All About Hillary ~ Part Four

Almost done friends! Just four more questions to get answered. If I missed anyone on accident give me a shout out...

Chelsea wanted to know where we got the boys names from and did we plan them all G names or did that just come along after naming our first born. 

This is such a fun question! And one of my favorite :). When we had our first son back in 2002 Graham was just a name on a list with about 5 others. I felt strongly the entire time that I was pregnant that I wanted to match the name to the baby and that I should "get to know him" before I gave him a name for life. Sweet Graham was born and then not named until 3 almost 4 days later. :) The L&D nurses came in kindly one day and said that the lady from social security was on her way in and he couldn't be called "Baby Boy Mueller" for much longer. It was then that we decided on Graham Lucas. 

Grady also didn't have a name when he was born. With Grady's pregnancy I felt scared to name him as I had had a miscarriage between Graham and Grady.I was worried that I was going to jinx things (silly, I know...). During my repeat C-section to deliver Grady (and my COMPLETE DRUG INDUCED HAZE) my beloved hubby suggested we name him Grady. To be honest, Grady was on our baby name list but it was never my intention that our boys end up with two G names. Now that I have my Grady Tucker I could not imagine him being named anything else. :) 

Griffin's name is very special to me. After we lost Caroline we knew that we still wanted another child. Before I was even pregnant I heard God whisper into my ear that I'd have another baby, that he would be a boy, and that his name would be Griffin. I've only felt God's presence this strongly only a couple of times in my life. It was just this one time though that I've felt him tangibly "speak" to me. Once I was pregnant with Griffin (one check off God's list :), and once it was confirmed that he was indeed a boy I knew in my heart what his name would be. I never actually said the name out loud (not even to Bobby) but Griffin he became just as soon as Bobby was able to join me again back in the OR recovery area. Griffin Burkett is our beautiful little gift from God. :)

Beth Ann wanted to know if I could spend a kid-free to myself what would I do? 

What a delicious question! I would spend my day eating out with friends (lunch AND dinner!) shopping, and catching a new movie! I'd also love to take some time to go antiquing. I'm super excited because I'm getting a Mommy weekend away in May. Bobby and the kiddos will hang back here while I head up north to Dallas to hang out with my Momma and some good friends for a long weekend away. I'm so excited that I hardly know what to do with myself. :) I could.not.tell.you. the last time I was by myself with no children. I might even be looking forward to the 4 hour drive all by myself!


My second to last question comes from an anonymous reader. S/he wanted to know what drew me to become a stay at home mom and what was my career before becoming a SAHM. 

I have always had it in the back of my mind that I'd like to be a stay at home mom. For a while that wasn't financially possible. When I had Grady I realized that we for SURE wouldn't be able to pay for after school child care plus full time daycare for Grady. It just made a ton more sense to tighten out belts and have me stay at home!

The last job I had before I quit working was as a Inside Sales Coordinator for a building supply company. In a basic and boring nutshell I was responsible for making sure that whatever a home builder needed on a job site he got.  It was incredibly stressful and I worked long hours. I was more than ready to stop working once I had Grady. :)

My very last question comes from Nicole. Nicole is awesome and named her sweet angel girl "Caroline Elizabeth" as well. How cool is that! They were even born just a couple of weeks apart! Nicole wanted to know how I honor Caroline on a day-to-day basis. (and no Nicole, this is never something sad to bring up. I would talk about Caroline all the live long day if I could :).

I honor Caroline is small but meaningful to me kind of ways. I have a little plaque that has her name on it that sits on my shelf above my sink. I look at it and smile 100 times a day. :) I stop at her urn on top of the fireplace mantle and put my hand upon her and wish her good morning and tell her how much I love her. I do a lot of silly things that only her, I, and God know about like praying for her and talking (just in my crazy head) to her. We will soon be signing up for this years March of Dimes walk. In honor of her we'll be doing a very large, multi-family garage sale with all the benefits going to Team Caroline!

Thanks to all of you who asked such great questions! I hope you all enjoyed getting to know me just as much as I have enjoyed sharing myself with you. The drawing will be first thing tomorrow morning!