What's in a name?

Denise and I talked about names alot while she was pregnant, as I'm sure most parents do. We believe that someone's name is a significant thing, since it is something that will always be a part of who our child is. You can also see the significance of names in Scripture, the various names of God that each describe a particular facet of who He is, the times where God changed a person's name at a transformational time in their lives etc. A lot of parents focus on if they like the name, will the child get made fun of later in life because of the name and so on. While we obviously thought about those things as well, we also wanted our baby's name to reflect who God had made him/her to be. It is an awesome thing to be able to name another person... So we talked about a lot of different names and looked at their meanings as well. Hayden has a few different origins, including German, English and Welsh. The one we feel best describes our baby boy is the Welsh origin which means "fire" . Samuel is obviously a biblical name and has a Hebrew origin. It has several possible meanings which include: "his name is God", "God heard" and "God's heart" We feel like God has put a fire in Hayden's heart for Him and we identify with several different aspects of the Samuel in scripture. First the passion of his mother, Hannah, to have a child even though God had closed her womb. She prayed for a child and God heard her cry and answered. When she named him Samuel, she said:"because I asked the Lord for him". She also had made a vow that if God gave her a son, she would give him back to God to serve Him. After he had been weaned, she took him to the temple and said this to the priest: "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD." And he worshiped the LORD there." There is also the part of Samuel's life where God calls to him three times before he realizes that is God speaking to him, and he begins to have a connection with God that was rare in those days. When we decided that we wanted to have children, we assumed that it would happen almost right away, but it didn't. As some of you know, we eventually found out that Denise was having some problems with her pituitary gland which was affecting her hormones etc. and was able to be treated with medication. However for a while we didn't know what was going on and we prayed often that God would bless us with children, and many people joined with us on different occasions to believe for God's best plan for our lives. During this time one of the most significant things God showed us was that we should not focus so much on what a child would do for us, how it would enrich our lives etc. but to focus on how we could invest in our children and help them to be all that they could be. So in our hearts we say, the Lord has answered our prayer and we give him to the Lord. We also believe that Hayden will have a special relationship with God and will be able to communicate God's heart to people that don't necessarily know God's heart for them.

Hayden (a.k.a. "the stud") Weaver photo shoot

We wanted to get a good picture of Hayden for our upcoming birth announcement so we had some fun a few days ago..... Here are a few of our favorites.

More Hayden stuff...

Ryan's parents came to see little Hayden this weekend and spend some time in NC again. We were very excited for them to be able to see him, since we knew how much they wanted to meet him in person. We definitely enjoyed having them here again.

We were happy to have Denise's parents here for almost a week right after Hayden was born and now to have my parents here. It was a joy to watch both sets of grandparents interact with their new grandson....it is interesting to see a 50-something adult speak in baby language!

Here are some pics from the weekend, also some other pics from the last week or so....Enjoy!

Hayden and Grandma Weaver

the proud grandparents...

Heather Buckwalter and the kids stopped by with a greatly appreciated meal the other day, so Moses, Sarah and Silas got to love on Hayden for a while....

Moses Buckwalter and Hayden

chillin' like a villain

holding our little treasure...

Coming Home

Hayden came home yesterday (3/5/08). We are so proud of him and so thankful to the Lord for giving us a healthy baby boy to parent and invest in. Who knows what he will do and who he will become?

He had his first doctor appointment today and he is doing great. Denise is also doing well and adjusting to her role as Hayden's mom. Thank you to everyone who has visited him already and to those of you in Pennsylvania who are carrying us in your hearts, we love you!

Hayden and Grandpa Martin

leaving the hospital

Hayden and "Uncle" Matt

First bath at home

Hayden and Micah Barlett

Hayden Samuel

We have a baby boy!!! Hayden Samuel was born today at 1:44 am at Lenoir Memorial Hospital in Kinston, NC about 40 min. from our house. He weighed 7 lbs 8.5 oz. and was 20.5" long. It's been interesting ride, we got to the hospital about 2:00 pm Sunday afternoon and things were progressing nicely up to midnight. When the doctor gave the go ahead to start pushing, the baby's heart rate started climbing, so after monitoring everything for about 1/2 hr the doc decided to go ahead and do a c-section to minimize risk to the baby and Denise. We were definitely not hoping for this route, but the baby and Denise are doing fine and I was able to be in the OR for the delivery.

We are so excited to be parents, when we heard Hayden cry for the first time, Denise and I both started crying. This little human, crying and making baby noises... wow! Here are a few pics for now, I'm sure there will be many more to follow.....

Ready for our little one

As some of you know we traveled to PA for a baby shower the second weekend in February. Although it was a quick trip we still had a lot of fun and were really blessed by all of our family and friends! The jeep was loaded to it's max on the way home. We received much of what we needed for the baby and it was so awesome to see everyone again.

On Valentines we went out to eat at Rucker John's in Greenville-about an hour from our house-as we ate dinner we were both thinking about next Valentine's and that we will either find a babysitter or bring the baby with us. We saw several couples with a baby at the restaurant and we thought that was cool too.

Valentine's night

The nursery is ready....finally!

Myrtle Beach

The weekend of January 25-27 Ryan and I headed to Myrtle Beach, SC for our last getaway before the baby comes. Saturday was drizzling outside so we went to an IMAX movie, took a nap and in the evening we went to Medieval Times dinner theater. On Sunday it was beautiful, the clouds moved on and the sun was out! We went for a walk on the beach and stoped at the local Harley store to contiune our tradition of getting Harley shirts of the towns we visit. On the way home we decided to stop and take a tour of the USS North Carolina, the most decorated battleship of WWII. This ship was huge! (729' long) We were on it for 2 hours and didn't see everything! It was mind boggling to see the inner workings of the ship. Ryan and I were surprised at the amount of technology that was used back then. An update on doctor and hospital stuff. We went to Lenoir Hospital last week and both of us are excited about having the baby there. Insurance will cover this hospital and it's about a 40 min. drive from New Bern. Tomorrow I have an appointment with one of the doctor's that delivers at Lenoir, so then baby and I are set to go! Hopefully not too soon though, the nursery isn't quite ready.

a few pictures of Medieval Times

The show includes dinner and real horses and horseman performing various "battles", jousting etc.

a very large chain on the front of the ship, I think it was used for one of the anchorsRyan peering through a periscope type instrument from inside one of the gun turrets (so you can see where you want to shoot)Ryan on the deck of the USS North CarolinaI don't think you would want to see these guns if you were an enemy. The battleship has 9 guns that fire 16" diameter projectiles and 20 smaller guns that fire 5" projectiles plus 18 .50 caliber machine guns!inside one of the engine rooms, we were amazed at the engineering that was involved in designing this ship gunpowder that is used to launch the 16" projectiles

i forget how much each bullet weighed but they uses 540lbs of gunpowder to launch each one

a few pictures from the sands of myrtle beach, s.c.