I’m sure there’s someone out there who thinks the attention we give to choosing our children’s names is a little over the top. And they may be right :) But for me, someone who believes so strongly in the power of the stories we tell ourselves about our lives, a name is more than just an identifier: it is the first lines in a story. And as parents, we get the honor and privilege of writing them. John and I can’t determine the ending of any of our children’s stories, but we can set them in a direction and give them supplies for the road – roots and wings, as I’ve said before. With that, here’s a little more about the name we chose for our daughter…
First, Annie. After we bestowed the name June, which had been my number one since high school, I kept a loose collection of other favorite names in a note on my phone, should we have another daughter. As I added and subtracted options over the years, one sifted to the top: the sweet but not saccharine, feminine but feisty, friendly and optimistic Annie.
True to form for my favorites, it would be at home on any of our grandmas (it was a top 20 name from the 1880s to 1910). It is simple to spell and pronounce, and is familiar but not too common.
Annie Banks-MacKenzie is a central figure in two of my all-time favorite movies, the ones that helped to set my expectations for a loving family and set me on a course toward my future career.
Annie originates from the English Isle and has a definite Scottish feel to it, which is appropriate given my ancestry.
And most serendipitously, Annie Jane is the name of John’s grandmother, which I didn’t learn until years after I fell in love with her name. I never got to meet Annie Jane, but love that we’re able to honor her through our daughter!
So, Annie. But the most common formal name for the nickname Annie – Anne – was just a name for me, without any further meaning or significance (and you know we couldn’t have that, ha!). I puzzled over this for years, until I finally realized that another name on my short list – Susanna – was emblematic of my maternal grandmother’s name (Susanne). Even if our Annie may not use it too often, I was thrilled for another family connection.
I think it’s important to remember here that we don’t name our children after perfect people, but after imperfect people who are a reminder of the story from which they come – one that’s far from perfect, but filled with people who try, who have integrity, who are kind and smart and humble and face challenges and pick themselves back up again and again. As crystallized for me in this essay, I strongly believe (and research backs up!) that one of the best things we can do for our children is develop a strong family narrative. (I wrote more about this in Shep’s name post!)
I’ve written about my grandmother before – she was a deeply layered person, and not always easy to understand. But so many of the things that define me were passed down from her – my love of garden bouquets, boat rides, singing in church, and reading and writing; a belief in thank you notes, correspondence, and a beautifully-set table; and the importance of standing up for the flag at parades, giving back to organizations, and supporting your alma mater. I look forward to introducing Annie to her in the years to come :)
Finally, Liberty! Our other two kiddos’ middle names spoke to our love for America and our love for our faith, respectively, and this one actually combines both. For a Fourth-of-July-week baby, we love that Liberty speaks to the hope, possibility, freedom, and opportunity that’s found in our country more than anywhere else in the world. America is not perfect, but her ideals (including “life, liberty, and happiness”) are beautiful, and we feel lucky to have the privilege of living up to them – and to help our kids do the same.
The idea of liberty and freedom is woven throughout the Gospel, too. Jesus sets us free from death, but even more than that, He has set us free for freedom! When we live with Christ, we don’t have to be weighed down by the comparison, guilt, envy, anxiety, or fear that are so common in our world. We love that Annie’s middle name will remind her about the life that is truly life – a life of abundance, obedience, contentment, joy, and freedom.
So there you have it – much more than you ever wanted to know about our little lady’s name, ha! Thanks for listening, friends, as always.
Friends, this is our sweet Susanna Liberty! She arrived on Thursday, July 8 at 2:26pm, weighing in at 7 pounds, 1 ounce with lots of dark hair. We will call her Annie :)
I am feeling so very grateful for a healthy baby and a safe delivery, for the precious family I already have, and for the true gift of getting to add one more to our crew. She is the absolute sweetest and we all love, love, love her so.
I will be back with more on her name soon! In the meantime, thank you for all the well wishes and prayers!!
From the beginning, this has seemed like an off year for goals: I had a hard time naming them in January after a strong 2020, and felt a bit hobbled in sharing plans and progress before y’all knew we were expecting our third child. (And having a baby in July certainly bisects the year in an interesting way!) While I haven’t made as much progress as I might have envisioned at the beginning of 2021, I’m grateful for the opportunity to reflect on what has been accomplished – all good things! Besides, I think I heard somewhere that little by little adds up, amiright? :) Let’s take a look!
Goal no. 1: Make room for God’s presence by reading the Bible. Progress I’ve made: This goal is simple: a commitment to “Word before words,” or habit stacking reading my Bible each night before I pick up my current fiction or non-fiction read. Simple, but effective! Whether I read a few verses or multiple chapters, I have read the Bible before anything else probably 95% of evenings this year. So far, I’ve completed Mark, Acts, James, and Luke. I also read Jen Wilkin’s Women of the Word! What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: More of the same! I’d actually like to slow down and choose one shorter book (maybe James!) to read several times and apply some of Jen’s suggestions as a first go at her method.
Goal no. 2: Set joy before us. Progress I’ve made: There are so (SO) many things vying for our attention these days, and I named this goal to thoughtfully direct my eyes, heart, and effort to what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy. It has! Though we have enjoyed new joyful things this year, this goal has also been a helpful encouragement to simply maintain some of our old standbys in the face of pregnancy tiredness and John’s injury. June and I have baked together most weeks, we traveled to Jekyll Island and Charlottesville, we celebrated Valentine’s Day with 14 days of mailbox fun, June and I had pedicures and afternoon tea, we’ve been strawberry picking and blueberry picking many times over, and I hosted a garden dinner party, among other things. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: I would love to host my ill-fated potluck party, canceled in 2020. We’re also looking forward to traveling to Florida with all of John’s family in September, attending the Nutcracker, making our favorite summer desserts, backyard camping, hiking once John’s back on his feet, and hosting our annual pumpkins and soup party.
Goal no. 3: Do those things we’ve always wanted to do for our home. Progress I’ve made: Because we feel settled in this home for the next few years, I wanted to make a concerted effort to complete the upgrades and changes we’ve largely decided on, but haven’t pulled the trigger. Going room by room, we’ve made some progress: we’ve replaced the light fixture in our foyer, added more lighting to our family room, painted our master bedroom and switched out the curtains (and added a mirror!), and switched out the roman shade in the Magnolia Room. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: In this time frame, I imagine baby girl will have moved into the Magnolia Room, so I’d like to have that room complete: crib in place, artwork chosen and hung, dresser replaced. I’d also like to have completed my plan for the master bedroom, which at this point includes refreshing our decorative pillows, purchasing the bed frame we’ve chosen, hanging a grid of gold frames, and purchasing a new desk chair for John. I’d also like to paint June’s room. The two other larger projects that I’m not sure will be completed but am considering are having our kitchen cabinets painted (!) and replacing the stone surround of our fireplace. This all might be wildly ambitious – we shall see!
Goal no. 4: Refresh our home. Progress I’ve made: This goal goes hand in hand with the one above, but focuses more on small, boring projects to make our space sparkle like the day we bought it. It’s not the most exciting goal, but it has been satisfying! So far, we’ve reorganized our cleaning supplies and cleaned out under our sink, cleaned off the tops of our laundry machines (a perennial dumping ground), magic erasered all the things, cleaned out our master bathroom drawers, hired out carpet cleaning, and cleaned out our pantry and a few other closets. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: I have more cabinets and closets in my sights! Plus our main book shelf is overflowing – as is the top of our dresser – and our refrigerator could use a thorough cleaning out.
Goal no. 5: Build our family culture as we transition to an elementary-school family. Progress I’ve made: This is my catch-all goal to remind myself to focus on small ways to love my family well, intentionally nurture the character and family traits that are important to us, and make our home the most joyful, loving place to be. In the first half of the year, I’ve focused on prepping for kindergarten and for baby sister and we’ve watched June blossom into a full-fledged reader who has a soft spot for Jennie Allen’s series. We bought a new car with cash to accommodate our growing family and decided to take John’s six full consecutive weeks of parental leave. (We were debating splitting it up, but in the end, when considering what matters most to us, it was a simple decision – we will never get this time back!) We’ve also done many smaller, fun things, like post a summer calendar, take trips to the library, and grocery shop together. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: We’ll make the official transition into an elementary-school family! We’ll also be learning new rhythms as a family of five.
Goal no. 6: Prioritize memory keeping. Progress I’ve made: I set this goal to prioritize finishing last year’s Advent calendar, completing our second and third family albums, and keeping up the rhythms of things like yearly videos and photo organization. So far, I’ve culled and sorted our 2020 photos, laid out half of our 2010-2014 photo album, took maternity family photos with Ally, and filmed June in June Volume 6. What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: Newborn photos with Graham are on the books, and Sheptember filming is slated for September. I am determined to finish the 2010-2014 album and am hoping little-by-little progress on the Advent calendar will be the perfect hands-on, pick-it-up-and-put-it-back-down activity for maternity leave! I would LOVE to have it finished by December.
Goal no. 7: Encourage each other to grow strong through cycling, strength workouts, and stretching. Progress I’ve made: What I didn’t say at the beginning of the year but can say now was that I knew this would be an unusual year for fitness, with a baby due right in the middle! Little did we know we’d have another wrench thrown into our plans with John’s injury. Progress has been inconsistent so far this year, but I’m looking forward to getting back up to speed together as I recover from birth and he from his surgery! What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: In addition to getting back into stretching and strength training rhythms, I would love to beat at least one of my PRs on the Peloton.
Goal no. 8: Make a book of the first 10 years of EFM. Progress I’ve made: I have long thought of this place as a repository of stories, memories, and wisdom for my children, and I’d like to create a physical book for them of the best posts from the first ten years of my writing here. There has been absolutely zero progress on this goal so far, ha! What I hope to accomplish in the next six months: I’d love to complete the book, but that may be a bit ambitious given a new baby and also trying to finish the Advent calendar and family photo album. If I’ve chosen a means of design and printing and got the project underway by the end of the year, I’d be happy to roll this goal into 2022.
Thanks for always cheering me on, friends! I’d love to hear how your progress on your 2021 goals has gone so far, if you’d like to share. Big or small, it’s worth celebrating!!
As I’ve referred to our Big Lists for baby sister and kindergarten prep over the last few weeks, several of you have asked for more details. I am always happy to oblige, though it almost seems like an overly-simple concept to write about! However, maybe it only seems that way because I’ve been making them for years and years :) Today, I thought I’d share a little more about one of my favorite planning tools, and a few things that are on our prep list for our newest arrival!
Unrelated photo from our Independence Day festivities – June was very proud of her bike decorations for the parade!
I started making Big Lists in college, actually. A glorified to do list, they are especially helpful when there is a defined deadline and discrete tasks that need to be completed – for example, the end of a semester. While in school, I’d write out everything that needed to be accomplished before closing out the term – submitting a final paper, finishing a book, taking an exam, attending a lecture – and break it out by week and/or day. It was easier to pace myself that way, and by breaking things down, no one day or week looked too overwhelming. If I did what was scheduled for that day, I knew I was on track.
When I began my job after college, I used the same technique – most often before a big launch or a long holiday or vacation. Though I couldn’t write down and cross off things like “respond to email,” I could write down every blog post, listing draft, or piece of sales page content that needed to be completed before the deadline.
Now, I use this tool in my personal life, too, with the same parameters – for things with lots of little, discrete tasks and that have a defined deadline. The beginning of kindergarten and the arrival of baby sister are perfect examples.
You may be wondering: what is the difference between a Big List, a to do list, and my monthly PowerSheets goals? Great question, because I have all three :)
My to do list is ongoing, forever and always. It lives in a Word doc. (I know, the most low-tech and simple option out there aside from pen and paper!) It’s broken into three sections: to do today, to do this week, and to do soon. I open up the doc and refer to it multiple times a day, and things get crossed off and added constantly. Since most of my work is done on a computer while sitting at a desk, I don’t really need a mobile system, though I’ll sometimes transfer to dos from my computer to my phone or a piece of paper if I’m out running a series of errands.
This list includes personal and mundane tasks that contribute to the running of our lives and household, and is the repository for everything swirling in my brain: following up with doctors, scheduling appointments, ordering things or processing returns, writing thank you notes, emailing people, setting things up, booking travel, etc.
A Big List exists only for a short, defined period of time and is solely focused on one aspect of life. I like to keep mine in Google Docs, and depending on the magnitude of the deadline, I usually start drafting 2-4 weeks out, though I might start brainstorming and adding items before then. I begin by dumping ideas into the doc, then breaking them out into days or weeks, and breaking the items down into as small of tasks as necessary or possible. From there, I transfer each week’s items onto my to do list to keep the focus for the week in one central place. A digital system also makes it easy to roll things over from week to week if they’re not completed, which I most definitely do.
My monthly goals are drawn less from the current events of our life and more from the priorities I’ve defined in my yearly goal process (thanks to the PowerSheets!). These are ongoing projects with little urgency beyond that I’ve defined them as important to my and my family’s life (though occasionally they do overlap, as in the case of preparing for baby girl and kindergarten!). They live in my PowerSheets and here on the blog.
They are usually more big-picture, and require being broken down into more discrete tasks that go onto my to do list. For example, “edit June in June” is on my July goals list. That might get broken down into choose a song, download footage, cull footage, and edit video – all of which could go on my to do list for various days.
Honestly, writing all of this out makes me feel a tiny bit nutty and over the top, but in reality they are very simple practices that help me get the right things done! (And I’m sure you have similar systems in your own life!) Hopefully at least one of you found this excessively-long explanation helpful :)
And now to close, let’s look at what a Big List can look like in practice, using the example of baby girl’s arrival. These were a few of the tasks on our list, broken out by the week we completed them. Obviously, this list is very custom to our family, but hopefully you can use it as an example of the kinds of things you might want to think about if you’re expecting, and adapt it to your life! Keep in mind, this is also for a third baby :)
Four weeks before: — Gather recipient list for Meal Train — Decide on paternity leave timing — Deep dive into middle names and choose one — Ask Graham about newborn photos and dates
Three weeks before: — Order new baby book — Take car in for inspection — Wrap gifts from baby sister for big kids — Make hospital bag packing list — Communicate with Namesake about goodies
Two weeks before: — Buy Shep’s birthday gifts — Buy John’s birthday gifts — Get newborn clothes out from attic and wash them — Make hair appointment for newborn session — Buy diapers and wipes
One week before: — Move June’s clothing upstairs and stock baby sister’s clothing downstairs — Finish planning outfits for newborn session — Prep for surprises while in hospital — Buy baby sister stuffie with June — Set up diaper changing station downstairs — Hang roman shade in guest room — Brush up on Babywise — Pack hospital bag — Prep travel consent form for June — Check swaddle inventory and buy new, if necessary
Week of birth: — Install car seat — Wash bassinet — Make shot list for newborn session — Update older kid baby books — Set up bassinet in master bedroom — Take car to car wash — Prep hospital playlist — Dust off and unfold stroller
Let’s compare to do list neuroses: do you make Big Lists? Where do you keep your to do list? Monthly goals? I’d love to hear!
P.S. For those of you who have asked, kindergarten prep musings are coming soon to a blog near you! :)
