmas that is very special to me. Over the past few years, my mom, who would not fancy herself a scrapbooker, has spent a good amount of her free time (remember, she WAS working full-time until July and also taking care of my grandparents, just so there's no mistake that she had lots of free time) compiling scrapbooks of my life until I graduated from high school. She completed these scrapbooks and this was my main Christmas gift from her this year. It's so neat to have all of these memories compiled in scrapbooks so I can look at them whenever and be able to show them to my kids someday. They are also full of my mom's funny comments that only she could have said. Mom did a good job of taking separate pictures of me when I was a kid and I'm thankful that she did the scrapbooks that are just for me (she did the same for Erin a few years back). Anyway, her gift was definitely the most special gift I received this year and I am very thankful for it.

Also on the subject of inheritance, I have decided on my New Year's resolution for 2008. Many of you know that I get stressed/worried quite a bit, and this can be traced directly back in my family tree to my maternal grandparents, but especially my granddad. Anyway, that's not an excuse and I know that worrying is also a sin, so my resolution for 2008 is that when I start to get worried, to stop it and put all my burdens on God and have faith that he is going to take care of the situation and me. So there it is, I've gotten it out in the open so now I can't go back on it.

Happy New Year everyone!

Home again

It's well into the first week of my two week vacation from school, and we are home from visiting mom and grandmother in Weatherford. This holiday season was special for me because it's the first holiday season in 3 years that we have gotten to spend with my side of the family. I'll never take it for granted again! The first few days of my break, Erin, Josh and the kids and dad and Ginny all came to Lubbock and we had our first Christmas celebration in our new home. Well, it was really on Christmas Eve, but close enough. Then on Christmas day we packed up and drove to mom's for some family time in Weatherford. It was a lot of fun. After Erin and her family left, we rented a U-Haul and drove out to granddad's old barn out on their land to go through and pack up what was left there when they moved from the farm almost 10 years ago. We found some cool stuff but mostly it just needed to be gone through and gotten rid of. You know it's scary when you find a box that your granddad has labeled "bric-a-brac," and then there were all the boxes of old bank statements and tax returns circa 1970. No, I am not kidding. Anyway, we had fun doing a little manual labor that day and I'm sure mom will have a blast going through every single box that we brought to her garage.

So now we're back home and I'm savoring every minute of the time I have off. I could be doing a lot of work, but I promised myself that I wouldn't do anything work-related and that I would just enjoy my time off and relax. This is hard for me because sometimes "relaxing" means giving myself time to worry about all the stuff I have to do. Anyway, I'm not going to do it. Let tomorrow worry about itself.

Next week we will be off to Ruidoso for a couple of days to celebrate our fourth anniversary. I'm really looking forward to that. Chad has come down with a nasty cold that is making him feel pretty miserable, so please pray that it will go away before our little mini-vacation.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year. Here are some pictures from the past few days.

Kellen and Bonnie are scoping out the ornaments, lights and--oh yeah--presents.I think we've got ourselves a little Mozart on our hands. She'll be composing by age 3. Kellen and Pee Paw enjoying some quality time watching the "Jungle Book."Uncle Chad's electric drumset was a BIG hit. Look how fast Bonnie's hitting the drums!Kellen really enjoyed playing and was really amused every time a sound would come out of the amp...(oh yeah, Chad got an amp for his electric drumset for Christmas)Then it was out to play in the leaves. Secretly, we were just trying to pawn off the raking on our niece and nephew. It worked!This is about the time Chad suggested to Kellen and Bonnie that they should start throwing the leaves on me.

And Kellen got leaves in his mouth. Serves him right for being so mean to his aunt who was only trying to get some good photo ops.

I've just uploaded most of the pictures from Tyler to my Flickr website (see link to the right). If you are interested, you should be able to download the ones you want from there. I thought this would be a little more practical than burning 3 CDs of 330 pictures for anyone who may have wanted just 5 or 10. Also, when I was uploading them I did go to the trouble of rotating the vertical ones but it didn't seem to work. Enjoy!

Family time in Tyler

Okay, after many hours and a lot of patience, I have managed to upload some of my favorite pictures from the weekend. I took over 300 pictures because I had to do some "field testing" to learn about some equipment I'll be using to teach next semester, so these are just a few of the shots I got. Luckily there were lots of photo ops with all the cute little kids around.

Elle playing with her cousinsThree of the four cousins (not sure where Ava was in this picture, but good pose idea Joey)
My favorite picture of Joey & Emily from the weekend Sweet JoseySilly RileyI think Uncle Shawn was talking to Riley through the mail slotI love this picture of Josey playing with the leaves and Emily watching her in the background.I don't know what Elle did, but Shawn didn't like it.The tallest & the shortest in the family. Shawn didn't have to duck at all. Joey's got ups. (Shawn wasn't quite as successful jumping over Joey's head)Awwwww! Photo taken by Joey. Chad dropped me shortly after. Sweet little AvaI think Ava was walking too slow for Paul.Cute picture of the moms and their daughtersHmmm, maybe Josey takes more after her Uncle Chad than we had hoped for
Santa showed up at Paul's, and everyone was interested...Riley was a good sport. She even told Santa she wanted a ballerina or something like that. Elle was convinced to sit on Santa's lap so she could open her presents, but Ava wasn't having any of it.Neither was Josey for that matter ("Maybe if I cover my face that guy will go away")
I think Emily's a little too happy in these pictures that Josey is in complete misery. Nice.We had a fun weekend and can't wait to see our family again soon.

Just so you know...

I have been trying to upload a bunch of pictures from our weekend in Tyler for the past couple of days now, and Blogger/my internet haven't been cooperating. So far the only picture that has uploaded is this one of our new "green room." Chad painted this room last week and I love the way it turned out. I purposely didn't put a view of the whole room on here because it also contains Chad's drumset and our computer, neither of which I think add much aesthetic value to my attempts at decorating. Also...Chad made an A on his second nursing test today. Way to go Chad!

In other news, I have a little over one week of school left and it seems to be dragging quite slowly. No surprise there. I have quite a bit of planning to do for next semester, and I want to finish that before we leave for the holidays so I will have a work-free break. Also, Chad and I have made plans to take an anniversary trip to Ruidoso and stay at a lodge there. Can you believe we have been married for 4 years? It's gone by so fast. Maybe while we're there I can convince him to try skiing!

I'll keep working on the pictures.

We had a really good weekend. Thursday night we drove to Denton (probably saw 30 deer on the side of the road on the way there) to spend a couple days with my old roommate & friend from A&M, Emily, her husband Matt, and their son Tobin. Tobin and Josey both turned two on Thursday, so while we were there on Friday I helped Emily out with Tobin's birthday cake. This is the same roommate that microwaved a hamburger in its foil wrapper and didn't know how to cook pasta in college. Emily's going to kill me for saying that but I just wanted to show how far she's come! She has taken up baking and really loves it. Look at this adorable crayon cake she made! It was my first experience with fondant and I helped with mixing the black part. We had a good time hanging out and on Friday evening the four of us went to the Mavs game in Dallas and spent a little time with our friend Brent. Then we got up Saturday morning to make it back to Lubbock for my school's football playoff game, which they lost. And now we're back home and Chad's out working in the yard so I better go help him. Thanks Emily and Matt for a fun weekend!