"I have set you apart, and you are Mine."

34 days?! Seriously? I'm a little in shock to read that on my baby-meter. Strange to think that I was thinking the baby would be here so soon when I was only 10 weeks pregnant. That makes me laugh at myself! In fact, our little boy (whose name is no secret to anyone now), Levi, is so close that our midwife told us yesterday if labor kicked in, she wouldn't try to actively stop it. Woo-hoo *lets out a big thrill of joy*!!! I've been anxious to meet my Little Levi ever since I found out we were pregnant. I've been anticipating contractions just about every minute (yes, draining, I know), but I've only had one evening with a lovely set of three Braxton's that lasted for about 1 minute each. As much as I'm not looking forward to remembering to relax, breath, and push (ie; labor), I'm SO looking forward to the birth of our son who has been set apart by God from the beginning.

I can imagine that a few of you are curious about the name, although it sounds really simple. This has been no big secret to the people we see and talk to, and as always we reserve the right to change it once we've seen the baby - however, I think this is pretty unlikely.
Anyway. Levi Justice is his name. We first started thinking on Levi when we realized that most of the names we like are taken up by family. Jon has 5 other brothers and 4 nephews, so automatically 18 names are taken (unless we want to name our boy(s) after their uncles and cousins) and most of them we like. Not to mention the names on my side of the family- though not as immediate (more great-uncles and second cousins, etc).
We stuck with the name Levi after rolling it around for about 30 minutes. We also concluded that we really like the name Leviticus (yes, as in the name of the most boring book in the Bible). This mostly stemmed out of my studying that book in Old Testament History and learning that all those (crazy) rules and regulations God put on the Israelites were for the sake of surrounding nations knowing that the Israelites belonged to the Lord and that they were set apart as His people. We firmly believe that Levi has been set apart by God and that he has been claimed as the Lord's. His middle name is mostly because we like it, but also has a meaning of simply the word alone. Justice. God will bring justice to his people, and he alone is our righteous judge.

Jon and I have always had this policy that we will name our kids according to the name the Lord gives them. This will always trump family names and even names we think are cool. "So, Levi, unless the Lord tells us different, there is the history of your name and why he's given it to you through us. I love you! ~Love, Mom"