The Benores in DC!

Katelyn Marissa Benore is more than a month old now and she is still the most wonderful gift we have ever been blessed with. When Shantell and I met 10 years ago, we could never imagine how long the journey would take us to begin our family and what that journey’s ups and downs would look like. After several miscarriages we began to think perhaps God had a different plan for our family. We begun in earnest looking at different options for taking care of children. We went as far as going through a year long foster care certification. But jus as we thought the door to having children of our own was closing, Shantell got pregnant … twice within a few months of each other. The first had miscarried again, but the second began to be more stable as time went on. About the same time, God was about to change everything in our lives and I do mean everything.

Not long after the pregnancy news, Kevin was provided a new job opportunity. This was a big change, because it would mean leaving a well established life in Fort Worth, where we had spent 7+ years. New baby, new job, new city, and new housing. Thankful our marriage is strong, because those amounts of “newnesses” can always be stressful. But this was not the first time Shantell and I had big new changes. Uprooting from Florida to Texas in our new marriage was something we also did.

So where did we come up with Katie’s name? In 2000, a few months before I met Shantell, her mother passed away. This past February, my mother also passed away only. Luckily my mom knew before she died that I was going to be a dad. Before Katie was born we decided that if our child was a girl, we would honor our mothers by deriving her name after our moms. Shantell’s mom’s name was Kathie and my mom’s middle name was Lynn, so Katelyn is her official name. But long ago, in our first years of marriage I knew we would call our little girl Katie for short, because it honored Shantell’s mom but kept the name modern and cute. Marissa also has special meaning. We wanted a “M” middle name to honor all of the “M”s in our lives. Our stepmoms’ names both begin with “M”. Both my sister (before she was married) and sister-in-law’s middle names began with “M”. Both my maternal and paternal grandmothers also had names starting with “M”. Shantell’s maternal grandmother middle name began with “M” and her paternal grandmother’s maden name also started with “M”. So the letter “M” is very important to the women in our life.

Anyway, if you would like to see pictures you can Facebook either Shantell or me. If we know you, we will accept your friend request.

Fellow ColdFusion coders! I have launched a separate blog for my discussions of ColdFusion related issues. For ColdFusion posts, go to askBenore.com. Also, please follow me on twitter @askBenore. If you are not a CF coder, but want to keep up with me … stick with benore.com, our family blog site.