The Baby Name Game. . .

Sorry everyone we're not playing. We had some options for baby girl names, but this baby boy has been named for years. Sam and I have always loved the name: Noah Daniel.


Ever since Sam and I saw The Notebook together in theaters back in 2004, we have wanted to name our little boy Noah. It may be lame to name a child after a movie character, but it works for us. Anyway, the baby's real namesake is this guy:

My big brother, Daniel Brian Sanford. The smartest, funniest guy I will ever know. A few fun facts about Danny:

1. He was self-proclaimed "ridiculously good-looking" (though many supported this belief)
2. He was a HUGE St. Louis Cardinals fan. He knew everything there was to know about the team and the players, and watched and attended as many games as possible
3. He always knew how make me smile, no matter how mad or sad I was
4. He made me swear not to use the name George if I had my first little boy before he had his second (don't worry that one is safe)
5. He spent at least an hour getting ready every day
6. He had an extremely tough exterior and was a VERY protective big brother (I'm surprised Sam made it through our first few months of dating)
7. He made everyone he met feel like his best friend (unless of course they were trying to date his little sister)
8. He was oddly obsessed with the movies Pete's Dragon and Top Gun
9. He knew all the words to the theme songs for Gummy Bears, Tailspin, and Alvin and the Chipmunks ( among others)
10. He went bungee jumping when he was 18 and didn't puke
11.  He served a full-time mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Oslo, Norway from 2001-2003
12. He graduated from Brigham Young University when he was 22 years old (even with serving a 2 year mission and not going to school during that time), and began attending law school at the University of Pittsburgh when he was 23 years old
13. He HATED when people called him "Dan" (sorry if you were one of those people, but he preferred Daniel or Danny ONLY)
14. He has an adorable son named Jack, who is now 4 years old. He was so excited to be a dad and started picking all kinds of clothes and baby gear for Jack before he was born
15. He loved videogames (especially strategy and spy ones) and at one time tried to collect every sort of game console ever invented. He somehow ended up with  surplus of Nintendo 64s and Playstation 2s
16. He spoke English and Norwegian fluently and some French
17. He was known to have parties whenever my parents left town when he was in junior high and high school
18. He had nicknames for everyone in our family, especially our dog Gracie (he lovingly referred to her as Nalbandian, Tookis, or Bando depending on his mood)
19. He wore a Santa hat with his pajamas to open presents every Christmas until he was about 14.
20. He was a pretty killer scrabble player (it didn't hurt that he was a walking dictionary. . . I tried to use big words around him to sound smart and he would always make fun of me because I used a lot of them incorrectly)
21. He was an amazing writer even from a very young age. He had a knack for weaving humor into even the most boring of topics (this came in handy since he was a philosophy major)
22. He thought that ear candling messed up his equilibrium and gave him headaches (We all tried it at Christmas time one year. . . I agree)
23. He waxed his eyebrows regularly (so does Sam. . . it really makes all the difference in the world)
24. He wasn't afraid of anything (except for the movie Jason when he was a tween)
25. He was extremely athletic. He loved playing soccer, football, basketball, golf, and volleyball.

Most of all, he was the BEST big brother in the world. Noah Daniel will be lucky if he can inherit any of his Uncle Danny's traits.

***Side Note: I absolutely hate the floating fetus widget that represents the baby at the side of the blog. I broke down and put it up solely for the countdown. I hope it doesn't gross anyone out too much.