welcome…

From this picture last night…

To this one early this morning…

Olive Christina MercyAnn Skipper

born March 5, 2009 @ 5:57 am

7 lbs. 10 oz., 21 inches long

Explanation of her sweet name:

• Olive–two things that make her name special.  We always want our kids names to be from the Bible, whether a specific name or a word translated or special meaning (i.e., Zoe means “life” in Greek).  Then I saw in a bunch of information on family genealogy my mom had that on my maternal Grandmother’s side, Judy Dunavan, her mother’s mother’s name was Olive–is that clear at all?!   That got us thinking about the meaning of “Olive” in the Bible, as far as the olive tree goes, etc.  You can find information all throughout the Bible.  The olive tree is an emblem of “Peace” and has other significance in the Bible you can read about here if you’re interested.
• Christina is my most precious, dearest friend Chris’ first name.  It was only fitting to name our sweet girl after such an amazing, Godly example.  Here we are.

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• The second name was sort of a last minute combination.  Her name was going to be Olive Christina Ann.  Ann is BJ’s wonderful Aunt Linda’s middle name who passed away a few years ago.  I so wish she were here to love on her like only the kids “Nana” did.  Here is Linda with BJ’s parents, Dot & Bill.

• A few days ago, I said to BJ, “If this baby is a girl, I really want to add the name “Mercy” in there because of the verses we’ve been claiming and clinging to since Dad’s accident (read this post where I explained it)  So in honor of Dad and our gratefulness to God his mercy in saving Dad’s life.  Thus, the MercyAnn.

Lamentations 3:22-23 (Amplified Bible)

22It is because of the Lord’s mercy and loving-kindness that we are not consumed, because His [tender] compassions fail not.  23 His mercies are new every morning; great and abundant is Your stability and faithfulness.

I woke up around 2:30 am and said, “BJ, my water just broke”.  (sidenote–THAT is what you say to get a man who can sleep through anything to pop out of  bed immediately!!).  From there on out the contractions were on.  We had her at home, she was born in the birthing pool (that’s for another post, it was so wonderful–as wonderful as labor can be, that is) and she is just a doll.  This picture above is when I look down and see that the baby is actually a girl!  I just thought for SURE she was a he–most everyone did.  I think only Shiloh said girl 🙂  She is absolutely perfect and we could not be more thrilled.

More to come as far as details…for now, here are pics.

Olive looking up at Daddy

A Shiloh look alike, I’ll post more pics of the two compared sometime

Zoe, the proud big sister

Judah, happy and over the fact that she isn’t a boy 🙂

Shiloh, Aunt Ali & Olive

The Proud Daddy

Mimi with her 8th grandbaby (4 of which are ours!!)

Uncle Adam & Olive

Grama Charlotte (who made it just a few minutes after Olive was born because she was first going to make us Chicken & Noodles–homemade of course!–but Grandpa Owen told her she’d better get over here!)

My support of family women

My awesome midwife, Cheryl

Final pic of our beautiful Olive