Steve Alessi: Author of Alessi’s Angle, Pastor of Metro Life Church in Miami, Husband of World Renown Worship Leader Mary Alessi and Father of Four. 
As of 10:00 PM Monday, April 30th, my beautiful German Shepherd, Stasia, gave birth to 9 cute little pups and now my family has just extended its territory to include the garage, which has upped my list of titles to include Dog Breeder.
Since I was a kid, I've always loved German Shepherds and I've had plenty of the breed over the years. At first I was real creative with their unique names as I started with AJ, then BJ, then CJ, DJ, and then Mattie, which was my little sister's nickname given her by an old family friend. I even picked up a German Shepherd in my last year of college, which got me sent home and suspended from Southeastern University for a week. The administration said it had something to do with me being a "rebellious" Bible College student. Go figure. My last one we named King, but with raising kids and starting the Church, I just didn't have the time to devote to training him the way he deserved, so we gave him to a family that owned a ranch.
And then came Anastasia, the beauty I've been waiting for. Big, black and tan, and sweet as a dog can be. It was our goal from the beginning to breed her and I wanted a big, black, strong male out of the litter. When the time was right, we connected her with a male by the name of Kato and pregnant she became and for the last 60 days we've been anticipating the birth of her pups. I never dreamed this breeding and birthing thing could be so exciting and yet so dirty at the same time. OMG, this wasn't at all what I expected. Our four kids being born at Baptist Hospital was a lot cleaner than having these pups. I mean sure, the newborn puppies are so cute and cuddly with their little eyes closed as they enter the world, but there's also this other stuff that's coming out of Stasia everywhere and it's not that cute at all. Give me a barf bag quick. I'm getting dizzy and the room is spinning fast. And what is that smell? I don't remember reading anything on Google about the interesting odor birthing pups would emit into the air. I had no idea being a Dogfather would be such a bloody and ugly mess.
Then again, I guess if you want to expand your family, influence, business or otherwise, things can get pretty messy. Dreams have a lot less headaches when they're experienced in our sleep. It's when you try to put flesh on them that reality wakes you up to a whole different experience that requires change and growth, and that in itself is a dirty, bloody, ugly mess.
We're told that one of the fears many people experience in life is the fear of success. When I first heard that I thought to myself, "who could be that fearful?" Then I learned it's not that people fear the fun or the experiences that success can bring them, it's the pain, the sacrifice, the adjustments and changes that need to be made on the way to achieving success. But that's exactly what's required if living larger than we presently are is desired. It's one thing to manage life, but it's another thing to expand our lives and territory.
I'm a little nervous not knowing exactly what lies ahead for our family, Stasia, and the cute little nine pups. I've already been on the phone a number of times with the Doggy Doctor and Breeder just to make sure we're doing everything right. Momma Stasia is doing what female Shepherd's do when they have their babies and the little pups are making all kinds of noises. So far, it's been middle of the night checks and plenty of sweeping, moping, feeding, cleaning, waiting and watching. And that sounds exactly like what all of us will have to do when we get on the road to seeing our dreams come true.
OK, now I need your help naming our 4 males and 5 female puppies. Any suggestions?
Vito, Carlo, Johnny, Sonny for the boys. Connie, Leona, Contessa, Sophia and of course Alessia for the girls :)
Well, congratulations Pastor! Again, girls rule in your house! Great blog, I can totally relate as one who's had that fear of success all my life, goes hand in hand with fear of failure. What if I make the sacrifice, what if I do the bleeding and the pain, and I still fail? Wow, now I know, I don't fail, I regroup and come out fighting, Jesus is my cornerman right? Thanks for sharing again, Here are some girl names for the babies: Lola, Lulu, Stella, Luna, Cruz(cross), Luz(light) and the boys, Diesel, Mack, Tank, Milo and Thor! My landlady's German Shepherd is named Taser (her husband is a cop) Pass out them cigars!
Truly liked the idea of wanting more than just managing our life, great thought. As far as names go for The pups, I've always been partial to the names: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Demetrius and Bud.
Here are some German names and their meanings for the males:
Adlar, (ad-lar), "eagle"
Aksel or Axel, (axe-el), "father of peace"
Alric, (all-rick), "rules all"
Dieter, (deet-ter), "peoples ruler"
Emil, (ai-mil), "industrious"
Fritz, (freetz), "from Frederick"
Gunther, (gun-ther), "warrior"
Hansel, (han-sell), "God is gracious"
Heinz, (hinz), "household ruler"
Jaeger, (yai-ger), "hunter"
Kaiser, (kai-ser), "emperor"
Lothar, (low-thar), "renown warrior"
Manfred, (man-fred), "man of peace"
Here are some female german names and their meanings Ada, (a-da), "joyful"
* Alva, (al-vah), "army of elves"
* Ava, (a-fah), "a bird"
* Bluma, (blue-mah), " a flower"
* Clotilde, (clo-til-dah), "heroine"
* Della, (dell-ah), "bright noble"
* Edda, (ed-dah), ' vigorous"
* Etta, (et-tah), 'little one"
* Felda, (fell-dah), " from the field"
* Freida, (free-dah), "peace, joy"
* Gertrud, (gare-trude), "from the protected farm"
* Gretchen, (grey-chen), "little pearl"
* Hedy, (hay-di), "strife"
* Heidi, (hi-di), "noble, kind"
Thank God you left out the details. I was starting to get sick all over again. Can we name one WeeGo. Or maybe YOLO in honor of Infuz.
What a great post, Pastor! It's funny how we can find the deepest lessons in the most unexpected "places"!
David M., great names!
So true blood and sweat and it don't look cute sometimes achieving your dreams and achieving success, but it feels sooooo good when you've brought it to fruition. Geeze seems like the Martinez were just racking up their brains daily on names. Hmmm how about Thing 1 Thing 2 Thing 3 Thing 4 Thing 5 Thing 6 Thing 7 Thing 8 Thing 9! I tried.
You have to have a Rocco and a Vinnie!
If I may be so bold as to crown the following sentence as the 'Sentence of the Blog': "Dreams have a lot less headaches when they're experienced in our sleep." - Nuff said with that one...
Girl Names: I have NO IDEA... never had to do that :-)
Boy Names: Mack, Zeus, Rock & Ty (No real rhyme or reason other than one syllable and any name that doesn't sound like "No")
Zues Apollo Ace Trooper Zena Leia ..
Ok I ran out of names lol for now
True.. it's not the success that we fear, it's the process of getting successful that we do.
Now on to names... I had the same idea as David M. did... but to add on to it:
for the boys:
Wolfgang
Amadeus
Mozart
Bach
for girls (not German)
Kim
Khloe
Kourtney
Kendall
Kylie..
Get my drift, Pastor? hehehe...
Moses or JC, maybe Esther or Hannah
LOL! You got a great list going. You might have to do rock, paper, scissors to narrow it down.
I learned that back in Abram's time, newborns weren't named until the 8th day of their lives. One reason was so the parents could observe the
child's personality and name him or her accordingly.
I am partial to Steele for some reason.