Sweet boys

Erik has been working all week on a present for me, so I've been interested to see what it is. He warned me that I probably wouldn't like it.
This morning he woke me up at 7:20 to take my room service order. Then he carefully carried a full bowl of cereal up the stairs. He sat with me while I ate and entertained me with talk about how he likes to eat his cereal and other topics related to him. Then when I was finished he gave me my present. It was 4 small stuffed animals that he "kind of didn't want anymore" and a handful of rocks that Taryn was going to throw away, so he snatched them for me. It also came with a cute card that said on the back, "this kard is don".

Natalie

My friend Natalie committed suicide last week. I am getting little bits of information at a time, so I don't know much about what happened or why. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry she suffered so much. I'm sorry that she couldn't see another way out. I have been that depressed and know that it is an overwhelming darkness. I hope that she is happy now. I hope she is free and full of joy. Natalie, you will be missed here on earth.

Misc information

Erik lost his first tooth! I know it seems like he's lost some already, but we don't count those because they were taken by force. This is his first, gotten loose, wiggled it out tooth. He was pretty happy and has been trying to decide all day whether he should take his dollar now or wait for the tooth fairy.

For our anniversary Vic and I tried out this new restaurant by our house that is similar to Bennihanas. It's called Mizu. The atmosphere was pretty cool, made us feel like we were downtown. Our chef was less than entertaining, and the food was average. But we enjoyed our time out none-the-less.

On another note, I'll share a funny story. Some of you have heard of Taryn and Erik's plan to live together when they grow up. At first they felt like they had to pretend they were not brother and sister so they could raise a family together. Taryn is going to adopt the babies and Erik will be their dad figure. I explained that they can be brother and sister and not get married but still live together. They liked this idea and have run with it since. Taryn was in the car with her friend Delaney explaining this to her. Delaney says, "you know you don't have to live with him." And Taryn says, "I'm hoping that he'll be nicer when we grow up."

It seems like I was just posting Taryn is 8, but now she's 9!

Taryn's first sleepover party was a success. She invited 5 girls over. They had pizza and cupcakes. Taryn's dance teacher (poetryofthefoot.com) was generous enough to give a dance class at her house to all the girls. They had so much fun, dancing, playing games, and being girls.
The sleepover part was good, they were quiet and went to sleep early enough, although I'm hearing different stories about that.

We piled all the mattresses we had into Taryn's room so they could all be comfy, although they ended up in each others beds.

In the morning they realized they had forgotten to have a pillow fight, so they ran back upstairs to create this memorable event.

Taryn's early birthday present

We had this whole thing planned to take Taryn down to Kent station and surprise her by telling her she could get her ears pierced for her birthday and then go out to dinner. She has been talking about this for over a year and we've always told her she had to wait until she was 13. Vic distracted the kids while I went into the place to make sure they had two people on hand. So then we told Taryn our big surprise and she says, "um...no...not right now." So we went to dinner instead and talked about what she might want instead. During dinner I guess she changed her mind and decided to do it. Of course I quizzed her to make sure she was sure about it (I'm not helpful when she's making decisions).


She was super nervous and just held still and didn't say hardly anything. Then when they did it, she just stared straight ahead and didn't even cry. I was pretty surprised. She's happy now though, and loves to wear her hair in a pony tail to show them off.

Erik's robot costume

Erik was so excited when he saw this box from Vic's skateboard. He messed around with it for quite a while until he figured out what to do with it.

Update

Ok, I give in, I'll make a new post. But I'll warn you, it's not that exciting.

I've posted some pictures from New Years to peak your interest. The kids had a great time. They all spent a couple of hours preparing for the midnight parade and making costumes. We didn't really think that Erik would make it until midnight, but they both were still going strong at 2 am. This was their first New Years awake, so it was sentimental for me. They marched outside in the freezing weather and banged their noise makers.

I have started my new job at H & R Block. It's fun and hard. Since a week ago last Thursday I have been working every day. February 27th is my first day off in sight. I thought it wouldn't be that big of a deal to work so much, but it's much harder than I thought. I work about 3 hours at night and then two 8 hour shifts on the weekends. My body is tired and my chronic mouse arm is acting up worse than ever.
It's cutting into my computer time at home because I'm tired of using those fingers.

I spend my days trying to catch up on my shows and spend time with the kids. We just finished reading the Tale of Despereaux, and I recommend it to those of you who have little ones. It's the first book I've read to them that they ask me not to stop.

Vic has been a big trooper with my new job, but I think it's harder than he thought too. He doesn't enjoy being on his own with the kids all day on the weekends.

It's been fun to work again. I like having co-workers, they are all really nice and helpful. And it's nice to contribute monitarily to the family. I also enjoy meeting new people every day. I've had some interesting clients. My office is in downtown Auburn, so we get all kinds there. Yesterday I had a couple of men come in, who turned out to be partners. One was deaf and the other was hard of hearing. They looked like they hadn't showered in a few weeks and smelled horrible. But they turned out to be very nice and grateful for the help I gave them. I'm realizing how quickly I judge people, and how different people are. Most of my clients are very nice, I've only had one get mad at me so far. He yelled at me over the phone, which I was sooo grateful he wasn't in the office at the time.

So it's been a good experience for me. If I survive this season, I will probably go back again next year, but not work so many hours.

Thanks for missing me, but I probably won't post very often until after April.