Kellen Nicholas...

That is the name we finally decided on. It's official. I even got his social security card with it all official and stuff.

You see, while we were pregnant, we had the *hardest* time coming up with a name for this kid. Every time I suggested a name to Derek, he'd turn it down. "Too girly", or "I went to high school with a kid that had that name and he was an asshole", those kinds of comments. I finally decided this kid needed a name, or at least a nickname, and started calling him Hamlet. Which morphed in to Hamomlet when people kept asking my husband and I if we truly naming our son Hamlet. I can't tell you how many times we were asked that question.

As the weeks ticked by, we were really feeling the pressure. A lot of people thought we were being cloy with keeping our choice to ourselves...oh if only it were that simple. We were running out of time. Neither one of us were so quick to shoot each other's name suggestions down. We'd try some names on for a couple of days, but nothing felt right. We tried Colton out for a while. We thought we wanted a CJ name but it just wouldn't stick and sound like "it".

Then on Saturday, September 3rd, Derek and I were watching the Georgia/Boise game and we heard the name Kellen. Derek has always had an affinity for Boise state, so it didn't surprise me when he said he liked the name. I liked it too! Or at least didn't hate it, and with literally 6 days left until the kid was born, I didn't have any better suggestions or reasons not to like it. Success! It had the "c/k" sound like Caleb, was different and we didn't know a million people with it. With Caleb, I swear it wasn't on any lists the year I named him, and then suddenly that year, it exploded.

We were kicking around middle names, but again, nothing was sticking. We were getting our final "family of three" pictures taken at Picture People at the mall and Caleb said "How about Kellen Nicholas?" Perfect! I had considered Nicholas as a name, as Kellen was conceived on Christmas, but it was too common of a first name for me but *perfect* for a middle name.

So that's how we finally decided on a name...