What's in a Name?

For anyone who doesn't know about our strange naming habits, little Madi's middle name may have come as a shock that you still haven't figured out. Even if you do know, but are unaware of what the reference has to do with Michigan, I will try to shed a little light on the subject! First, for anyone completely in the dark:

To make a long story short, we decided when naming our children that we would give them names that have a special meaning to us.It started with Kody - since we met in Alaska and were finally able to get pregnant our last summer there, it only made sense that his name would be something Alaskan. So rather than look in a baby name book we pulled out the map and came up with Kodiak. It's actually his middle name, so there have been a few people who thought we actually named him Kody Kodiak - we're not that strange people!

When baby #2 came along I just really loved the name Mollie, so we took out the map again for her middle name (we were living just south of Marin county when she was born).

Have you figured it out yet? The map of Michigan wasn't very helpful, unless we wanted to name her Kalamazoo, Petoskey or Ypsilanti. Ann was an option, but we have too many friends with the name Ann or some derivative.

Brett had mentioned the name Madeline, and we had joked about naming her Maizy for this reason and then when it came down to it we put the two together and really liked it!

That's the story for our crazy naming habits, and we're sticking to it!

p.s. Be assured that even though Papa Bear has adopted the wolverines and his youngest has a middle name of maize he still bleeds blue, royal blue that is; although the cougars are no longer royal blue papa bear grew up with royal blue and that is still in his blood. GO COUGS, and Wolverines!!!