Calihan Rio Thomas

Calihan is ONE WEEK (?!?!) old! We can hardly believe that it’s already been a week and yet it feels like he’s always been a member of our family, all at the same time. Cali was born on Wednesday, September 2, 2020 at 9:08am, weighing 9 lbs, 5 oz, and measuring 21.5 inches long. I figured this would be the best way to share a bunch of pictures from our first week together, document a few special things about our little boy, and share where his name came from!

Calihan Rio Thomas (or Cali, as we often call him) is part just name we heard and loved and part family-based. We have no ties to the name Calihan, but had heard it before and both loved it. In fact, the day we found out he was a boy, we both separately fell in love with using it as his name and then pretty much finished each other’s sentences when we asked, “what should we name him?”. And that was it, we named him Calihan right on the spot and it has felt perfect ever since. We love his name as it is, but have always been fans of names that can be shortened to nicknames, so we also love that we can call him Cali too. A little bit sporty, a little bit “can grow with him”, and a little bit unique… our favorite combo!

Rio was more family-inspired. Holden’s middle name is James, which he shares with Mitch. We wanted to figure out some way to incorporate my name into one of our kid’s names, so after a lot of brainstorming, we came up with Rio. It’s our nod to my maiden name (which is now my middle name), Rosario. It also happens to mean “river” in Spanish, which is special because we spend quite a bit of time on the water and we even married on a river!

Our first week together has been so, so good. Calihan was born on a Wednesday and we spent the next several days at the hospital recovering, getting to know our boy, and preparing to come home and introduce him to Holden. Speaking of Holden, he LOVES his brother.

He is really enjoying holding him (with lots of supervision because two year olds are, how do we put it… spontaneous), giving hugs and kisses, and letting us know when Cali is “crying because he’s hungry for milk”. It’s been a great first week and we all love that Calihan is finally here!

Welcome to the world, Cali! We could not be more thankful that God chose us to be your team… we love you so much and can’t wait to see all of the adventures God has in store for you.