5 Months Old and FINALLY a name!

Our baby girl or "baby sister" as the boys call her, turned five months old this week. The first milestone since referral.

This naming process has been difficult (although we debated over Jack's right up till the last minute so apparently that's just us). But we really wanted to be able to start calling her by a name. Especially since Gavin out of nowhere told us her name was Kaylee the other day. Huh? We don't even know anyone by that name and have no idea where he got it from. I almost felt like we should use it just because it was so random, but we really wanted a name with some kind of Indian connection and it just didn't feel right.

We thought long and hard about just keeping Riyani as her first name- we love it and it is pretty easy to pronounce, but we also wanted to give her a name we had chosen. For awhile I was thinking Leela but then a relative named his baby a name quite close to that and Greg vetoed it anyway. So we ran through a bunch of possibilities- Ayanna (didn't sound right with Riyani), Maya (but we know quite a few of those), Anna (love it, but pretty common where we live) and a bunch of other options- Ameera, Neena, Shaila, Asha, Priya. But ultimately we got it down to two- Kari or Leeya. And it turns out I won this time around! My favorite name has always been Leah and as soon as I found out Leeya is sometimes an Indian name I have been lobbying hard! We thought about Alia (means exalted one) which I think is more traditionally Indian but I really just liked Leeya. After thinking about it for awhile Greg agreed (or gave in, depending on your perspective : ) but didn't like the double "ee" so we compromised on Lia. Not quite as traditionally Indian as I had originally hoped, but it is my favorite name ever and it feels right!

So Lia Riyani Colby it is!