Middle Names

It only took us a month but we finally settled on middle names for the boys!

Kellen Tate

Kellen means slender - so far an ironic name since he is the bigger of the two :)

Tate means cheerful

Toben Shane

Toben means God is good - something we have definitely lived this past year of unexpected twists and turns and big steps of faith

Shane means gift from God - early on while the boys were in the NICU I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep one night and got a strong "impression", for lack of a better word, of what a gift these babies are. Specifically the fact that there are two of them! This pregnancy was not part of "our plan" and certainly not twins, but God knew what he was doing when He entrusted us with both of them. In my mental state somewhere between sleep and coherent thought this seemed very clear even though it is hard to put into words now. I started thinking of Kellen as our third child from my third pregnancy just like the first two, but pictured Toben as a bonus gift from God didn't expect but are so blessed to receive. I felt strongly that we needed to pick a middle name for Toben that reflected that he is a "gift from God" (not that our other kids aren't also gifts!) Anyway, that is how we came to Shane :)

Now I kinda wish all our kids' names had that deep a meaning to me. Fourth time's a charm (actually more like eighth if you count first and middle names!)