Two Posts in One

So I am very far behind once again! I have two posts in one. Multi-tasking! At the bottom, I have posted a video of Mattie. I am completely amazed at this child! She has started standing up without using her hands. It seems like it would take a lot of leg strength to do this. Is it because she is closer to the ground? I don't recall my older girls doing this. Anyway, check it out. She does it part way through the video a couple of times.

I also have been tagged by Banana Pants and Jaxson's Fight ....How your children got their names. So sorry I am just getting to this but I really have enjoyed reading how everyone has chosen their children's names. So here it goes:

Abby Lynn: Our first born. Wow. Almost 13 years ago. There really isn't anything significant in choosing Abby except that we both really liked that name. Of course, we went through the "What sounds good with this name?" We finally decided on Lynn. One of Matt's sisters has the same middle name so that was the deciding factor on the middle name. The final test was stepping outside and yelling the name. Yes. We liked the sound of it and could live with it. There was an issue about the spelling of Abby. I wanted it to be spelled Abbey. My husband says why add the extra letter. He says it is an extra letter she has to learn when she goes to school......you know we wouldn't want to add that extra challenge for her...HaHa! He also insisted that you will never find any "name stuff" spelled that way. Well, I rarely see Abby or Abbey anyway. It is always Abigail. And speaking of that, he also requested that we never name our children one thing and call them something else. Just another school issue for him. Both of us have nicknames and it never bothered me. I guess he will forever be tormented for being called Matthew in school instead of Matt. He is quite demanding huh? No, he really isn't. If I had insisted, I would have gotten my way. I loved the name spelled either way and I could live with all his quirky name requests.

Caroline Elizabeth: Our middle child. I have always loved the name Caroline Elizabeth even as a young girl. My grandmother's middle name was also Elizabeth. She had passed before Caroline was ever born. Matt knew how much I loved the name so he agreed that Caroline Elizabeth it would be.

Mattie Rose: Our third child. I posted last year about the special meaning behind Mattie's name. It is amazing to me how her name just fell into place. Her name is the most symbolic of our children and I truly believe she was destined to have this name. Mattie is named after Matt. After Caroline was born, it was said that Caroline should have been named Mattie because she favored him so much. Well, too late. We were not having anymore children......so we thought! Well 7 years later, surprise! surprise! We find out we are having another girl. Matt says in the ultrasound room, "I really want to name her Mattie..........click here......to read the rest of Mattie's story. It is quite an interesting story!

I have to also tag some other folks. I'm behind on blog reading so if you've been tagged already, please forgive me!

Your turn! Le Frevre Times, Braska, Life with 4 Kiddos, The Heflin Family, B.A.D.D is Good.

Don't forget to check out the video!

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

A Rose for a Rose

Mattie's middle name is Rose. There is a long story at how this came to be, but I will try and shorten it the best I can. It all began before Mattie was even conceived. I had a dream and let's say it was very interesting. In short, it was about death. Well around the time I had this dream, I had a rose bush that grew this new long stem and produced this beautiful yellow rose. This rose grew at a time this bush never produces flowers which really caught my attention. I shared this story with others and was concerned with its meaning. Was God trying to tell me something? A lady I work with said, "you're going to have a baby...are you pregnant?" No way!! I'm done. Well.....I'd say about 6 months passed and surprise...We're pregnant! Fast forward to finding out the sex of our baby. Well, Matt really wanted her named after him and his middle name starts with "R" so we were throwing around some names. At this point, I'd forgotten about the rose. My friend Tracey mentioned the name. Then another friend of mine, Helen, also brought up the same name. We have another wonderful friend whose name is Rose. It was then I remembered "the rose!" It was decided her name would be Rose. At my shower, Helen, gave Mattie a rose bush. We decided to wait a week and plant the bush on Matt's birthday, Feb. 12th. So there is the story about how Mattie became Mattie Rose. I'm sure God had planned that too! Isn't it funny how He works?

Abby helping to dig the hole.

Matt planting the rose.

Caroline watering the rose.

Matt and myself with the rose.

Waiting to grow.....

The rose bush with its first bud. (May)

*Now the bush is so tall. We've had many roses. The most beautiful, sweet smelling roses! I saved the first one. I can't for the life of me find the pictures I took, but I know they are somewhere. I'll post them when I find them.