the name game

I'm starting to get a little nervous. During a doctor appointment earlier this week, I was informed that with the number of contractions I'm having and my out-of-control swelling, this baby could come at "any time".

WHAT?!?

People have been asking me why in the world we tackled this huge renovation project a few weeks before my due date and the truth is - we honestly thought that we were going to move. And, aside from that > I've been in a bit of disbelief that a baby was going to come out of me. FOR REAL.

Since we decided not to move, and the baby isn't here yet, I knew that I absolutely positively wanted to get the house fixed up. Besides, there was no way I wanted to take on this project with a newborn in the house.

Perhaps it's because we're only now wrapping up everything - it seems that this has been the fastest nine months in history. The fourth of July is in less than three weeks. How is that possible ... since I was just organizing Christmas stuff, yesterday?!

The floors are finally finished and we have hauled FIVE truck loads off to Goodwill. Not to mention, I unloaded three huge bags worth of girl clothes to our neighbor who visits an orphanage in Mexico every month and we gave every last piece of lawn equipment (lawn mower, weed wacker, wheel barrow, shovels - rakes -spades) to our gardener in an effort to free up the storage shed for kid toys. (It'd been three years since we've used the stuff, anyway.)

I'm loving our new highly organized, dust-free space.

Now all that remains is painting two rooms, organizing our garage and purchasing an assortment of baby supplies.

And ... picking out a name for the new baby.

Because although Charlie could buy a carseat and bassinette while I'm in the hospital - and we can paint the rooms and organize the garage after the baby arrives - we need to have a name for the little one before I leave the hospital.

That's where all of you come in.

We have some ideas, but nothing firm. Here are a list of the names that we're considering, in no particular order. Those with an astrix (*) are family names. Our last name starts with an "L" so, we're trying to be cognizant of initials. For example, we'd prefer to avoid "HOL" or "HEL"

Edward *
Jack *
Samuel
Julian *
Coleman *
Henry *
Francis *
James *
Oliver *
Emerson
Robert *
Alex *
Matthew
Harry >> but I'm not too keen on the idea of having a "William" AND "Harry"

That's all we've got but we're open to other suggestions.

Ready, set ...

Game on!