Our Kids So Far

I am one of six kids. Jodi, Mandy, Stacey, Kylie, Amy, and....Burton. Hmm. Mandy, is really Amanda...but there was still a bit of a theme going there with the 'ee' sound at the end of each of our names. I like that about us. :) Personally, when thinking about baby names, I have always liked girl names that end with 'lyn'. In fact I will add to the cheesiness by sharing that I'd prefer to have all of my daughters' first names end with 'lyn', and have all of their middle names be three letters. OCD? Perhaps. Weird? Probably. Tacky? That's me!



So far there is only one girl, Jocelyn Joy. I knew when I was 12 years old, that I would be naming my first daughter Jocelyn. A woman who I knew for my entire life, who cared for me when I was a baby and taught me pretty much all I know about how to care for an infant, died when I was twelve. Her name was Jocelyn Lee Astin, but we only ever referred to her lovingly as Joey. Joey was a foster mother. She cared for babies, over 100 of them in her time as a foster parent. Some of these infants were special needs, and she loved nothing more than to give them all of her attention, love, and to dress them up in beautiful baby clothes. She was even awarded the 'foster parent of the year' award for Monterey County on more than one occasion. My sister Kylie and I spent a lot of time with Joey as we were growing up. We loved helping with the babies and we loved letting her spoil us. We went on trips with her to the bay area to visit her son. We wanted to be Rainbow Girls and Jobs Daughters like her beautiful daughter, Diana, whose life was sadly cut short due to cancer. I will always have the fondest memories of this woman, and could think of no better name to give to my first little girl. Hopefully, my daughter will grow into a woman as caring, loving, giving, and wonderful as her namesake. Jocelyn's middle name is Joy, after Brad's Great Grandfather. His name was Joy Joseph Whitten. Brad's grandfather's name was Leonard Joy Whitten. They have kept it in the family, and Brad suggested it as a middle name for Jocelyn. We thought it was a perfect fit. Brad also liked the idea of calling her J.J., even though I completely planned on calling her Joey (we both still only call her Jocelyn after two years). While I was writing Jocelyn's birth announcements, I researched the meaning of Jocelyn. It turns out that her name means playful, joyful, or lighthearted. With a middle name like Joy, having a first name that also means joyful might seem redundant, but we don't believe that you can have too much of a good thing! She is our joy!

So that's Jocelyn. Now, for no good reason at all, here are the other girls names I have picked for our future daughters:
(not in any particular order)

Carolyn Sue
Jaquelyn Rae
Marilyn Lee
Kaitlyn Mae (My sister Amanda already has dibs on Kaitlyn, but if I get to five daughters before she gets one, I'm using it!)

Now onto boys. We always knew that our first son would be Samuel Wilson. Brad is a fan of using family names, but he doesn't think the world is ready for a Bradrick Junior. He likes skipping a generation, so we wanted to use Brad's dad's first and middle name. When I got pregnant last year, we were thinking about Carolyn Sue for a girl, but we knew it would be Samuel Wilson if it were a boy. Unfortunately, less than a month after I found out that I was pregnant, My dad passed away. When we found out that we were in fact having a boy, I really wanted to use my dad's name. My dad's name was James Terry. So, Sam ended up being Samuel James, the first names of both of his grandfathers. We had some other boys names picked out for future sons with James in them, but I felt strongly about using it this time because of the time line of me getting pregnant right before my dad died.

Other Boys names we like, mostly family names:
(in no particular order)

Isaac Benton
Julius Astin
Leonard Wilson

I know we won't be usinge all of these names because we have trimmed our 'How many kids we want' number from eight to either four or five. But, we sure will be prepared if we change our minds and decide to have 9 or 10!