[Why we named him Ellis]

I figured I would take a few minutes to talk about why we named our sweet little man what we did! 

Since the beginning, Clay and I had a pretty strict "veto rule" meaning, if one of us vetoed a name, that was that— it was off the table. We both wanted to LOVE his name and not have to "tolerate" it or learn to love it. ;) 

Since day one, Ellis is the ONLY boy name that stuck with the both of us. We actually heard the name while watching a movie and Clay had never heard of the name before, and I had actually only seen it as a last name (shout it to the sweet Ellis family- love you guys!!) but had never seen it as a first name. We loved it. We loved it because it was unique and had never met anyone else with that first name. (however we met our pediatrician and she has an Ellis which was so sweet!) 

So there we were since day one with the name Ellis; other names would come and go... and we even went through a phase where we needed to stop thinking of names all together, so we made a deal not to talk about them until we found out the gender! Ultimately when it came down to committing to a name, Ellis was the only one still on the table (we had collectively vetoed every. other. name.)

Apart from loving the uniqueness of his name, when we researched the meaning of Ellis we fell in love with it even more. 

When I was visiting my grandparents in Galena Illinois, we went downtown and in this little shop there were a bunch of name cards filled with name meanings and characteristics— out  of curiosity I looked for the name Ellis and was pretty surprised to actually find it! Here's what it says:  

Gosh we love everything about this.

We pray deeply that:
— The Lord will be Ellis' God. That he will choose to follow Him at  young age and seek to honor and abide in Him. 
— That he truly will be the happiest guy you could ever meet! That he would be encouraging and loving and kind to all he comes in contact with.
— That he would become a man of integrity. That no one would question his character. 
— That he would build solid relationships and be a fierce, loyal, strong, and warm friend. 
— That he would have an adventurous spirit, always ready to explore! 
— He would be calm, assertive leader that is easy to look up to and respect.
— That he would have such a fun personality and sense of humor and wouldn't take himself too seriously (except when necessary!)
— That he would love unendngly just like his Heavenly Father.

And then briefly his middle name: Durand. It's Clay's middle name and it means enduring/persevering. We loved that he could share a name with his dad, but also loved the concept behind him learning how to endure and persevere with wisdom and grace.

We love this little boy and can't wait to watch and guide him as he grows!