I've been tagged.

I've been tagged by Sasha to play along in the name game. Although I just realized that Tina tagged me last Saturday. Sorry Tina, I was gone away last weekend and somehow I completely missed you tagging me!

This has been really interesting, reading up on all of our bloggy friends and how they all came up with names for their children. Everyone seems to have a story behind each name. We are no different.

Ashleigh - our first born. Soon to turn 23. Yikes! Paul and I tossed around names like crazy for her. We had no idea as to whether or not we were having a girl or a boy. Way back then..LOL, doctors did not believe in doing ultrasounds unless problems were taking place. I had no problems, so I didn't get to have an ultrasound. Oddly enough, I didn't feel we were having a boy. We tossed around a couple of boy names, but I just didn't have that feeling. So, we focused more on girl names. We tossed around several. I would sit and write the names over and over. (I did this with all the kids names) To see if I liked how it looked on paper I guess. I remember tossing around Alyssa, Nichole and Ashleigh. I really wanted to name her Nichole. Paul really didn't want to. He liked the name Ashleigh best. He told me we named her Ashleigh, then I could use Nichole for a middle name. I didn't like that idea. I finally agreed to Ashleigh, but I got to pick the spelling. Again, I wrote the name over and over. With every variation you could possibly imagine. I decided on to spell her name with 'leigh' at the end, instead of the typical 'ley'. Now for her middle name...I really went out on a limb here. I decided to give her my middle name. Even though I HATED my middle name all through school. However, I really wanted to save the name Nichole for our next little girl. So, Ashleigh Louise it was. My grandpa said Ashleigh would be a senior in high school before she learned to spell her name! He couldn't figure out why I didn't just spell it Ashley.

Bradley - "Brad" as he goes by now. Brad is turning 20 in a couple of weeks. That freaks me out too! With Brad, I never had the feeling I was having a girl. Weird as that may sound. I just didn't think he would be born a she! I actually had a funny dream..well I had sevearl with him. But each time, the baby was a boy. The funny dream was, Brad kicked his foot through my stomach and I just reached down and pushed it back in. LOL...the kid kicked the daylights out of me! I did have 2 ultrasounds with his pregnancy. One at about 20 weeks. Then one a couple of days before he was born.(I was 10 days over due). Neither time did he cooperate so we could get a peek at the sex of the baby. That little stinker, turned over and crossed his legs both darn times! I couldn't believe it...again, we had no idea. Except for the gut feeling that I had had all through my pregnancy. It was such a strong feeling, we hardly ever discussed having a girl or picking a girl name. I did still have Nichole in mind. But, Kelsey was weighing in awful heavy. Until my cousin had a baby a couple of months before my due date..she used the name Kelsey. I remember saying, well this baby had better be a boy because if he's a she, she will have no name. We tossed around the name Austin. Paul worked with a guy that he was pretty good friends with and his name was Austin. I wasn't too sure about it. All I could think of was Texas!! Then, Paul suggested Bradley. He said, because it ended with the sound 'ley' it would go good with Ashleigh. And being we had a toddler whose name started with an 'A' and ended with the sound 'ley' adding a name that started with a 'B' and ended with the same sound would be kind of cool. I kind of liked that idea. The problem was, my mom had lost a baby many years ago. A baby boy who they named Bradley. Paul did not know this. He knew that my mom lost a baby, but we never even talked about the name of the baby. So, first I needed to talk to my mom and ask her how she felt about it. I had friends tell me NOT to name by baby after a baby that had died. I tried to explain that we were not naming our baby after my brother, it just so happened that Paul really liked the name. Honestly, Paul had no idea of my brother's name. My mom said she thought it would be fine to name our baby Bradley. So, that was it. Bradley it would be. As for his middle name, we chose Paul - giving him his dads first name as a middle name.

Carly - Well, she was our little surprise. We really had no plans on having another child. But we are so grateful that we did have her. Her name was a bit tougher. We included Ashleigh and Brad in this entire pregnancy. We wanted them to help us come up with names. It was both A & B who insisted that we use a 'C' name that ended with the sound 'ley'. A said, "mom you cant change it up now". They both felt we needed to find a C name. Well, that was not so easy. We could only come up with Charlie for a boy, but neither A & B were thrilled with that boy name. At about 20 weeks, we did an ultrasound. We were told "it's a girl". Actually, the tech said, "well, I've got a perfect shot and I don't see a dilly whacker". I nearly peed all over the table due to laughing so hard at that comment. So the search for a girls name was underway. The names we had picked were, Caylee, Carly & Callie. I really wanted to name her Callie. It was my grandpa's name. The day Carly was born, we still had not decided on a name. We just knew she would be named one of the three in the running. After she was born, the kids came to the hospital. Paul took them to the gift shop. They were looking for a "sign" as to what name we should give her. Well, out of the three names we had picked out, the only one that was anywhere to be found on anything in that gift shop, was Carly. The kids were convinced this was a sign. And so, Carly it was. Her middle name (I'm still kicking myself over) was picked because we liked it. It's Elizabeth. However, I now wish I would have given her my grandmother's middle name of Lucille. Drats. I was a tad bit upset afterward. Oh well. Elizabeth sounds nice with Carly.

That's it. That's the way I came to be known as A B and C's mom! If I'd a known we were going to do this whole A B C name thing ending in the same sound. I would have spelled them all ending in 'ley'. Oh well. They are each different endings. Not quite as clever as Renee was in naming her kids!

So....I'll tag a couple of people. Feel free to pass it up if you wish, but it was kind of fun to sit and reminisce on how our kids were name.

Michelle
Liz
Cathy
and
Michele