picking a name

When it comes to picking names for our kids, it's been both easy and hard.
I think we both really like to have family names or special meanings to the names we pick, and we like them to be a little unique.
Which I guess is why we ended up with a Tripper :)

Ellie is named after my Grandma Ellie.
I've wanted a little Ellie since I was about 12 years old :)
I'm glad I got to use it!
Her middle name, Renee, is my middle name.
I absolutely love saying her name!
And I love that my grandma Ellie got to meet her before she died.
I remember so fondly all the times she would get up close to her little chubby baby face and say over and over again, "I'm Ellie, and you're Ellie!"
So precious!

Tripp is a name we both really liked.
It took us the longest to pick his name.
I had to be convinced it wouldn't be a name he would be made fun of forever at school.
So just in case, we gave him a meaningful and manly middle name, Donald.
Along with being manly, it's after his Gramps.
We are so grateful that he has such a good grandpa to look up to that loves the Lord.
And now, his name doesn't sound odd at all.
I love that it's unique and fits him perfectly!

And now little Webb!
We had his name as an option before he was even born.
But we don't really give a lot of thought to names until we know if it's a boy or girl.
Then it's crunch time.
Me and my non-procrastinating self really likes to have the name nailed down just in case it comes oddly early...which has never happened :)
I just like to be prepared.
So we talked a few times.
We didn't have any other names, we just had to decide if Webb was what we wanted.
And we finally decided it was.
My maiden name is Weber, so Webb is our own little spin on my last name.
It's also the nickname my parent's have for each other.
They've called each other Webb for as long as I can remember.
I love being able to honor my dad with such a special name.
He is an incredibly good papa.
I am so grateful to have been raised by a loving father who I was able to see and learn how to walk with the Lord and become more like Him.
From catching him reading his Bible and praying, watching him talk so easily with people about Jesus, letters he's written me...
I know he loves and prays daily for my own kids too.
He's such a special papa, and I love that all my kids get to grow up spending time with him!

Webb's middle name is after his daddy.
It took some convincing.
Matt didn't really want the focus on him.
But I informed him he is just what I would love for our boys to grow up to become.
Loving, caring, gentle, hardworking, God-fearing, humble...need I say more?!
I do love him so very much!
And I love that we have a little Webb Matthew to honor what a wonderful husband and father he is to us!

We kept the name a secret, so the kids had to adjust to the name.
For the first 2 days, Tripp was convinced his name was Mitch.
We don't even know a Mitch!
But no matter how many times we reminded him it was Webb, he just kept calling him Mitch.
I tried not to be too offended.

Ellie accidentally found out the name about 2 weeks before he was born.
I had written Webb in one of her little books that had a genealogy page in it.
My reasoning was solid...
I wanted to see their names together and smile lovingly at them all side by side.
And who in the world would read one random page in one random little book?
Apparently my sister would...who read it to Ellie one day in the car.
So Hannah and Ellie were under strict orders not to mention the name to anyone.
One of them listened incredibly well.
It was not Ellie.

He's also had his fair share of being called Griffin by all of us.
It's kind of hard to remember the name of someone so little when you've only been saying it in your head for a few months.
Griffin is 4 months older than Webb.
It's gonna be so fun to watch all these little boy cousins grow up together!
With Ellie leading the way as the loving and bossy older sister/cousin!

So that's how Webb got his name.

We've all gotten used to it now {2.5 weeks later} :)

No more calling him Mitch.

It's such a sweet little name that I can't help but smile when I say it :)