Hello, My Name Is...

Well, folks, I think we have a winner. After much deliberation and scouring through the name book, we decided to go with a name that we had talked about since before Kendall was pregnant. Our daughter will be able to rest assured that we did our due diligence in picking a name for her. So, without further ado... Our daughter's name will be Eden Faithe Neely.

Jeff was talking to his mom on the phone the other night, telling her the plans for the baby's name, when he learned of a very interesting coincidence. A close friend of Jeff's mom is going to have a granddaughter who is going to be named Eden Hope. How funny, huh? Actually, that was one of the initial possibilities for us as well.

Oh, and I should probably let you know in advance that we are not planning to use a nickname for our daughter. So, we are asking that people resist the impulse to call her Edie, E, Den, Edenio, Edenarino, Eden Sweden, Eden Eden Whatchu Be Needin', or any other derivation. I know... I'm having fun just thinking of the possibilities, but please, it's simply Eden.

In other news, Kendall recently had a three-hour glucose tolerance test and passed all four of her blood draws. That means she is in the clear for gestational diabetes. We also went to the second level-two ultrasound last week. Everything turned out fine there. The small choroid plexus cyst that showed up at the first ultrasound has disappeared now, so we were relieved about that. Also, the baby is still a girl, so as far as we know we won't have to spend countless hours returning pink outfits and such. We have one more 3D/4D ultrasound this weekend to catch if she's a he before the big day, but given that we've had four different people confirm the gender at this point, we're feeling pretty safe.

One last piece of good news, Jeff passed his oral defense and is now officially a Ph.D. candidate. He has some changes to his dissertation proposal to make, which was to be expected, but otherwise things look to be full speed ahead for completing his degree by August of next year.

That's the news for now. We should have new baby pictures sometime next week. Best to all.