What a fun second birthday party Emily had! It's fun to see her have fun, I hope she'd developing memories now that will last her lifetime.
She's such a little talker. She sings her ABCs and theme songs to PBS shows. She likes to count and asks every living critter she sees in nature if she can "pet you." Before bed, she tried to give everything in sight from the living room to her bedroom a goodnight kiss. She's a living doll.
We've recently had some break-ins at our condo. We live in a very modest townhome in Bettendorf. While our home cost us less than 100,000.00 to purchase, we are surrounded by homes in the 200,000.00 range. We assumed we picked a great neighborhood. However, some latchkey teens down the road (and although we can't prove it, we're caught them doing naughty stuff before) have come into our condo's communal hallway about 5 times (at least) since the holidays last year and taken the outgoing mail from the outbox, ripped it shreds in hopes of finding money and then left it on the lawn. We've filed reports, but until we catch them in person, the cops write down the information and move on. We're hoping to scrape up enough money and energy to list the condo and sell this coming spring.
None of our stuff has been taken or tampered with, but when your 82 year old neighbor has ALL of her Christmas cards taken and ripped to pieces (no money in any of them) and then I find them after the snow melts months later, it makes me not want to live here anymore. A problem with living in this condo is we only have a 12th of the vote, so pushing for a security system is an issue. Other's don't want to spend the money on it. Kyle and I feel the best bet would be to move where we are in charge of the locks on our doors, the security lights on our lawn and anything else we decide to do to protect ourselves. We simply need to own our house 100%. We'll see how that goes come spring. My poor neighbor didn't even know until late March that ALL of her Christmas cards never reached her recipients.
Not being a birth doula has made me think of other ways to provide worth to the community that still has something to do with families and children. I've become a FACE PAINTER! How random right? Well, I started doing it at the family museum and then some local vendor shows and now I get calls for charity events and birthday parties. It's pretty fun and easy to work around Kyle's busy work life. I'm interested to see where this little venture of mine goes.
That's all about us for now!
The Cooneys
