Introducing Middle

Middle's name came out of nowhere. When I was pregnant with her, we did not know what sex she was, so we tried to come up with both boy and girl names and again, just like with Evelyn, we couldn't come up with any boy names. We wanted to continue with the old fashioned names so we racked our brains and the baby name book for ideas. Then one night, out of the blue, Andrew called out "Gretchen!" It was perfect! Then when she was born, it was a match.



Meet Gretchen. She is the singer/ dancer/ ham of the family. Master of funny faces and jokes and cheesy smiles. It's hard to get a photo of her without her squinting her eyes and giving me the biggest smile she can muster, but oh, what a pretty smile it is.


She is going to be 6 in two weeks and she can't wait! She has already put in her order for the menu that day:: pancakes for breakfast; hotdogs and macaroni and cheese for lunch; meatloaf, peas, and mashed potatoes for dinner; and a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting. She is a girl that knows what she likes! She has a very definite sense of style and never fails to surprise me with an outfit she has put together. For awhile there, she never wore matching shoes and rolled her socks down just like Olive Oyl. She likes to wear this shirt with that pants or those pants with that shirt.



Gretchen is a very lively girl that likes familiarity. She doesn't like disruptions to our routine and hates when I leave to go grocery shopping without them. She cries big tears and wails and pleads for me to stay or to take her. I can resist, but Daddy on the other hand... He says it was the tremor in her voice and the tears in her eyes that makes him feel so bad for her and lets her come along. Maybe she just has Daddy wrapped around her finger? ;o)

She recognizes music from the radio on some of the movies we watch and will often take a tune and add new words. It confuses me sometimes, when I recognize the tune but the words are different and I realize she has made the song her own. She is never without music, whether she is singing, humming, or listening to it on the TV or radio. This makes Andrew happy because he loves music just as much.

Sweet Gretchen, our little star.
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