This Is Me - Part Seven

Children:
*Give your children's full names, birth dates and places.
Mark Emmanuel Lantz - 12 June 1998, Melbourne Victoria

Ryan Joseph Storer - 4 December 2009, Newcastle NSW.

Ben Arthur Storer - 3 April 2011

*How did you choose their names?
Mark was chosen very early and confirmed very late in the pregnancy, his biological father is French, so it had to be a name that made sense in Australia and in France.  Vince had a lot of good experiences with people called Mark and I really liked it, so Mark it was.  Emmanuel I just love and it was Vincent's childhood best friends name.

Ryan was a toss up between Jared and Ryan.  About two weeks before he was born I asked my mother to spell Jared (my preferred spelling) and she chose Jarrod, that cemented Ryan which we both really liked.  His middle name is after Jamie's uncle Joe.  We also have a fob watch which is engraved J Storer, so one of the boys had to have a J in their name.

Ben was a challenge.  I knew it needed to be simple to "fit" with the other boys names.  Jamie didn't want a name that was already at the football club!  Hard call Jamie when we were in contact with around 50 boys.  Elliott was high on the list, Ruben was too.  But why Ben and not Benjamin, there are no adult Benjamins - they are always Ben, just go with Ben at the start.  BUT everyone asks.. is it Benjamin.  Arthur was my maternal grandfathers name.  I never met him, he died before I was born. Plus it has a bit of a dagginess factor which is very important when dealing with a middle name.  By the way, there were at least 3 Ben's in the footy club!

*What were the circumstances of each child's birth?
I've written about all three previously, Mark, Ryan and Ben.

*What are some funny things that each child does/did or says/said?
These are peppered throughout this blog and more frequently on Facebook.  Scroll back, they are always saying funny stuff.

*How do you spend your time with your children?
We do heaps of stuff together, they help me cook, we go on adventures to playgrounds, we love a good playground.  I try to fit in a proper family outing every fortnight, I haven't planned it that way, but its how its working out.

*What are your favourite family activities?
I like when we do stuff all together, even if its doing a garage re-sort and the kids pretend to help.  A family dance party is fun.  We really enjoyed bike rides last year, haven't done it this year.  Dinners with the Dunn family are great too.