What's in a Name?

Picking a name for your unborn child seems to be a perfect embodiment of marriage itself: two minds have to become one.  Two individuals from two different families and backgrounds with different life experiences, preferences, and memories have to come together to pick two important words.  Words that will be the first impression many people get of the child their union created for the rest of his or her life.

Like last pregnancy, my husband and I had many names one of us liked or loved and the other person hated.  Sometimes a negative memory was to blame.  Other times, our preferences just seemed to be polar opposite.

But name-picking is a beautiful process.  And having two equally sharing parties that differ in opinions are invaluable for this new little person.  And... I honestly really enjoy the search and the many discussions.  I've learned so much about my husband in the process.

All that being said, we are ready to announce baby boy #2's name! His name will be....

Coen Gabor

I want to give you some background on both his name and big brother's too since I didn't have a blog back when he was born.

Let's start with big brother.  His name is Liam Allan.

Allan is a family name on my husband's side.  My husband's middle name is Allan.  His father's middle name is Allan and so was his late grandfather's.  I love that the tradition to pass on names in his family focuses on middle names.  It gives history without taking away individuality.  I decided during my pregnancy with Liam that I wanted to start a similar tradition with all of our kids' names someday.

Liam is a name I fell in love with during a rotation I did in my medical school's daycare.  The cutest little 10 month old there was named Liam.  He was so lovable that it made me love his name. I also loved that I had never met anyone else with that name.  As an added bonus, my husband's father is William Allan (but he goes by the name Allan).  The fact that Liam is a form of William gave it a family name perspective but still kept its uniqueness because it wasn't a carbon copy family first name.  I was excited when the grandparents all seemed to like it immediately as well.

Since my name is Jennifer (the number one name from 1970-1984 in this country), ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to name my kids less common names so that they wouldn't be dubbed "so-and-so-first-initial" in their classrooms.  Liam was ranked #15 in 2011. This is the number we were faced with when we were choosing his name.  We hesitated a little over the name because of its high rank, but that was its first year in the top 25 and only the second year in the top 40 so it didn't seem too popular.  Of course,  it ended up rising to #6 in his birth year.  Fast-forward to last year and it's now #2.  I hope he doesn't end up feeling like his name is too common because to me it still feels unique.  It fits him perfectly and I love it even more than I did when we chose it.

Now for baby brother Coen Gabor.

Gabor is the family name for him.  It is my father's name and was also my late grandfather's name.  It is a name that appears often in my family.  I have a cousin and a second cousin with the name too.  For this reason and because people always seemed to butcher the pronunciation for my Dad, we decided to use it as a middle name.  It also continues the tradition we started in our own family with Liam by giving him the family name as a middle name.

Coen is a name we were introduced to because of a friend in my husband's Army unit.  He has a son Liam's age that is named Cohen.  When I heard the name, I fell in love with it. I was unaware of their chosen spelling but my husband and I both imagined it spelled Coen.  We are both drawn to short names and as I said earlier, unique ones.  I have yet to meet another Coen.  I did a lot of reading about the name and found that Coen is a shortened version of the Dutch name Coenraad.  Just like Liam is short for William.  Once again, it just feels perfect for our little guy.

And the meanings are perfect too.  Liam means "protector".  What a great name for a big brother!  It also fits his sweet personality so well.  He is already so protective of his mama!  And the one time he's been with a smaller baby, he was so gentle and sweet with her.  Coen means "brave".  Little brothers can always use a healthy dose of bravery ;).  Being the little guy can be tough!

I'll leave you with a sneak peak of Coen's nursery (though the color in the picture does not do the real-life version justice) and the new addition to our kids' growth chart.  Nesting is in full force.  I can't wait to share more nursery pictures and pictures of Liam's big boy room as we finish up.  I also plan to do a 21 month update on Liam and a 5th month bumpdate... soon :).

 

Why My Christmas Tree Has No Theme

 

I like things with character...personality.  It's hard to explain but I'm the kind of person that loves mismatched forks and spoons because there's just something about things like that that makes a house feel like a home. It's as if things that are too perfect feel stiff to me.  It's something I've yet to figure out how to explain in a way that makes someone get exactly what I mean, but it is just a feeling I've always had (one that my husband appreciates very much and indulges by adding to my mismatched silverware on occasion ;).

When I was a little girl, I would sit and dream about my future Christmas tree.  I hated the plain ball-shaped ornaments, especially the kind made out of thread (yep, we had those and they always unraveled and got tangled in EVERYTHING). They were so...generic.  Like they could be anybody's Christmas ornaments. And there were dozens of the exact same one, which I found very boring.

I loved ornaments that had meaning...special memories behind them.  But even if they didn't have specific memories, I at least liked unique ones. I won my mom over to this way of thinking slowly.  I made or bought my family members ornaments as presents each year.  And each year when we pulled out the Christmas decorations, less and less of the plain balls made it on the tree (the string ones are now so rare that you have to dig deep into the left-over newspaper that we use to pack away ornaments to even chance finding one).  We made a habit of reminiscing as we pulled out our eclectic assortment of decorations:  a cross-stitched snowman I'd made in junior high, a glass snowman on ice skates we got at Opryland in 2001, an angel made out of a coke can by one of my Mom's mentally challenged patients, and many many more.  My brother's kindergarten picture inside a felt wreath circa 1985 and a reindeer I made from a clothespin circa 1995 were some of my favorites.  I love this tradition to this day.

I vowed as a child that my tree would have even more memories nestled on its branches someday.  My husband and I have been married since 2011.  Considering that we've only had our own "family tree" for 3 years, I think we're doing well on keeping my childhood promise.  (It definitely helps that my Mom gives me ornaments each year now too ;).

I thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you.

The ornament on the left was made for me in high school by a friend.  It was the first decoration given to me to save for my own tree.  I love that my initials have changed since I was given this.  It is a happy reminder of how much I've changed since then.  The one on the right is a relic of the days in which I still had time to wear perfume and make-up.  I was obsessed with the Very Sexy scent by Victoria Secret so my mom got me a mini bottle that came with an ornament one year.  A wonderful reminder of how far I've come in being secure in myself and my body (oh, high school girls!).

I was given these ornaments in college.  I was a Freshman and lived in the Ford Buildings which we at Berry College lovingly called the castles.  Each year, they have a celebration called Christmas in the Castles.  These bring back sweet memories of my first year "on my own" and of all the friends I made there.

These are from 2011, our first Christmas together as a family.  I love the picture on the left of our first dance.  It is beautiful.  It makes my heart and mind go back to that day we became husband and wife.  I'm one lucky woman!  I love the ornament on the right for the exact opposite reason.  This picture is not a professional one but it captures our excitement for our first Christmas as a new family (as well as our love for our furry babies).   It has a "rough around the edges" appeal for me that brings back a lot of memories of those first few months as newly weds.

In 2012 we became a family of three.  I am a mother so of course I will always melt when I see a picture of my newborn baby.  He was so tiny and new this time last year.  It always makes me stop and remember how quickly time flies and that I need to treasure each moment I have with my angel.

And these are this year's additions.  Of course, it is conjecture to say they are some of my favorites but I'm hoping they become that.  That I will look at these ornaments in years to come and remember the fun (and crazy) time that we had making the ornament on the right and marvel at how much our little guy has changed since our family picture on the left.  I hope I always remember this wonderful month of December in which I got to play stay-at-home mom and how much I loved it!

I understand that my tree will never be featured in Better Homes and Gardens for having some amazing theme but honestly, even though many of these "perfect" trees are beautiful, they aren't my style.  A tree is a beautiful display of a family in my opinion.  It should be filled with character and memories.  I can't wait until my kid(s) can make their own ornaments to add!

Thanksgiving Fun

I love Thanksgiving (you get to eat so much good food! What's not to love?) We had a so much fun this year!  It's crazy to see how much Liam has grown and changed since last year.  We thought it was funny that it worked out that he was Mommy's little turkey last year and Daddy's this year.

It has been years since the hubby and I have had such a long weekend off together.  We spent Wednesday night through Sunday morning with my parents. It was a much needed break filled with family time.  I think Liam's favorite part was our trip to Starbucks (crazy I know, but he LOVES coffee).  Nagyi and Nagypapi spoiled him and got him his very own decaf Pumpkin spice latte. They spelled his name completely wrong (Lea). I guess this is understandable since I ordered it and I don't think they picked up on the fact that it was for my toddler (I can't imagine why not ;P). But Liam did not mind at all! That boy was in heaven! (Don't worry...we aren't bad parents.  This was his first coffee and definitely a special Thanksgiving treat not an every day thing.  Plus, we figured it was better than him having sips of ours with the full caffeine load and boy can he beg and gulp!)




The hubby's favorite part was feeding the ducks and playing on the playground with Liam.  This is the first time we've done either as a family and it was a blast!  I can tell he is excited as Liam grows and changes into toddlerhood.  So much to look forward to!

My favorite part (other than the food and family time) was putting up our tree once we got home.  We have a tradition of getting the tree from Home Depot and carrying it home on foot (we aren't super strong or crazy or anything. We just live really close to Home Depot and drive small sedans and happened upon this tradition by accident one year when we had walked to Home Depot "just to look" at trees and of course found "the perfect one").  It was cold this year though so we broke tradition and strapped the tree to my car and drove it home.  We are both hoping to start a new tradition next year in which we go to a tree farm and pick a tree ("chop one down" in my husband's imagination). We got a beautiful tree this year, though.  One of the employees asked me what I was looking for and I said "fluffy".  He sure found one to fit the bill!


I loved watching Liam "help" with decorating.  He surprised me and wasn't really interested in the lights.  He loved the little plastic ornament balls though. (It would be my child that wants to eat ornaments instead of staring cutely at pretty lights ;).


I love our tree!  Full and fluffy with lots of lights and full of personality and memories! I  love looking through our ornaments and reminiscing every year.  I try to make my mother and mother-in-law an ornament most years and I usually make us one too. We've also gotten presents of first Christmases for our wedding and for Liam's first Christmas last year too.  I'll have to do a post about these sometime because there is too much to share here.



Liam loves the tree too but he seems to disagree with my decorating ;).  He LOVES pulling ornaments off of the tree.  We're still working on learning how to hang them back up.