Rachel's Newborn Pictures

A gal in the neighborhood offered to do newborn pictures for Rachel for free. None of my kids have ever had newborn pictures taken so this was a first for me. Newborn pictures take a LONG time but these are pretty darling.

It took a super long time to get her asleep in that moon. It was worth it.

Rachel Grace

I love the story of how Rachel got her name. I have heard about my Mom's grandmother Rachel Wills DeLaMare a lot. My mom begged me to use the name Rachel every time we found out I was pregnant with a girl. I always deflected and told her she had 4 daughters certainly if she loved the name that much she should have named a daughter Rachel! David also loved the name Rachel and would jump on my Mom's team every time it came up. I just didn't love the name Rachel because I've known so many Rachels growing up so we always came up with a different girl name. Well during the summer of 2014 while we stayed at my parent's house for 3 weeks while we waited to close on our San Antonio house I got really into family history. I went through every book my parent's owned and came across Rachel's journal. I spent a few late nights reading it cover to cover and I just loved her. As I was finishing it up one morning on the couch I came across her patriarchal blessing. In the blessing there was a line that hit me so strongly where it talked about how her name would be passed down from generation to generation and she would not be forgotten. I felt immediately that if we had another girl her name would be Rachel. As I told David and my Mom that I cried. I felt such a love for my great grandmother and knew we would be fulfilling apart of that blessing as no one else in her family line had used her name. Here is Robert DeLaMare and Rachel whom I adore.

Fast forward to the summer of 2015. We were again staying with my parents for a summer vacation and were talking about middle names for Rachel with my parents. My Dad brought up his grandmother Rachel Grace. We talked about her and how awesome it would be to be named after each of my grandfather's mothers. I also read about her in my Grandpa Marv's journal and David and I knew there wasn't a better middle name to fit with our Rachel.

Here is Marvin O. Ashton and Rachel Grace Jeremy.

So there it is. I'm amazed at how much my ancestors have played a role in this little girl's pregnancy and life so far. I know that Rachel was meant to be Rachel and come at this time because we had 3 other opportunities to name a girl Rachel but it wasn't mean to be. I love the spirit of Elijah that she brings into our family just by her name.

Halloween 2015

I just printed out our blog book from our time at Fort Leonard Wood and it's such a great family journal that I am even more motivated to document things. I almost forgot Halloween. I didn't want to buy costumes this year so I told the kids to find something out of the costume box. No one thought twice about getting a new costume this year and it made me wonder if I can get away with it next year too. Jeffrey and Debbie came down for Hallowen because they're moving out of Texas soon. We had a blast and I stayed up wait too late playing and then would wake up to feed a newborn every few hours. Not my wisest decision but oh so worth it.

Mallie was the only one that was determined she wanted to be something not in the box. She wanted so badly to be a witch so I rigged her up a black dress with some safety pins, ribbon and my black maxi skirt. She was thrilled and so was I. The hat is older than she is and way too big.

Not her best picture but her outfit is so darn cute that a friend gave me.

We even managed to squeeze in pumpkin carving. For 2.5 weeks post partum I'm impressed that Halloween went on the same as always.

This little boy screamed/cried every time we tried to put on his costume. Finally I had to give him candy before we even went trick or treating just to get him out the door. Oh parenting...

Happy Halloween!