Introducing...

Our sweet baby!

Samuel Colby Thomas!  It's a boy!!! We are thrilled! Everything looked great at the ultrasound this morning.

So, now for the story of his name:

Ever since I can remember, I have dreamed and thought about what I would name my children.  I liked names that were pretty for girls, and masculine for boys.  I wrote not only my name, but my future children's names with whoever's last name I had a crush on at the time. Thankfully, I married a Thomas, so most names will "fit," unlike my maiden name, Meighan.  (Ask my brother and sister-in-law about that! haha!)

Who doesn't love baby feet?!

Shortly after we got married, Will and I started talking about what we would name our future children.  We didn't think much about meanings, but just went with names we thought were pretty, or cute, or masculine.  The longer we were married, the more our names began to evolve.  We decided that we wanted our children to have a family name somewhere (either their 1st or middle name).  This was important to us because we knew at some point we wanted to adopt, and we thought it would be a good way to help those children feel like they were a part of our family heritage.

But then..... we struggled to conceive, and naming children took on a whole new meaning.  All of the sudden, we became very concerned with the meanings of our children's names.  We also still wanted them to have a family name. 

Baby, or alien? A straight-on view of his face.

When we adopted Kristen, we had the opportunity to change her name if we wanted.  We thought, and prayed about what we should do, and we also talked with her about what she wanted to do.  In the end, we decided to keep Kristen which means "Christ-Bearer" and to change her middle name to Rene' which is mine and my mom's middle names. 

So now for Samuel:  Samuel's story can be found in the Bible in 1 Samuel.  His mom, Hannah, was barren, and prayed that God would bless her with children (sounds pretty familiar!)  Her prayers were so fervent, that Eli, the preist, thought she was drunk!  She promised God that if he would give her a child, she would dedicate that child to His service.  God answered her prayers, and she named him Samuel, which means "the Lord has heard my prayer." 

Our Samuel's middle name is Colby (the same as his daddy's!) We will call him Sam or Samuel, but not Sammy because my brother and his family have a dog named Sammy, and that would just be a little weird for us all. ;)