March 31st.

The day before Sophie was born I gathered everyone as we were getting ready for church to the loft. I told them I wanted one last picture before Sophie was born and by golly she better be coming this week some time. I was ready to be done!

They willingly obliged. David for some reason is always the last one ready for church. He would defend himself and say its because he is always helping everyone else and not that he's the slowest.

This pregnancy has been a whopper for me. I had varicose veins for the first time and had to wear a compression sock on my right leg for the last 4 months. I know I should be grateful that that this is the first time that pregnancy has really been annoying and for the most part I was. But near the end I was so happy to know this was my final time being pregnant.

And here is the guess date calendar. It's been fun the last couple of babies to see who guesses right. There are times when I feel bad for our older kids that they don't have a few siblings right close together and they are all at the same stage of life. But then I think of moments like this and see them with babies and I remember this is good too. They are responsible and resilient and we do our best to make sure they get enough time with out the littles around and then I know that that's okay and enough for them.

What's in a name? Part 2

We thought coming up with another girl name would be quite the task. Turns out it wasn’t at all. That baby right there is my Grandpa Jack. His mom passed away in 1918 when she was just 30 years old. We named Rachel after her. The woman in this picture is Sophia (Rachel's Mom) my great great grandmother. She helped raise my grandpa and was a pretty amazing lady. I knew all this already but one Sunday a couple months ago as we were driving to church we were talking about girl names with the kids. We had already gone through what we felt was every name in the book and David randomly brought up Sophia. I remembered that was the name of Rachel's mom and I came home that day and decided to learn more about her on familysearch. As I sat there and read about her I was stunned. Not only was she the youngest of 8 kids but she had an older sister named Hattie who she adored. What are the odds? Not odds at all just huge tender moments from the Lord. I started to read about Hattie and soon realized that the name I thought we chose just because I really loved a book character with that name turned out to be my great great aunt who was also phenomenal. Now I know why I was so set on the name Hattie even though it was so different. There are several sets of sisters named Hattie and Sophia going all the way back on my mom's line. As we prepare to welcome our 6th little girl and #8 I'm so grateful to feel the presence of these incredible women on the other side of the veil who care deeply about their posterity. I keep thinking how fun and joyous it must be to send down all their namesakes into our family.