I am the most indecisive person I know.  Hands down.  So when I found out I was pregnant I immediately began thinking about names.  I knew that I would need the entire time to figure it out.  Our girl name came quickly.  And while we wanted a boy first, we were both kinda sad we didn’t get to use it this go round.  Hopefully next time. For those that are curious here’s our girl name story…

Eric’s middle name is Anderson.  And I had a very good friend killed in a car accident a few years ago named Jared Rhea (pronounced Ray).  So…our girl name was Anderson Rhea Craig.  And we were going to call her Andie…Andie Rhea!  Isn’t it precious?!?  I hope we get little Andie Rhea one day!  I love boy names for girls.  Just love!  And I really loved the idea of honoring Jared in this way.  We also might use his middle name, Lane, if we have another boy!

Now, our boy name was SO much harder.  We were partial to family names.  The biggest family names, that we liked, were Elliott, Harris, and Allen (my middle name).  But I loved names like Sawyer, Kennedy, and Emory.  We went back and forth forever but eventually settled on either Elliott or Harris for a boy name; both of our mothers’ maiden names.  We were leaning towards Harris.  Harris Allen Craig.

We didn’t really tell anyone our name choices.  I wanted an element of surprise – especially with our families.  Then a good friend who is pregnant tells me she has decided to use Harrison if she has a boy.  What if we both ended up with boys – Harris and Harrison – it just would’ve been weird or something.  I was really upset at first.  I decided if she had a girl we could still use Harris – but I didn’t want to wait.  I wanted my name picked out at the ultrasound.  I wanted this baby to have an identity!!!

So we decided to pick another name.  Eric wasn’t 100% on board with Harris anyway, and I wasn’t 100% on board with Elliott.  So we decided to go back to the drawing board and find something we both really loved – like we had both just KNOWN about Andie Rhea.  We had loved the idea of a musical name since we are both pretty much obsessed with music. But our favorite artists don’t have cool names (Adam Fredric Duritz and Christopher Mark Robinson – hello! boring!) so those were out.  So I decided to just go through my iTunes and see if anything grabbed me.  I came to Josh Ritter and Ritter literally jumped off the screen at me.  OF COURSE!!!  We both love Josh Ritter and literally fell in love to his Animal Years album.  On one of our very first dates we laid in the floor of Eric’s apartment and listened to “Girl In The War” and “Monster Ballads” over and over.  We’ve since collected all of his other albums and seen him live twice.  Something about it just fit.  We aren’t crazy obsessed with Josh Ritter and it wasn’t planned…but we love Ritter for a first name and it’s unique and sounds cool.  We REALLY wanted something unique and I think we got it.

So there’s our name story.  I hope Ritter Craig gets Eric’s musical talents and my drive and tenacity.  What a combination that would be!  I think he’ll be tall (he’s already measuring a little long).  My dad and 1/2 brother are very tall, and Eric’s pretty tall.  We already know from the ultrasound that he has my feet.  And we know he will have blue eyes since it’s genetically impossible for two blue eyed people to have a brown or green eyed child.  And since we both have fine/thin hair, he’ll probably get that curse too – unless a miracle happens and he ends up with my dad’s hair.  It’s crazy all the little things we know about him already.  And now that he has a name I feel even more connected to him than before.  And feeling him kick and move now has made it even more exciting.

I’m really trying to wrap my head around how much things are about to change for us.  We know this, cognitively.  We wanted it and feel prepared for it.  But I know that you never really get it until you have a child of your own.  Our 1 year wedding anniversary is coming up in May.  I never would’ve guessed I would be 7 months pregnant on our first anniversary.  We knew we were planning to start trying for a family quickly, but I never thought things would take off like they have.  I’m grateful, very grateful, that everything has happened the way it has and I’m so so so excited.

Thank you all for your prayers and for all of the excitement for us.  We are so blessed.  And we know it.  We thank God daily for these incredible blessings.

Love!