Josiah David Fields

We finally have decided on the perfect name for our son. We are very excited to announce that Josiah is doing well and really starting to kick up a storm. As you may remember Caleb and I were having a terrible time deciding on a name. We went round and round with many possibilities and wanted to share with you not only our decision (which we think is final but of course, always subject to change) but also the reason for our decision and the meaning behind the name Josiah.

Josiah literally means "Fire of God". So, come on, how cool is that!? We could have stopped there, but the actual reason we chose the name is because of who the person Josiah was in the Bible. Feel free to read all about our inspiration starting around 2 Kings 22. Some of you may know that there were a long line of Kings who ruled both Judah and Israel throughout history. In the beginning Judah and Israel were united and there was a King who ruled the entire nation. Those Kings were Saul, David and then Solomon. After those first 3 kings, the kingdoms were seperated and seperate kings ruled the two territories. Well, many generations passed and there was never, ever a good king in Israel and in the whole history there were only recorded to have ever been 4 good kings in Judah. Josiah was one of those good kings.

Josiah was the son of a very evil king. His father died and Josiah became king of Judah when he was just 8 years old. Even from that early age, he was a very good and faithful king. At the age of 25, Josiah initiated total reform of Judah and reintroduced the scriptures to the people of Judah. He took down all the objects of pagan worship that other generations had errected and he completely brought the entire nation back to the Lord. Until that time, the scriptures had been completely lost, but Josiah found a copy of what is probably the book of Deuteronomy and had it read to all the people. He reestablished scripture as the cornerstone of what people should base their life on. We see Josiah, today as being a man of faith, wisdom, obedience and most of all, an incredible passion to serve God.

It is so obvious when you read the bible that names are so important to God. The Lord often gave a new name to a person to reflect their character or a specific role He was calling them too. Also, all throughout scripture, the meaning of names are given to help you understand the significance of the person that is being talked about. For our son, we wanted to honor how much God cares about the meaning of a name and we wanted to honor our son by giving him a name that represents the character that we are praying that he posess. We plan to raise him to love the Lord and to serve Him and we especially love that Josiah of the bible loved God and remained faithful from the time he was a small child. We are believing that our Josiah will also become a faithful man of God who is a reformer and a leader.

So there you have it! Thus the reason for naming him what most of our youth think is "weird". I have been using the nickname "Si" a lot when I talk to him (No "Joe" please).

David (our choice for the middle name) was also a king (and also a very good king) but rather than having a fixation with royalty, we just thought David sounded good with Josiah. What do you think?

So...a bible lesson and homework assignment had the makings of a pretty boring post, so I thougth I should at least put some pictures in here and talk about what else is going on in life. (Not that anything is more important than what is going on in the bible!) Here is a picture of the first little shirt Caleb and I bought Si. We had mistakenly been under the impression that there were no cute boy clothes out there, but we are starting to come around. I know this hoodie isn't very "AZ" but hopefully it will get some good wear when we are home for Christmas.

Here is another updated belly-pic. Getting bigger! I promised myself and most of my friends that I was not going to be a complainer after all we went through to get pregnant in the first place. I truely am so thankful for the breeze of a pregnancy I have had and the incredible joy I feel for getting the privilage of experiencing it. However....due to Caleb's back problem we have a very firm matress which is totally fine with me (although pregnant or not, I would prefer to sleep on a soft fluffy cloud anyday)! but now that I am pregnant is it okay to complain about the fact that my hips are soooo sore!? Firm matress was fine when I could sleep on my stomach or back but now with only the sides as options, it has been pretty hard to sleep. I even tried sleeping in the guest room last night (mmmm...remember my college bed, Laura? Didn't you want to sleep forever on that fluffy cloud!?) So I slept there for one night, but missed Caleb too much so I won't be doing that again. It was a nice break for my hips but who wants to sleep alone? Actually it was really not even a better night sleep due to the printer noises and water heater turning on, not to mention the few glow in the dark stars that still remain on the ceiling from the last homeowners. Printer noises? you might ask... my printer started making noises in the middle of the night. I woke up and almost became convinced that it was going to feed the paper and print me some creepy ghost message, but thankfully it stopped short of a terrible horror film I'm sure someone's made. I guess we have a few modifications to make before the guest room/office will be guest ready. Sorry to all of you who've already had to endure the stars.