gender specificity

Today my in-laws had Jeff and me meet them at Target so that we could point out the baby stuff that we like and the baby stuff that we don't like so they have some sort of idea what to get us for Christmas. There was a really cool car seat that I liked and it was different shades of gray. Jeff was really concerned about getting a gray car seat because he didn't think gray was appropriate for a girl. Then later there was a different stroller/car seat combo that we liked, but upon closer inspection jeff saw that it had lions (along with other noah's ark/jungle animals) on it.
His response was, "we can't get this, it has lions on it, if we have a girl, she can't have a car seat with lions on it!"
We had this same type of discussion about practically every item we looked at such that poor Kevin (my father-in-law) who walked into target "not believing in gift certificates" started to repeat over and over, "we just need to get a gift certificate."

Not surprisingly, Jeff assured me that if I woke up with a completely new personality and wanted to dress up our (possible) baby girl in all sorts of pink lace poofiness- he would be totally okay with it.

I still think it would be cool to wait until the baby is born to find out if it is a boy or a girl. But at this rate, Jeff's head might explode from all the pressure to find things gender neutral.

Live Nativity

Last night Jeff and I went to our ward's live nativity. The YM/YW did it at the Tuacahn amphitheater. The narration was really simple and I the music that went along with it was really good too. I was kind of being a scrooge about going because I was afraid of getting cold and then getting sick but Jeff rounded up a couple of blankets, hat, scarf, coat, and gloves for me so that I wouldn't get cold.
My favorite part was the shepherds because they had a couple of goats and sheep on leashes that they walked across the stage and then there was a little corral thing by the stable with hay in it for them. Well when the shepherds started moving in that direction the animals knew where they were headed and a couple of the girls got dragged down some steps and across the stage. The second time around there was a little tiny goat and it was so excited to get to the hay but not strong enough to pull the girl holding its leash so it's legs were running in place really fast- zero traction.

I obviously missed a great photo op.

Christmas shopping

8 kids, 1 parent, and 2 siblings down.

3 siblings and 3 parents to go.


I bought 2 of my nieces Barbie cars. Sort of having a moral dilemma about it because I swore I'd never buy anything Barbie. I wanted to buy a bob the builder set complete with yellow hard hat to even things out. But didn't.

should I be feeling bad?

After my ranting blog Sunday night about our sleeping situation, Jeff's snoring was at sonic boom level and I guess I asked him to change how he was laying one too many times because he got up and left the room.

I fell asleep before he came back.

But that's because he didn't come back, until he came to kiss me on the forehead good-bye this morning before he left for the day.


I SLEPT THROUGH THE ENTIRE NIGHT WITHOUT WAKING UP ONCE.

And Jeff was on the couch.

finally got a response from Ta

Ta is on a mission in Massachusetts. I am not very good about writing him every week but I do write him somewhat regularly. When we found out that I was pregnant I took a picture of the 3 positive pregnancy tests and then wrote a letter and sent it in the mail to him. Here is his response that we got in the mail two weeks later (the italicized is in cursive):

TINA & JEFF

YOU CRAZY NICKAS I KNEW YOU WAS GONE GET A BABY CAUSE I BEEN PRAYIN FO YO OVARIES LIKE CRAZY MAH NICKAS!!

HOLLA BACK!!

I'm thoroughly excited

Put your hands in the air if you think you're a player.

I'm so stoked- HIGH FIVE ME NICKAS.
GOTTA GO- PEACE!!!

P.S. AND NO I WASN'T BEING SARCASTIC- I LOVE IT HERE

And then on the back it said:

WE BABTIZED SOMEONE LAST WEEK

______________________

Is it possible he took up smoking illegal substances while serving a mission?

one night's rest in peace

Sleeping has not been an easy thing for me since Jeff and I got married. Before we were married I took for granted how amazing my sleep was once I actually feel asleep. When we were first married we had a queen size mattress. After I was sick for the first three months due to lack of sleep we finally got a king. (Jeff is a big guy, he also has a tendency to do "hi-ya!" type knee, elbow, and fist moves in his sleep-- so I was waking up to a fist and or elbow to the face and a knee to the tailbone many times in the night). The king size bed is fantastic. Except that it doesn't create a sound and smell proof barrier between us. I have my fantastic hot pink ear plugs so that helps with the sound, but before we switched sides I would wake up to feeling his hot sleepy-breathe puffing my face at regular intervals. After getting him to rollover many times in the night to face the other direction (which also greatly improved my leg space because he also like to put his leg at a diagonal in my direction such that the only way to move it was a swift kick downward on my part or a very obvious passive-aggressive bounce down the bed as I got up to go to the bathroom) he told me that laying on his left side was his "natural side" so we needed to switch sides. We have. And it is great. There was a few elbows and fists to the face the first couple of night and he doesn't have a death grip on the blankets like I tend to so they keep falling of his end of the bed, but all in all I am pretty excited about the new arrangement. Now I get to sleep facing both directions which is great because for the first time in my life I wake up due to aching body parts in my sleep and his "natural side" has him facing the wall, not me.

I am almost positive it was a man who thought it was a great idea to get rid of two twin mattresses. Unless that was something that no one ever did, they just showed it that way on television. Regardless, I think it would be pretty great most nights.

**part of me feels really guilty writing this because Jeff is the best husband I could ever ask for. He woke me up yesterday morning to a gigantic breakfast in bed (even though I couldn't really eat it) and really does his best to make me happy. AND I understand that he doesn't hi-ya karate chop me in his sleep on purpose- at least I hope not.

busy signal

I have been trying to call my parents all afternoon. I keep getting the busy signal. The first time I called, it totally threw my off-guard because I don't think I have heard that noise in years! I'm guessing that they took the phone off the hook for some reason because both of their cell phones are going straight to voice-mail too. Heaven forbid they aren't accessible to me 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But still. That stupid busy signal is driving me crazy!