We've been 4 for one month!

It's been one month since our precious little girl joined our family (technically it was one month on Sunday) and I can't believe how fast time has gone by!

We had a checkup today, and Annika Charlotte (named after my grandma and Hubby's grandma) now weighs 10 lbs 5 ounces. She's up 2 lbs 1 ounce since birth.

We've already made many trips with our little one, including Trick-or-Treating with her big brother. Of course, she slept through the whole thing, and she didn't get to eat any candy.

We all went to the Santa Clause Parade on November 19. Again she slept through most of it, and she didn't see Santa at all, but Monkey really enjoyed the parade! He climbed out of the stroller so he could dance to every marching band and float that had music.

The biggest trip was a weekend (Girls only) trip to Toronto to watch my sister's volleyball tournements. Once again, our little snoozer enjoyed the trip her own way.

But she did get to have her picture taken with the champions.

We love how peaceful you are little one. It's such a great change from the ball of energy your brother is. I know you're still small, but I can't believe how much you've already grown.

I love you.

~A

Choosing a Name (from 100,001 to one...)

Is there any more difficult decision to make about a baby than its name?

I'm not sure there is, and I'm really not sure why it's so much harder this time than it was with our first child. We had 3 names chosen (first and middle) and we went with the one we like the most...

This time around, I could almost write my own baby name book with all the choices I've "narrowed down" from the dozen name books I've gone through so far (not joking).

Some strategies used to choose a name:

-Go with a family name: grandparent, favourite aunt, deceased relative of importance
(now my grandmother was Gertrude... is that a good baby name?)

-Choose names that sound similar/have the same ethnicity
(Irish names: Briana, Fiona, Ciara, Colin, Teagan, Quinn)

-Choose a name starting with the same letter as that of your first child
(Conroy, Chandler, Carl, Cora, Camila, Camryn)

-Look for a name with a nice meaning: son of... strong warrior, blessed by God... and so on

(Isabella means "Consecrated to God", but there will be about 6 of them in her class because of Twilight)

-Flip open the book and point to the first name on whatever page you flip to...

(Nazahah? Vandani? Ladislas? Kirabi? this doesn't seem to be working very well)

None of these strategies have helped us much. I'm sure my list is a few hundred names long (and still growing), and there's still nothing that we LOVE or that jumps out to us. I'm not worried yet, but with only 6 weeks to go (I'm 34 weeks along now!) the "deadline" is fast approaching.

I'd love to say that asking for help from family has been useful, but the feedback I've gotten from my mom consists of name suggestions that I've deliberately removed, or the comment "Why on EARTH would you name your child THAT?"

Any suggestions? Name ideas might be nice, but ideas on how to cut down my list would be even nicer.

Right now we're just calling the baby "fetus" because we don't know if it's a boy or girl, but I'm not sure that name would stick very well after he or she is born.

Any tips or tricks would be great, thanks!

~A