i want to tell you her name

we are still floating on clouds around here.

the only thing better than getting a referral at christmas time is...nothing.

i can't think of one thing better.

this christmas had the potential to be very wonderful or very depressing, and i am thankful to God that we can say how WONDERFUL this christmas is! this may be the most wonderful christmas ever. however, ask me that next year when we have her home and i'll probably tell you that's the best christmas ever. :)

the busy-ness of the season makes it fly by and before we know it, it will be january and we'll hopefully be finding out our court date that month!!!

this week we are knee deep in preschool programs, pajama day, christmas parties, field trips, teacher gifts, last week of preschool for the year and cold weather. i plan to blog about all of this later.

right now i want to tell you our girl's name.

if you know jason and i well, you know that we don't tell names before the birth of our babies. with both boys, we had 3 names picked and did not name them until we saw them. THEN we shared their names with the world.

we also throw out any names that do not have a great meaning. we don't pick names just because we like the way they sound (although that's important too), but we pick names that also have deep significant meaning as well. i liked plenty of names and then found out what they meant and threw them out the window. i'm not saying that if you don't do this then you don't care about your child's name, that's just what is important to us. elijah means "the Lord is my God" and judah means "i will praise the Lord". our prayer for elijah is that he will have no gods above the one true God and for judah our prayer is that he will praise the one and only God as long as he lives. i love that we can tell the boys what their names mean and our prayer for them based on their name's meaning.

so...on to baby sister. we've had 3 years to think about this name so you would think it was an easy decision when we got the referral. WRONG. in thinking about the boys' names, i was trying to meet the same criteria...hebrew bible name with a strong meaning and a family middle name. i didn't want her to feel left out if her name was completely different. but things ARE different this time because we also wanted her to keep her ethiopian name to hold on to her roots.

i. was. torn. we had it down to 3 names (just like the boys). a family name, a hebrew bible name and a name that God had laid on our hearts. what to do, what to do. jason ultimately picked elijah's name, elijah picked judah's name and so it was up to me to make the final decision on this name. jason was totally fine with all 3 names. i was feeling the pressure...it took me almost 2 days to make a decision, but i did. and so...

OUR LITTLE GIRL'S NAME IS...

 

 

e-van-juh-leen

i already have it on her stocking as you can see. :) i want to tell you about this name and what it means to us. we totally abandoned the hebrew bible name and family name to go with this one. i just kept coming back to it over and over.

a couple of years ago when going through a baby name book, jason came to like this name. honestly, i was not on board with it at first. i thought it was too long and just a little too unusual. elijah had also read a book about a girl named Evangeline and he latched onto it as well. i still couldn't commit to putting it on "the list".

not long after this, jason had a couple of dreams about a little ethiopian girl named Evangeline. when he told me this, i liked the name a little bit more. then God laid a song on jason's heart so he wrote it down and sang it to me...it had the name Evangeline in it. okay, now i'm really starting to like this name. it can go on "the list". :)

Evangeline means "BRINGER OF GOOD NEWS". when we got the referral and saw her sweet little face, all i could think was what GOOD NEWS it was to finally know who our daughter is! then i started praying that she would be a bringer of THE good news to the world, maybe even to her home country of ethiopia one day. i can't wait to tell her what her name means to us one day...i hope that it makes her feel special.

i wish i could also share her ethiopian name with you and i will once we pass court. it will be her middle name and when i found out what it meant and with what Evangeline means...oh my word. it is just beautiful. based on her two names together, i know what scripture i want to be on the wall of her room.

she's our Evangeline...Evie (ee-vee) as we'll call her.
our little bringer of good news.

this is the name God has chosen for her.

Princess Evie, we can't wait to have you home!
(we are closer to that because today we were submitted to court!!!!) 

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 Pictures the DuFran family took for us while they were there in December.
7 months old...