March 10 = Photo Evidence Day

I excitedly announced Malia's new skill but at the time didn't have any photographic evidence- here we go!

Also- we have been thinking about moving recently.  Anytime the temperature goes below a certain degree marker, the heat goes out.  That's right- when we need it most, it goes out.  Our neighbors who lived here last winter said the same thing happened last winter so it'll happen again.  Also, we've been having trouble with the outlets in our kitchen.  When we first moved here and tried to use our toaster, it didn't work.  Figuring it broke on the trip up, we threw it away and got a new one.  Well the new one didn't work either.  Common denominator = outlets.  So we avoided using that outlet.  Then Zachary started charging his phone in the kitchen because that was the most convenient spot for him. A couple weeks later, his phone started going crazy.  It would randomly shut down- things that I have had phones do in the past but we're starting to think it was the outlet.  The next victim was my baby food maker.  And then a roast.  I put a roast on and made sure it was warming up before I left- I came home and it had stopped working.  So people came out and revealed there were loose wires behind the outlet plates.  Loose wires?  That makes me nervous.  Also parking is a nightmare here.  Especially with two small ones.  When we were looking for places to live up here, I wrote down all the possibilities and their numbers- I called each one and asked what the parking situation was.  First of all- I do not parallel park.  I will park half a mile away and walk but I'm not going to try to fit my car in between two other cars.  I am not okay with parking half a mile away and walking to my house every time I come home so I needed a place with a parking lot or garages.  The people at the place we chose said there was a garage in the back that you could park one car in and then space behind the garage for another car.  That sounded great but I was pregnant and aware that Liam and soon to be Malia would have some grandparents very eager to come visit them so visitor parking was important to me too.  They said there was parallel parking in the front that was first come first serve.  A couple months after we moved here, they decided to change that rule- now only one resident per apartment can park in the circle- no visitors.  Where are visitors supposed to park you may ask- well I never got an answer for that.  I'm curious what families with a driving teenager do.  But anyway- they do not enforce this rule so I don't dwell on it too much but if they did start enforcing it, that would be bad news for us.  Zachary has wanted to move for months- since the heat started going out- but we got space heaters and I thought we could tough it out but what finally drew me to the dark side was I saw two kids walking around with guns.  I'm assuming these are toy guns but they don't look like it.  Zachary followed one of them one time and discovered they are pellet guns that look very realistic and that there was a group of five of them that gather right behind our apartment and shoot each other!  We are guessing these might be the people that keyed our car- from the front to the back.  After I saw that- I said, if you want to move, you've got a short window that I'm willing to consider it so get to work.  Well tonight we looked at two townhouses- I'm pretty sure we're going to move into the first one we saw.  This one has a garage and space behind the garage and it's connected to the townhouse- you don't have to walk through a creepy dungeon-like space with narrow and dangerous stairs to get inside.  And their heat works!  And we saw girls walking their dogs instead of boys shooting each other.  And there are three floors.  So gone are the days of Liam dragging his easel, his car, other large toys, from one side of the house to the other.  There's a play room downstairs that we are going to make completely baby/toddler friendly and that's where all of their toys will be.  Their rooms will be for sleeping which I hope will encourage better sleeping habits for Liam.  I think I will be really happy about this decision once we've moved in and especially this winter when we have heat.