Why Graham is Graham

Its a pretty big deal picking out a name. I mean, you could change your name ... but who does that? So it is up to the parents to bless the child with a good name. And not just any name, think ahead to the first day of school that the child will go through every year. Each teacher reads the full name. So we can't go with a name that has a wacky first name and plan on using the middle name - that's pointless. If you want him to be called something ... NAME HIM THAT. So needless to say, Lydia and I have over analyzed the name. We have three books, each of which are about three pounds and have thousands of names and their origin and meaning, etc. We started looking through the books early on, before we knew the sex. The girl name was tough, and quite frankly, we only eliminated it down to a top five list. Apparently the thing to do now is keep those a secret in case we ever have a girl later on, no one will "take" those names (as if we have ownership of them...). I didn't waste nearly as much time thinking about the names as Lydia did, because I didn't see the point spending brain time on something until we knew the sex. However, the boy name came pretty quick, which is all the better since we found out we are having a boy! We decided early on that we wanted the middle name to be Everett. Why? Well, Lydia's dad's middle name is Everett, my (Corey) grandfather's (mom's side) name was Everett, my great uncle's middle name was Everett (although he went by his middle name), and Lydia has a distant cousin or someone named Everett. So that was easy - it was a given. Now to the first name. We had a top ten list that revolved quite a bit and no two days was the top ten the same as the day before. I don't remember how we heard the name first, probably a commercial or in a name book, but Lydia said, "Hey, what about Graham?". There was something about the name that just sounded perfect. I didn't even have to think about it or hear it out loud several times. I replied, "That's it!!" So from that point forward, Graham has been Graham Everett. 

Now the tough part - Lydia's grandmother (dad's side) goes by "Gram". So now we have two Gram/Graham's in the family. Hopefully context will help decipher who we are talking about. 

We are excited

A lot of people ask us if we are excited. Heck yeah we are excited.

Graham's room has been painted, a new door, window, and closet door put in, carpet installed and we are ready for a crib and all the rest of the furniture to fill it up with.

Lydia has the closet full of Graham's clothes. We have a ton of clothes already and enjoy shopping for them each time we go somewhere.

Each week that passes brings more excitement, but it also brings us a little closer to Graham getting here.

We are so excited!!

-c-

The Egg

Was it a mistake? How did it happen? When did you find out? How did you find out? Are you excited?

These are some of the most common questions we got early on. So i'll start with the first one. Was it a mistake. Drum roll .... it was NOT!

A little history here. Lydia and I both had always felt that kids were nice, but nice for someone else. To be honest, I couldn't stand to go into our McDonald's but once in a blue moon because of the play room they have (its enormous for a fast food restaurant). The sound of kids, especially poorly disciplined kids made me go nuts on the inside and I could never imagine living in a home that sounded like McDonald's all of the time. So needless to say, kids were a big ole NOPE, NEVER from both Lyd and I.

We began working in the nursery once a month at church about 2 years ago, and honestly, for me, that was one of the biggest reasons for the change of heart. We started out in the toddler room, and I think we had about 8 2 year olds on average (yeah ... NUTS!). But I had a lot of fun playing and watching the kids learn things. We moved to the "Crawler" class due to a bigger need with that group. At first, Lyd and I both were a little bummed because they weren't as much fun. Over the course of a few months our opinions started to change. It was like the difference in a dog and a cat. A dog is fun to play with; so is a cat, but you have to work at the cat to get its attention. The crawlers just lay on the mat for a while, but once they acclimate to their surroundings, they start to become the cat. And then ... THEY CRIED!! yeah - new concept not experienced often in the toddler class. So what the heck were we to do?? neither of us had a clue, so ... I picked one of the crying crawlers up! Yep - other than the awkward holding of a new child of a family member or friend just to be nice, this was pretty much a first. And when the crawler stopped crying and started to touch my face ... it was pretty cool. So to make a long story a little shorter, that begin the thought process for me - if this is someone else's kid and it can have this impact on my feelings, what in the word would a little Payne Jr. do??

Lydia was experiencing similar feelings for different reasons. She had a lot of friends that went through a pregnancy and it turned out ok. She got a chance to visit and spend time with their children and see how someone she knew before and now after birth is managing. It put her at more ease. I remember her saying something like "I could probably do that". And for Lyd - that was big.

So we decided to begin talking about "Well, what IF we had a kid?"

2009 was mostly full of fence riding with this new outlook on 'life' (get it? - ha). Towards November we decided that we were sure it was something we wanted to do, we just didn't know when. In January we decided that we would go on one last big vacation without kids in May and begin trying after that.

So, we decided to keep it a secret until we were successful - the only exception ... Lydia's brother and his wife. We called them and asked if they wanted to go on a big vacation, because we may not be able to go for 18 more years. It took Isaac a minute to get what I was saying ... but he got it eventually.

And that, my friend, is how Little Graham began. So .... NO MISTAKE!

-c-

I'm a newbie

So this is my first ever blog post - so we'll see how this goes. Those of you who know me, know I don't like to shut up so the fact that I have to type, means I'll probably get sore fingers before I run out of things to say. This will be a simple one - the purpose, I think, of this site is to help keep connected with everyone that we don't get to spend time with as often as we'd like. We are getting ready to, or possibly already are, in a new chapter or phase of our lives ... building the family.