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And then there were 5! Although early on we were thinking we were going to have a little girl and had many E baby girl names to choose from, God has given us another sweet boy!  Bryan and I have been settled on his name for a while, but it has just taken some time with the craziness of our move to be able to find the time to sit down and dust off the old blog.

Baby boy number 3 is Ethan James! We both have loved the name Ethan for a long time. Ethan means strong, firm, steadfast, like a stream whose waters are always flowing. This immediately brought to mind a picture of the trees mentioned in Psalm 1 and Jeremiah 17. One of our prayers for Ethan is that he will be like the man described in Jeremiah 17 who trusts in the Lord:

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots in the stream, and does not fear when the heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit." Jeremiah 17:7-8

Our hope for Ethan is that he will trust in the Lord from a young age, that his trust would be the Lord-and that no matter what difficulties may come his way, he will not fear, for He knows the one who holds him in His hand. We pray he will make a huge impact on this world for the sake of God's kingdom.

We broke tradition from our first two sons whose middle names are their grandfathers' and chose James for his middle name simply because we like the way Ethan James sounds. It means supplanter, one who follows. Famous James in the Bible include James the disciple and James, the brother of Jesus. We pray Ethan James would be one who follows Jesus with all of his heart, mind, soul and strength.

Ethan James, we are so excited to meet you in a few weeks!

For those of you reading, would you please join us in prayer for our little guy? Due to a finding in the first trimester screening test, I am having to have weekly ultrasounds and monitoring of him and the doctor may have to take him early. We are praying boldly that Ethan will remain safely growing inside until it is time to come out. I switched doctors this time around and am attempting to have a VBAC (vaginal birth after caesarian). To increase the chances of that being successful, we are wanting him to be able to stay put as long as possible. My dream would be to go into labor naturally, which has never happened to me before. But God can do the impossible, right!? Of course, most importantly we pray God would protect Ethan, keep him healthy, give us wisdom as far as what choices to make and protect me (that God would sustain my heart and there would be no complications there). But we would love to be able to avoid being induced and a c-section if possible.