I was supposed to have an ultrasound today, but the Dr's office called and cancelled the Dr. appointment, and I'm having trouble scheduling another one. The best they could do was an ultrasound next week at 9 and an appointment at 11:30. Since I will have 3 small children with me and must drive 30 minutes, that's just not going to work!

I thought I'd do a baby related post anyway. Let's talk baby names.

I've always like traditional but slightly unusual baby names. My baby names come from saint books, and believe me, there are some strange ones in there! St. Walburga, anyone? Basically, I want people to be able to spell it and know whether the child is a boy or a girl. No Taylor/Teyler/Tylers; no Kaylee/Kailee/Keileighs.

My boys so far have been pretty mundane. My oldest is named after his grandfather - but I have never met another little Robert (Robbie/Bobby) anywhere. My second son is a widely known Irish holiday, and my 3rd son is probably the most unusual boy name. It has 9 letters, and he was an early Roman martyr who was shot with arrows.

My girls are a little different. Slightly unusual, but feminine, old-fashioned names. They all end in "a".

I was looking for a teapot I liked online, and came across Replacements.com, where you can replace that plate you broke from your grandma's set. They carry all kinds of discontinued patterns.

So I had way too much fun typing in my girls and seeing what they'd look like if they were a plate!


My 5 year old:
I like this one. Blue and yellow are my favorite color combination, and it would match my kitchen - here's my sugar bowl:

Here's my cutting board, which I display in a napkin holder to hide the bread machine:



My 2 year old:

My 1 yr. old:
Very pretty and delicate!

There were quite a few patterns with my name, mostly boring crystal patterns. I like this on though:

And if I were a fork:
Now we just have to think of a new baby's name. We've had a boys name picked out for a while - Baby #5 was going to be Xavier Quinn. Sure, the poor thing's initials would be XQ, but I thought Quinn was cute for a 5th baby. When #5 turned out to be a girl, we still considered Xavier for #6, but there was no way we were going to follow the Latin root pattern and name him Xavier Sex. Now he could be Xavier Sept, but I don't like that too much.

I've heard of #7 girls being named Septima in the past, but that's a little too exotic for us. Traditionally, my husband never agrees or even wants to talk names until the delivery room. However, my last labor was about an hour long so that doesn't give us much time! I wanted a different middle name for the last baby, but sometimes you have to compromise. My 3rd son was a compromised middle name, and he ended up with 4 S's and 3 T's in his full name - and 2 of those were "ST" combinations, so I just prayed he didn't have a lisp when he learned to talk!

Well, I've got 4 months or so to come up with some new ideas. Maybe I'll find a plate I really like and take it from there!


Don't forget Pearl Harbor Day - 65 years ago. If a baby was born on that day, he'd be retired! And yet, I don't think America will ever forget. Our grandparents had Pearl Harbor Day in 1941; my parents had the assassination of JFK in 1963; my generation remembers what they were doing when the Challenger blew up in 1986; our children have Sept. 11, 2001. I hope it takes another 20 years for the next tragedy!