PaPa, Can I drive your tractor next?

What do you dream of?

Here's a dream question for you. When you have a dream about living in a house, is it the house you are currently living in? I have found that in almost every dream that I can remember that takes place in a house, I am always living in the old house where I grew up. Even though I haven't lived there for 14-15 years, I'm always back in that old house.
So I am curious if that's just me or if other people experience that as well.

The swap

Over the weekend we swapped out our nice appliances with the older ones that came with our new home. We didn't want to go through the headache of trying to sell this house without appliances because any buyer we had was going to want to try and keep them. I don't blame them, they are nice appliances. So on Sunday afternoon with the help of Mike and Pastor Matt, Dan traded the fridge and stove. The job was long and tedious. The doors off both refrigerators had to come off in order to get them in, and out, of each house. And once in place the door had to go back on. So after 4 long hours, the job was done. However, for me, the job was just beginning. Since we are now having to use these older appliances, they had to be cleaned. Let me just tell you, they were DISGUSTING! I am guessing they are both about 7-8 years old since that is how old the house is. I honestly do not think that either appliance had ever been cleaned. I was cleaning out dust bunnies from the inside of the fridge. Yes, INSIDE! I wanted to vomit-it was that bad.
It's one thing to clean your own dirt and grime, but when it's someone elses, it's down right gross!
Once I got done with the fridge I had to tackle the oven. The bottom was mostly black from all the baked on food and dirt. I cleaned the outside and then sprayed EasyOff and let it sit about 12 hours. I finally got it as clean as it's going to get.
I just hope our house sells soon...

Getting close

Today was our final walk-through of our new house. We officially close on it on Wednesday. The garage doors and openers still do not work properly so our realtor said she'd contact the appropriate people and try and get this straightened out. This was supposed to be corrected before we close.

I am starting to get excited but at the same time I am overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. The entire house is filthy and will need a good scrubbing. We also want to paint the laundry room, Lucy's room and the entire downstairs before we move. The other rooms will have to wait till after we move in. Dan also needs to get the basement ready so he can move his business down there. Then there's the packing and the actual moving. And doing this all with a 6 month old who will not sleep anywhere but her crib is going to make it hard for me to get much done. Calling all babysitters!!!! Any vounteers???

On Demand

For those of you who don't have Comcast or Insight digital cable, you may not be familiar with the ON DEMAND button. It's a great little feature that lets you access extra programming like movies and kids programs. My favorite section is called The Free Spot. Just like the title suggests, everything in this section is available to watch free of charge. Now, within this section, there are many, many different channels to choose from.

One of Dan's favorite channels on The Free Spot is G4. He loves to watch this crazy Japanese show. It is funny and I will watch it with him without complaining, but I am glad we don't have this channel on our regular lineup.

I recently discoverd a channel called Tube Time. It's a selection of about 10 old TV shows. Currently you can choose from Fantasy Island, Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, Party of Five, Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, One Day at a Time, and... the rest I can't think of right now. My favorites are Facts of Life and Silver Spoons. The other night I watched an episode of Silver Spoons and it made me realize just how bad the acting was and how even more horrible the clothing and fashion was! YIKES! I was laughing so hard because this was the episode where Ricky promises that he will have Menuedo sing at his party. I remember the Menuedo days and how I really liked them at the time. I was 7 or 8 years old, I didn't know any better!
Check out the outfits! Classy!

He's so much better looking now! So cute!

follow-up to my last post

I have been thinking alot during the last 24 hours about this whole house selling business. The more I think about it, the more irritated I get.
Yesterday we had a lady make an offer but it was extremely low and she was asking for our washer/dryer, our extra fridge in the basement, our kitchen appliances, and all window treatments, and a few other things that would naturally come with the house. Call me selfish, but I want to keep my things. I realize people negotiate other things when buying homes, but I don't know why it's expected that we should just be willing to give away our belongings that we worked so hard to buy. I would hate to lose a potential buyer over the curtains in my living room, but darn it, it took me forever to find ones that I liked and JCP doesn't sell them anymore. So it's not like I could go buy new ones.
So buy my house, not my things!

new perspective

Good news: we got an offer on our house. Bad news: it's a lowball offer.

Dan and I have now had experience in purchasing 2 homes, but this is our first experience at selling. I understand how the game works, both parties go back and forth till a price is agreed upon. It kind of reminds me of a mating dance or something from a show on the Nature Channel. I feel like we "dance" back and forth and ruffle our feathers in this whole real estate game.

I am also shocked by what people ask for when they put in an offer. Not only did this girl put in a very low offer. She's also asking for some of our belongings; Some of our very expensive belongings. That is totally crazy to me. If she wants our stuff, then she needs to put in a better offer!

oops

On Monday afternoon, I took Lucy for a drive out to my parents. She wasn't wanting to nap and I thought a drive would at least get her a little bit of sleep. I left and Dan was working down in the basement on decals. After I got home, Dan had some news to tell me. Apparently, about 30 minutes after I left Dan heard the door open upstairs and heard footsteps and voices. At first he thought I was back home, but then her heard mulitple voices. Not sure what was going on, He came upstairs just in time to find a realtor with clients walking through our kitchen. Thank goodness Dan was home and caught them. I was not expecting anyone that day and therefore Lucy's toys were all over the living room floor, her exersaucer and swing were out in the middle of the room, my bed wasn't made and there was stuff on the table and counters. The house wasn't a total disaster, but it sure wasn't presentable for a showing. The realtor even asked Dan if they could go ahead a look around since they were already there. Dan told her that the house wasn't picked up and they'd have to come back.
Our realtor called to apologize after realizing what had happened. She said there had been some miscommunication between them. These people were looking at a few houses that day and thought that our house was open to see. OOPS

6 month update

Today was Lucy's 6 month appointment. Once again, she cried when they weighed her and when they took her temp. She's healthy and right on target for what she should be doing at her age.

She weighs a hefty 22 pounds and is 28 inches long. She also got a few more shots today and she really didn't like that. We got the go ahead to start solids. I need to go to the store and buy a few things. I think I am going to try making some of her food and freezing it. I found a great website with lots of information. If you're interested it's wholesomebabyfood.com.

current obsession

I have recently become aware that I have little restraint when it comes to buying hair accessories for Lucy. There is a great website called etsy.com and it's a site for all things handmade. It's a great site cause it allows crafters a place to sell their products. You can buy jewelry, purses, clothing, baby items, and thousands of other handmade items. I'm addicted, plain and simple.
I love to go on and browse the baby headbands and hair clips. You would never find stuff this cute at the mall or Target. Here's a picture of the latest headband I bought. I love it because the clips are interchangeable. I just bought her a few more flower clips yesterday. I can't wait to get them in the mail.

6 months

Today Lucy is 6 months old. It's hard to believe she's 1/2 a year old already. December will be before I am ready.

Here is her 6 month picture. The outfit hasn't gotten too tight yet, maybe we'll make it another month or 2.

Her doctor's appt is next Monday, so we'll find out then her official height and weight.

cover girl

Baby feet

About a week before Mother's Day Dan asks about what I would like as a gift. What I really wanted was for him to come up with a creative gift all on his own. Dan has a sensitive, romantic side and has wowed me with surprises in the past. But, with all that was going on this year, he needed a little help. I didn't get this on Mother's Day because it was a last minute request and he had to make time to do it, and then we all got sick, but here it is. My Mother's Day gift. I LOVE it and I LOVE my husband for doing it. Thanks Honey!



Dan says he still needs to do a bit of tweeking on it. And he hasn't signed or titled it just yet.

For Sale

Our home is officially on the market. As is turns out there are 2 other houses on our street for sale. One of them is right next door. We had a last minute realtor walk-thru on Thursday morning and I was here while they did it. Homeowners are not usually present for these things, but because it was last minute and I had Lucy, I got to stay. It was interesting to hear what people had to say. All the comments were good and I heard a few say that our house is the nicest they've seen for sale on this end of town. That's encouraging. We love our home and all the improvements we've done to it, but to have that affirmed by 15-20 realtors is a good feeling.

If you want to see our listing you can go to brinkoetter.com. Click on the detailed property search and put in Cobb. You should get our listing -246 Cobb - and our neighbors-256.

If I were more computer savy, I'd put a direct link in here, but I don't know how to do that.

Anyone want to buy a house?

Teeth!

About a week ago I noticed that Lucy had a tooth poking through on the bottom. I checked in her mouth today to assess the progress and surprise! there was another tooth. So now she has 2 little teeth coming in on the bottom. She hasn't acted like they've bothered her too bad. Thank goodness!

I took some pictures this morning. I loved the new outfit I put on her so I had to take her picture. Here are a few of my favorites


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She loves to look at herself in the mirror. I read that they won't recognize themselves till about 7-8 months of age, but she gets a kick out of something.

Channeling Davey Milligan

This post will not make any sense to you if you did not grow up in Mt. Auburn. For my fellow MTA friends reading this, I think you'll get a laugh.

This week Lucy has been "talking" much more. She makes all kinds of sounds and noises. Tonight she made me laugh when every so often the sounds "woo-woo" would come out of her mouth. All I could think of was good old Davey.

What a week!

This has been a rough week in the Niebrugge household. I am glad things are slowly returning to normal.

It all started last Thursday when I noticed that Lucy was coughing/choking while she was sleeping. It scared me to death. She'd cough and then it would sound like she was gasping for air. I checked on her every time and she seemed to be fine, but I called the doctor and made an appt. for the next day. So Friday I took her to see Dr. Newcome and I am glad I did. As it turned out, the doctor thought it sounded like she was starting to get the croup. The doctor gave a Rx for Lucy and she warned me that this medicine tasted especially awful. She suggested putting it in her bottle if we couldn't get her to take it straight. So I dropped off the Rx at Walgreens and asked to have it flavored, hoping that would help, and later that evening we began the task of getting Lucy to swallow the awful tasting medicine. This turned out to be a bigger trick than I bargined for. We had a syringe (did I spell that right?) that came with her medicine so we tried the tactic of squirting it in her mouth. Poor thing, she kept shuddering as she swallowed some of it. Most of it came rolling right back out her mouth. We decided that the next day we'd try putting it in her bottle. That didn't work either, she took a few drinks and realized that it tasted bad and then refused to take anymore. So we went back to trying to squirt it in her mouth. We just weren't having any luck. She'd get some down, but most would come running out the side. On Monday I called the doctor back because I knew Lucy wasn't getting a full dose and I didn't know what else to try. They decided to redose the medicine, which meant that we had to start all over again! UGH. I aslo asked if we could divide the dose - I thought maybe that might work- 3/4 of a tsp at one time was too much.

So what finally worked? We divided the dose into 1/4 tsp and gave it 3 times. I also mixed up some sugar water to squirt in her mouth after to help her swallow and get rid of the horrible medicine taste. She seemed to be ok with taking it that way and did much better with it after that.

I also got sick on Tuesday with what I think must have been a cold. But, it was the WORST cold I have ever had in my life. By Wed, I was worthless. Thank goodness Dan works from home on Wed, because he had to watch Lucy and take care of her most the day. My eyes watered so bad I looked like I was crying, my nose was running so bad that I couldn't do anything because I was blowing every 10 seconds and I also had a fever. At 3pm I crawled in bed and stayed there the rest of the night.

I am happy to say that as of today, we are feeling almost back to normal. Dan caught the cold as well, but it hasn't knocked him out yet.

And in the midst of all this sickness there was Mother's Day. It was a pretty good day. We went to church and then headed to Springfield to go to Babies R Us, and then went to my sister's house that evening to spend time with the family. The evening ended abruptly when Griffin my 4 year old nephew got his hands caught in the treadmill while it was running. My sister has a nice finished basement and the kids were playing down there in the playroom while the adults were upstairs finishing their meal. We don't know exactly what happened but one of them got the key to the treadmill and turned it on and poor Griffin was caught. When we realized what was happening, all panic broke loose and people went flying thought the house to get downstairs. Luckily, Griffin still had all his fingers intact. He did have some pretty bad tread burns and he lost some skin from his fingers. Praise God is all I can say!

Whew! I could write more, but I'll save the rest for another post.

I am so thankful for Lucy

A few months back I was doing my usual online surfing. I frequent a few different baby message boards and chat with other moms who have babies around the same age as Lucy. It's a way for me to connect with other moms and talk about what our babies are doing. Well it was on one of these boards that I came across this story. I don't know these people, but when I read their story I was overwhelmed with sadness. Being a new mom, their story is especially hard. I have bookmarked their blog and I continue to read and pray for them as they are trying to move forward. I won't go into details, you can read the blog if you like. I would just like to ask you all to pray for them as well. They are going through a loss that I never, ever want to know. Grab a tissue before you read.

go to: richandjenn.blogspot.com

Chub

Before I had Lucy I was excited to register for one of these Bumbo Sitters. They are a foam seat that helps babies sit unassisted. I thought it was a great concept and was so thanful when my cousins Angie and Jennifer bought this for us. When Lucy was around 3 months I tried her in the seat and she did pretty well, but after a few minutes she cried and wanted out. Since then I have been getting it out every few weeks and trying her in it again. This morning I decided to pull it back out of the closet and try her in it again. She did pretty well and seemed to like it better than the previous attempts. I didn't leave her in very long so I'm not sure how she'd do for an extended time period. It was really funny when I went to take her out and the chair stuck to her butt. She's so chubby that I had to have Dan pull the seat off her. Her legs are so chubby that they are really stuck in there good. Maybe that's why she has never been too fond of this seat. Her chubbiness makes it uncomfortable??? Not sure, but she does look cute sitting in it. *sigh* she looks like such a big girl.

5 months old!

Today Lucy is 5 months old. It's hard to believe how fast the time is going. She is so much fun at this age. She's a happy girl and smiles all the time.

I weighed her today and she's 19 pounds and some change. I wish I had a better scale so I knew how close to 20lbs she is.

She started rolling over a few days ago. I really thought it would take her a bit longer, but once she started rolling on her side, she quickly figured out how to go all the way over. Now we just need to work on getting her to roll from her tummy to her back.



Here is her 5 month picture.

Her hair cracks me up. It's growing in and sticking straight up on top.

There are more pics on my dropshots page. Check them out.