And the winner is...

JAMES BENEDICT HABERMAN

We are very excited to announce our little boy's name and are so happy that he has such a BIG name as he is already such a BIG part of our lives. We have put a lot of thought into James' name and we are confident that it is very fitting for him. Here was our thought process on choosing our little boy's name...

As far as James goes, we have seen many signs over the past few days. James is a name that we had thought of as it is a family name (my father's middle name and both of his grandfathers), but it was one name out of a few. Each of our children has one family name (Emily "Bernadette", "George" Matthew, and Luke "Thomas"), so we thought it fitting that James also has a family name. I had mentioned to my friend, Jill, that we really liked the name James and the next day I received an e-mail from her saying that they studied James 1 at her Bible Study that day and that it was so poignant given our situation. James talks about faith, prayer, and healing. One verse that Jill mentioned was "Blessed is the man who endures trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him." (James 1:12). Another reason that we chose James is because his name was used in the Anointing of the Sick ceremony on Wednesday. As soon as I heard Father Dennis use his name, I knew that was what we were going to call him. As I did more research on James and the Anointing of the Sick, I found that James has a biblical reference for healing: "Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will save the sick man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven." (James 5:14-15). This is amazing to me. We have total faith that God is going to keep our little James healthy and that he will live a long, full life. We are so thankful to God for sending us our new little boy!

The reason we chose Benedict is a little easier to explain: Tommy came home from work yesterday with the name. At first, I thought he may be kidding and that he was being silly, but once he told me what Benedict meant, I knew that should be James' middle name. Benedict means blessing. That is just what our James is: a BLESSING! He is a blessing from God and if it weren't for his big brother, we wouldn't be blessed enough to have him in our lives. Plus, we think that James Benedict Haberman flows pretty darn well...and it doesn't hurt that Benedict is the Pope's name! :)

Thank you for allowing us to share our baby boy's name with you all. As I said before, we put a lot of thought into choosing his name and we believe that we have come up with the perfect name. God bless you all and have a wonderful weekend!