Sunday, April 22, 2007

Naming babies.

With Snowanna being pregnant, and a few friends having or already had babies in the last couple of years I've been thinking about naming babies. Especially girls. I never got to name a girl baby, having all boys and all. I do have some ideas that I would at least suggest to Hubby if somehow we found ourselves expecting a girl. It's not very likely, and to tell the truth I'm happy with things the way they are right now, but it's nice to pretend and day dream.

I like names that have been around for awhile, names that have some history to them. But I also like names that sound pretty. I'm not totally stuck on the name having to be a "real" name for hundreds of years like some people are. If you are one of them, I think that's just fine for you and yours I don't mean it as a put down. For instance, I would look into words for beautiful and adored, and other things I'd like associated with my child, in a Celtic (Irish and/or Scottish) language dictionary and see if those words would make a good name for a girl in America. I'd also would look at the SSN web page for popular names a hundred or so years ago. I'd check on the popularity of name from my family. I'd look at genealogy records for my family and my Hubby's family and see if there are any that sound good.

There are names that may be beautiful but I'd never use them because of over use recently, a bad association with that name from my or Hubby's past, or it just wouldn't work well in Modern American society. (I can't think of any right off hand.)

A few names I like, but haven't checked with SSA yet to see how popular they are: Edited to add statictics and a few more names. Edits are in this color.

I used http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ to find the ranking for these names. I checked the last 100 years, these are the rankings as they appear in the top 1000.

Lilly (2005 - 180, 1906 - 284, many years not in the top 1000)
Lilah (Only in the top 1000 one year. 1913 - 992)
Miranda (2005 - 114, 1957 - 795 didn't appear before 1957)
Amanda (2005 - 80, 1906 - 190)
Judith (2005 - 541, 1906 - 550)
Elizabeth (2005 - 12, 1906 - 7 always in the top 25)
Cordelia (1950 - 987, 1906 - 454 didn't appear after 1950)
Jennifer (2005 - 42, 1938 - 987)
Nicole (2005 - 56, 1942 - 947)
Marie (2005 - 507, 1906 - 10)
Charlotte (2005 - 135, 1906 - 103)
Caroline (2005 - 83, 1906 - 144)

Abby (2005 - 198, 1952 - 966)
Lilian (2005 - 471, 1906 - 695)
Dorothy (2005 - 47?, 1906 - 6)
Catherine (2005 - 109, 1906 - 26)

Found these on
http://www.babynamesofireland.com/.

Alanna (2005 - 494, 1971 - 997)
Derdre (1990 - 990, 1944 - 948)
Maeve or Maebh (2005 - 695, 1997 - 952)
Siobhan (1987 - 914, 1979 - 629)
Teagan (2005 - 478, 1999 - 819)


I know there are others that I like, I'm just not able to think of them right now. Maybe I'll go do some checking and do an update later with the ranking of these names and any others I happen to find. I love names, I think people need to lighten up on how and why others pick the names they do for their children, but I also think that people should think about the fact that their children will have to live with the name they are given their whole lives. Some people will manage just fine with a name like "Pilot Inspector" while others will hate their name, and feel emotionally abused by their parents for giving it to them.

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Scones.

The Girl introduced me to scones several years ago when we were going to University together. I got some dried cherries the other day, and wanted to make something out of them so I made some scones. It was a quick and easy recipe from Betty Crocker. It uses Bisquick, cream, a bit of sugar, and the cherries. (The original recipe called for chocolate chips as well, but I didn't have them so I put in twice as many cherries.) They were wonderful! I'll have to try to make some from scratch someday. I have 3 or 4 recipes to try.
Here are a couple of pictures. The first was taken with the newer camera and at a bit of a distance, while the second one was taken with the older camera kneeling and close.







Did I ever mention that I had to get a new camera because the old one got lost during the move? If not, and if I forgot to mention that I found it in my knitting bag, I now have 2 cameras that take good pictures. One will also do audio which makes the little videos better. I like both of them. Howard thinks he should be allowed to have one of them, but I don't know if I'll ever actually let him have one of them. Of course I'll let him use one sometimes. :)

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Projects

So now that I have a niece coming in July, and I have some more money to spend of things like yarn and knitting needles, I'm looking for some projects.

I want to make something for Isolde (the name of my soon to be niece), and I'd like to make something for my Sister-Friend Hennifer's little girl, who will be one in July. But I have to find just the right patterns, and yarn. I'd rather not got with the traditional pink for girls, but I do want colors and patterns that are very girly at least for these first projects, because I haven't had girls to make things for before now. Any ideas? Things you think their Mom's would like, both of them are still too small to really care too much themselves. (Hennifer, what do you think?) Any good locations for free knitting patterns? Good inexpensive yarns? Suggestions for more expensive yarns but good for babies? My creativity is zeroing out right now, but I really want to make something. Help! :)

I've been thinking...

... that I can forgive the people I love for almost anything.

There are of course things that could be called unforgivable. I think most of us have similar lists, but there are things that I could forgive that maybe you couldn't.

Anyway, I was thinking about my family and the frustrations, misunderstandings, angry words, and even out right lies that have passed between us. Some things that have passed between me and members of my family wouldn't be forgiven if it had been a friend, in fact the friendship might even be lost. (I'm including family by choice here, they can get away with things even blood relatives sometimes can't.) There are members of the family that I'd rather not talk to right now. I'll probably get past it eventually, because I do still love these people. I can only hope that they feel the same way about me.

I'd like to spend more time with some of my family, but either we just don't connect (too busy with our own lives), or they are holding something against me, Aidan or Howard. I THINK it's because we just don't seem to be able to manage to make the arrangements unless someone else makes them for us. None of us are good at calling, writing or e-mailing each other. That's why I like these blogs, it lets me keep in touch with people. Some who read here have blogs I also read, others don't have blogs at all (that I know of anyway).

So do you forgive easily? Or does it take a lot to get back into your good graces?

Saturday, April 07, 2007

My adorable Great-nephew.

I've been reminded that I haven't posted many pictures of my adorable Great-nephew. Part of it was because he isn't my child and I didn't want to post pictures of him and then have Snowanna upset with me about it. But since she was the one who mentioned it I guess it's okay so I'm going to post a few of my favorites.

This one was taken back in September, not long after I came down from Hood River. They were playing together just moments before I took the picture. DJ saw the camera and stopped playing, Aidan didn't notice.




This is one of the best, even though his face is dirty. But I just love the smile and his beautiful eyes.



A very dirty face! But you can see how happy he was and is.




This was DJ's birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. I wish his face wasn't kind of blurred. He wanted me to take this picture, because he really liked the bus


So there we go. I don't have many more recent photos, because Snowanna is pretty busy these day so we don't get to see each other often. I should have taken some today when we were at her house or when we were at dinner, but ... well there isn't really any excuse, I'm just tired and didn't do it. Maybe next time.

Oh, I don't think I've mentioned it before but Snowanna is pregnant again! I'm really happy for her, because she wanted her second child not to be too much younger than DJ. She is having a girl, sometime in July I believe. I would love to see them more often, once or twice a week would be good for me. Now that Aidan isn't with DJ all the time he is better able to play with him without problems. Both boys were SO very well behaved today, I was really proud of them.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Little boy updates.

The Boy is sick again. Poor little guy. He spent most of last night throwing up, and most of today sleeping and throwing up. I hope that he will sleep tonight, he usually does if he sleeps during the day because of illness.

I'm feeling fine, a bit tired from being up with the Boy all night. I did get a bit of a nap after Howard woke up this morning, but 8 hours of interrupted sleep just isn't the same for me as 8 hours of continuous sleep.

Other things are fine around here right now. It's the last few days before payday so we are getting short on a few things, but Friday morning Howard will be bringing home his paycheck and we will be able to take care of all that. I'll also have to get some carpet cleaning spray to spot the carpet where "accidents" happened.

Oh and we had some success yesterday with potty training. Until now the Boy has refused to even try to use the potty, he knew how but didn't want to. So anyway we were taking him in every half an hour and giving him star stickers when he actually peed or pooped. He was really getting into it. Today ... well things are on hold again, until his tummy stops hurting.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007

3 Wishes.

Now that the April Fools have finished their yearly jokes, have I mentioned that I really dislike April Fools Day?, I can be fairly sure that my posts will be taken seriously. :)

On one of the Flickr! groups I belong to someone asked: If you were given 3 wishes, but you could only use them for YOUR child, what would you wish. (World peace was ruled out as it would be a wish for ALL children.) So I'll ask you, What 3 wishes would you wish for your child? If you have more than one child you can either wish 3 things for all of them, or make 3 wishes for each individually. I'll post my three wishes for my kids, all 3 wishes will fit well for all 3 of my boys, sometime later this week. I don't want to influence any of you too much or cause you to not wish something because it's too close to what I wished.