must be something in the water at ys. or, at least, there must have been several months ago.

we have a wonderful burst of babies arriving for the staff of youth specialties. we’re a little team — just less than 30 of us. so, when 4 babies arrive in two weeks, and three more are expected in the next few months, it’s a little wild.

now, i’m being a guy here, and am terrified that i may be forgetting someone. i know there were even a couple more born in 9 months.

in the last two weeks:

allena slevcove, born to beth and joe slevcove. allena (pronounced a-lain-a) was born quite a few weeks premature, but is perfect, and still got to go home with mom and dad without a long hospital stay. beth is our director of spiritual formation at ys.

jack urbanski, born to dave and jenny urbanski, just a couple days ago. urb and jenny live in princeton, nj, where jenny just finished an mdiv. urb works remotely as our senior director of product development.

noelle and chloe howver, adopted by jay and jen howver this weekend. it’s been a long road to parenthood for the howvers, and this morning, they’re in the air, flying to ethiopia. technically, noelle and chloe are already howvers (according to the ethiopian courts, a couple weeks ago). but this coming tuesday, jen and jay have a final appointment with the u.s. embassy in addis ababa to finalize the girls’ visas. they’ll meet their daughters for the first time in two days – this sunday. and next friday, they’ll bring them home! oh, jay is our publisher at ys. and jen used to work in our marketing department, and still does a ton of freelance work for us.

in the weeks to come:

baby houston, arriving soon to shari and jesse houston. shari is the executive assistant in our events department.

baby syverson, arriving soon to sarah and paul syverson. sarah used to work at ys (so, i suppose, technically, this isn’t a ys baby) as our event manager, and we’ve all stayed friends with her. she married my longtime buddy, paul, after they met at one of our conventions.

baby wondercheck, hopefully arriving soon to lisa wondercheck and her husband, aaron lawson. lisa and aaron are in the process of adopting a baby from china, and everything’s a bit on hold at the moment. but we’re still including this baby in the current batch, because we are hopeful!