Welcome Charles Braxton Smith

Neal's sweet baby sister had a sweet baby boy last week and I just had to post some pics. He is so cute, but the little guy has phneumonia already. Isn't that weird? Anyway, enjoy-and yes he smells as good as he looks.

What's In A Name?

I have certain strict guidelines that I believe must be followed when selecting a name. The first is that either the first or middle name has to be a family name. Someone that Neal or I have known and love. That has been pretty easy so far. Emmy's middle name belongs to both my mom and me. Charles-Allen has both my dad's and Neal's dad's name and Ally has my grandmother's middle name. The second guideline is that we must actually like the name they go by. I mean we can't use the name Cleo even though it belongs to Neal's mom and we both love her. Our kid would never forgive us and I can't blame her. And finally, we both have to agree. That is the tricky part, and honestly I did cheat on this when we had Ally. Neal loves the name Ally. He has had it pick out for many years and wanted to use it if Charles-Allen was a girl. I like the name a lot, but there are lots of names I like a lot. That's why I have to have these guidelines. I don't know how people just narrow down two names that they like. When we found out Ally was a girl Neal was set on the name. Me not so much. I wanted her given name to be different than what we called her, like Emmy's. Emmy's given name is Emily, and since I'm a sucker for nick names I wanted Ally to have a given name and a nick name as well. However, I didn't think Neal would agree and I didn't want to discuss it for several months and get everyone's imput so I just settled on a name and when the nurse said they would be back with the birth certificate I informed Neal of what I baby girl would be named. Funny thing is he totally loved the name Alexa and I worried for nothing. But now we can't agree. There are too many options that we like and we can't settle on one thing. It's so frustrating because when we talk about the baby we can't call her by her name. It's just the baby. I don't like it. So you must help me settle on a name. We're going to use the name Ellas Parker. I know they both are traditionally boy names and in a way that's why I like them. They are also both family names. Parker is my mom's maiden name (hey I from the south, what can I say) and Ella is part of Neal's grandmother's name. The problem is we can't agree on what to call her. I really want to call her Parker. But since I've given our other girls nick names I feel like I have to give this one a nick name too. Neal likes Elly, but that reminds me of Ellie Mae and I think it would be difficult to say Emmy, Ally, and Elly. But I think they go together quite nicely and I like the cohesiveness of the way they sound together. And then there is Ella, which fits perfectly with our theme of a given name shortened into a nick name. So do you see how big my problem is and do you think you can help? If you're not busy during this holiday season maybe you could help us pick out the name of our fourth and final child. Chances are I'll do what I want regardless like I did with Ally, but I hoping someone will give me some sort of inspiration. And I am desperate. I'm almost six months pregnant and we haven't settled on a name. That is so not like me, I mean I've had Emily Carole picked out since I was 8, I even named my first Cabbage Patch kid Emily Carole. I must have a name.

It's A......

Okay, so Neal and I went to the doctor yesterday so excited to find out what our 4th child will be. After nearly 5 months of Charles-Allen telling everyone, "My mommy's pregnant for a boy" we thought we would be able to share his excitement because he just knows his baby is a boy. As soon as the tech puts the picture up we both can tell exactly what it is and it's not a boy. It's a girl!!!! I'm so excited. I've always wanted a bunch of girls. I think because there were so few in my big family growing up. But I'm sad for Charles-Allen, when we told him I thought he was going to break out crying. It was pitiful. I know he will get use to the idea and eventually get excited, but for now he's a little bitter. Last night while we were eating dinner he said, "that's Emmy's baby, not my baby." Maybe it'll take a little longer for him to get use to the idea than I thought.