ALEX

He is child number four. Or in other words, the middle child. Once in a while there was some discussion as to the number of children we would have in our family. Dad's family has three and my family, five, so we talked about compromising and having four. That would have made Alex the last. But once he was here we never thought of him as the last.

Alex was born on Friday, the day after Rach turned 2. He was the first birth Dad was able to witness. It was nice to have dad be part of it. At birth, Alex weighed 8lbs 1oz, and when we went home he weighed less than 8lbs. He seemed so small. Before he was born Uncle Bill was helping us with a project in our house and he wanted to know what names we had chosen. We said if it's a boy, Alexander Eric. He said, "let's pray it's a girl." He thought Alexander Eric was too big a mouthful. (Maybe I should mention he named his boys Jim, John and Bill.) So, he was born and that is the name he got. Dad's father's name was Arthur Alexander; that's where the Alexander came from. So Alex's initials are the same as Dad's, aee.

Now he's a father himself and he knows the joy of holding a son and a daughter in his arms. Amazing blessings for him and Sarah.