Introducing:

our baby girl:
Estella Erlene

An old fashioned name, for sure, but with significant meaning. Unknown to many, Estella Erlene was my mothers full name, though she went by her middle name, Erlene. My middle name is Erlene as well, a fact I was always embarrassed about growing up, but am quite proud to bear now. Estella was also my Great Great Grandmothers name (or was it just one Great?) and so there is alot of family history behind this name.

Our Little Girls Namesake:
My sweet mother who I miss terribly, especially now that I am having a little girl.
This picture was taken the last Christmas we all spent together in 2004.
She would have turned 70 last Friday, the 3rd of December.

Tone' and I have different nicknames for our little Estella. Tone' plans on calling her "Stella" which is actually quite popular nowadays, it's in the top 150. Apparently there is some movie I have never seen where the character yells, "STELLA!!!!!". So Tone' is down with that name.
I have a different name in mind and it happens to be after my friend, Estie. The same Estie who is just one week ahead of me in pregnancy. How coincidental!
All these names, Estella, Estie and Stella derive from the name of Esther, which means "star".

We don't know yet what Lukas plans on calling his little sister, but Nikolas has an entirely different name picked out. He is adamant on calling her, "Celeste".

Yes, that's right, Celeste. After Babar the elephants wife! The quite hilarious thing is that Celeste means, "heavenly", which is right in line with the "star" meaning of Estella.

Needless to say this little girl is going to be a little confused as to what her actual name is. She'll figure it out soon enough though as I will be telling her all about the wonderful grandmother she is named after, who was also named after her grandmother. And that is how it should be, generation after generation passing on the family history and keeping memories alive.