Giving Thanks

2 months have passed since Miriam Jane joined the family and we are well into the school year and the fall season...

Keeping up with this blog has become more of a challenge since she joined our family, but I was thinking the other day how often I look back at my old posts to remember when certain things happened and to be reminded of various stages of the kids growing up and I realized how valuable it has been and will continue to be if I can manage to keep it updated.  And in this digital day and age the blog has become a "scrapbook" of sorts for my kids to look back on one day.

Right now I type as I listen to my 11-lb, 2-month-old scream in her crib.  Long daytime naps have become a rare luxury around here.  I've grown accustomed to 20-30 minutes here and there and a lot of crying in between.  But, thank the Lord, she sleeps great at night.  From about 7 pm to 7 am she is in a solid sleep with only 2 quick feeds in between.  If that keeps up, I can survive the crazy days.

I've been meaning to post about how we chose Miriam's name, especially since a few people have asked, so here's the baby name scoop...

By now it's no secret that Erik and I are partial to Biblical names.  The names Micah, Keziah and Silas can all be found in the Bible.  But in this stage of life, the choice of baby names grows narrower and narrower as more and more of your family and friends and others in your social circle have their own kids and "use up" potential names.  It seemed as though all the preferable boy Bible names had already been snatched up by others, and there wasn't much left to choose from if this baby had been of the male gender.  Who knows... our child may have very well ended up with a name like Nahum or Jehoshaphat or Melchizedek simply in order for us to stay true to our genre :)

So, lucky for us, she turned out to be a she and we were able to use a name that we've kept coming back to for the past 9 years.  We had the name all picked out when we were pregnant the first time around.  If Micah had been a girl, the name would've been Miriam Keziah.  I wanted Keziah for a first name but Erik was still a little unsure about it, so we agreed on Miriam.  But, of course, it turned out to be a boy, so we had our Micah.  When I was pregnant the 2nd time, the name Keziah had grown on Erik so much that we opted to use it as a first name (Silas was our top boy name for that pregnancy).  Out came a little girl and we named her Keziah Katherine, using my mom's name as the middle name.  Then pregnancy #3 rolled around and Miriam was back on the table as our top girl name.  Of course, we didn't end up using it when it turned out to be a boy.  So, with the 4th and final pregnancy there was no question that we would use the name Miriam if it was a girl.  As soon as the ultrasound results were in, the name was set in stone.  We never once discussed boy names together and the kids immediately started referring to their baby sister by her first name.  Our intention was to keep it a secret from everyone else, but that didn't work out so well.  By the time Miriam was born, Erik's whole family knew the name as well as a few others who either guessed or overheard it from our chatty children :)

We chose the middle name Jane because we thought it was sweet and went nicely with the first name. Miriam means "wished-for child" and Jane (which is also a Hebrew name) means "gift from God".  Such appropriate meanings for this special little girl.  A year ago I wouldn't have believed that we would have another daughter in our family.

So we are feeling blessed!  There are so many things to be thankful for this year including a beautiful property to enjoy.  Life on the farm continues to be exciting.  We're currently waiting for about 30 hens that might inhabit our newly built chicken coop as soon as today.  We're also anticipating the birth of a new baby calf any day now...

(This is Bambi the heifer who is about 7 months old)

And construction on the house keeps moving forward, slowly but surely.  Some days it feels like it will never be complete but every day gets us nearer to the goal!

I am counting my blessings this fall season and feeling grateful for many things, least of which are these four little ones... :)