Officially Announcing...

Ginger Ray Parker

In honor of our precious new one's 2 week mark, we are finally giving her the gift of a name. While we considered Gaylordita, we opted instead for Ginger Ray Parker, as in, Ginger Ray-of-Sunshine Parker--without officially adding all that sunshine bit to her name. 

A downside of a home birth is that you don't really have a hard and fast deadline to get the name papers signed. You can take up to a year we were told before it gets tricky. Heavens no. Please, give me a deadline! I only work well with deadlines! A while ago Josh suggested Ginger and I liked it, then it grew on me more and more and I really liked it. As the days passed after her birth, Josh and I almost committed fully to Ginger, but I had a hard time committing without a middle name since I call my kids with both first and middle names frequently, so I couldn't have one without the other. We had narrowed it down to these: 

Ginger Rae/Ray

Ginger Soleil

Ginger Merry

Ginger Cheer

Ginger Sunrise

Ginger Gwen

That's the narrowed down version. The catch is that I really wanted a "happy" name to match the girls names, Hazel Bliss and Felicity Jeanne. Josh proved he's a closet hippie when he suggested Ginger Sunrise and that was probably my favorite over all but I knew I wouldn't say it as naturally as Ginger Ray. We both liked Rae/Ray, but disagreed on the spelling. It only meant "Ray of Sunshine" to me if it was spelled Ray. Finally after two weeks Josh said Ray was fine and signed the papers before I could change my mind again. I love you Ginger Ray, I hope you'll forgive your parents for taking way too long on deciding a name for you. You are already a ray of sunshine in our home. xo