picture update

well...i confess that i've been having a love affair with facebook. that is why i have not posted in a few months. i don't really know how to catch up so i think i'll let my pictures speak for themselves. i will say this though, that arianna is growing so much! she has been practicing her walking for a month or so now and is getting it down pretty good. she will be 1 year old in a few weeks! i am hoping to have a party on sunday, 16 march. so if anyone wants to come, leave me a post. it will be mid afternoonish.

here are the pictures...

christmas with family in NJ

4 generations picture (my grandma, my mom, me and ari)

Siegrist family picture (we spent 3 wks. in IN)

Ari liked the ribbons and bows more than her presents

cousin Jeffery (he is 6 wks. older than Ari) and Ari with Dave

cute cousins

Ari cheesin' it

Ari and her uncle Jon (Dave's brother)

we spent a week with our good friends Joe and Ash Wittmer

Ari banging on the dog's dish at the Wittmer's

Dave in all his glory with Guitar Hero

we went to the Field Museum in Chicago and saw lots of cool dead animals

when we finally got home, Ari came down with a 105 fever. we found out she had RSV and i think she also had Roseola. she and I were sick for 2 weeks.

I found Ari asleep in her swing with her pacifier stuck to the side of her face. I have no idea how that happened!

she plays in the big tub now and loves her christmas gift from Uncle Sam, Aunt Ashley, Emma Claire and Josiah

her hair is long enough now to put in pigtails!

we gave Ari her first doll

she loves it!

THE END

december news

Arianna at 8 1/2 months old

i have a confession to make. i have been having a love affair with facebook. i have discovered that this social network is just what i needed. being a stay-at-home mom is wonderful, but it has it's downsides. lack of adult/friend interaction. and thus, my growing affection for facebook. to all of you who faithfully check my blog, i am deeply sorry for the lack of updates. so, i will make amends by telling you what has been going on in our lives.

from the above picture, you can see how much arianna has grown. she is just about 9 months old and is such a joy! here is a quick list of things she does now:

• pulls herself up to standing
• walks while holding onto the coffee table, couch, etc.
• holds on with 1 hand while standing and bends down to get something off the floor
• lets go while standing and can free stand for several seconds
• babbles all the time
• can say da-da and woo-woo
• sometimes it sounds like she says woo-daddy!
• crawls on hands and knees instead of the army crawl
• eats cheerios
• watches baby einstein and other pixar movies
• sleeps about 10 hrs. or more!
• is VERY determined to get what she wants!
• learning to understand what no means

so that's about all i can think of now. we are pretty sure she will be walking before she is a year old. i can't believe how fast she has been learning new things. it's so neat to see her learn and grow. dave was officially laid off from the country club at the end of november. since golf is a seasonal sport, dave has 3-4 months off during the winter. the first year, he didn't file for unemployment compensation b/c he didn't feel right about it. instead he looked for a job. however, we learned the hard way that trying to find a job that pays enough to meet our needs that he will only be at for 3 months is not the wisest thing to do. he couldn't find a job for a month or so and even then, it was only $8/hr. so, last year he went on unemployment. we realized that that is one of the reasons the system is for, seasonal jobs that you are going back to. he got a percentage of his salary and was able to make about $100/week on top of that. so he went back as a server at the texas roadhouse. it worked out very well for us, and last year we were able to take a winter vacation for about 3 weeks in IN visiting friends and family. this year, we decided to do the same thing. dave has reworked our budget so we will be able to afford what we need and we will be taking another vacation in a few weeks. we are so excited and thankful for the time off. ari has just loved every minute of her daddy being home! and i have been so blessed to have a husband who willingly helps out around the house (he has taken over washing the dishes!!!!!) and with ari. i have finally been able to have a break and be able to do more things that i love. speaking of things i love...my newest hobby this year has been crocheting. i just fell in love with it! i learned how to knit as well and like it, but not as much as crocheting. there is something so domestic and satisfying in making something for my baby to wear. i will have to post pictures of the booties, sweaters and hats i have made her. so i have been keeping my sanity with that. and facebook :) my 2 favorite things.

that is about all i can think of to say now. i have things to get done now, so i will do my best to update more often! merry christmas!

7 months

7 months ago arianna beth was born. we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl, and i had had an uneventful pregnancy. the morning after ari was born, we found out that she had a significant heart murmer and the drs. wanted to take some tests. they said it would probably be nothing and that she would grow out of it. they were wrong. they came back and said that she had such a severe heart defect that she needed open heart surgery within the week in order to save her life. if they didn't, her lungs would fill up with fluid and she would die. they were taking her to a hospital an hour and a half away and they were leaving within an hour. we were stunned. nothing could have prepared us for the hardest journey of our lives.

when arianna was 5 days old, she underwent major open heart surgery to repair her heart. she had hemitruncus. her right pulmonary artery was coming off of her aorta instead of her main pulmonary artery. it is such a rare defect that few surgeons ever get to operate on one in their lifetime. ari's surgeon had done one other surgery that was exactly the same thing. he knew precisely what to do and was very confident in the outcome. we sensed that God had led us to this particular surgeon. they would have to use some cadaver tissue to rebuild the artery walls. someone had to die for arianna.

the surgery lasted for hours. it was not as hard as we thought. we had counted 13 churches that we knew of that were praying for us. and we felt it. in our lowest moments, when we could not make it through another day, we felt our spirits lifted the next morning and knew we were being lifted up. this was how the body of Christ was supposed to work. when the surgeon came out and told us it went as well as he expected, we were relieved and thrilled. but ari still had to recover and start eating again. they hadn't fed her for a week. i had been pumping every three hours during that time. i feared that the stress would overtake my body and my milk would dry up. my friends prayed that i would be able to nurse ari. i kept pumping, and when ari was able to start eating from a bottle, i had stored enough for her. when she finally was able to come home, she started nursing. my milk did not dry up, even when the odds were stacked up against me. the Lord preserved my body.

ari left the hospital 3 weeks after she was admitted, on Good Friday. she was on several medicines that she had to take several times a day to keep her heart working the right way. we had restrictions on how we had to hold her and were told how to check her heartbeat with a stethoscope before we gave her the medicines. she was on a supplemental calcium because her calcium levels were too high. eventually they figured out it was from the blood transfusion that she had. they said we could rub vitamin e oil on her scar to minimize it as much as possible. it runs right down the center of her chest, and we wonder if she will be embarrassed about it as she grows up.

7 months later, we went to her cardiologist appointment. he did an echo-cardiogram and told us that her heart looked excellent. that it was better than expected and it was growing with her body. he told us that she doesn't need any medicines anymore and that we didn't need to come back for another 6 months. she has no restrictions because of her heart since it is fully healed. we also found out her calcium is back to normal and we don't need anymore medicine for that either. her scar has healed up better than we had hoped. she is still nursing and is growing exactly the way she should be.

our little baby girl is a miracle. and we are SO thankful to the body of Christ for prayer and love. it is hard to believe that such a rare problem could be fixed so easily and now, only 7 months later, she is as good as new. i wanted to share this with you because it has been so evident to us that God has chosen to afflict and heal. and because of that we can rejoice and be a testimony of God's deliverence.

here are some new pictures of arianna. she is 6 1/2 months already! i love this green dress on her! dave was singing to her to get her to smile for me. she is very photogenic!

glimpses of this week

dave's brother, jon, came to visit us this past week. he lives in columbia city, IN. he flew in last saturday and stayed until wednesday. it was a fun time! dave was able to take some much needed days off of work and relaxed with jon. ari has been eating solid food for about a month now and really likes it! we gave her carrots this week and she made a mess of it, but ate them up! so far she likes her veggies more than her fruits. strange kid...but i'm thankful! enjoy the pictures of our week.

ari eating her carrots

ari chewing on her foot

ari and uncle jon

ari looking adorable

unknown flowers i picked from our yard

our family

ari and daddy

ari and daddy 2

ari and daddy 3

uncle jon making monkey faces at ari

ari and uncle jon

Country Club of Scranton

today, ari and i had the opportunity to go visit dave at work. as the title says, he works at the country club of scranton. a club where old, rich, cranky people go to waste away their days (david's take on his job).

he was very happy to have the welcome break to see us. we took ari out on one of the greens to get her picture in the grass (or lack of it!). the grass on the green is so short it's like sandpaper. soft sandpaper. it's the weirdest grass i've ever been on. ari was trying to grab it but she couldn't because there's nothing to grab! it was cute. anyway, here are the pictures from the day.

Chocolate Party!!!

friday night was a much needed break from life. my friend janet hosted a chocolate party at her house. her 2 older sisters, julie and joanna, came and they each brought a friend, kim and jen. then there was me and ari, and our other friend from church, jenean. we were going to watch Chocolat and have lots of chocolate desserts. but first, we had a swap. we all brought items from our house that we no longer wanted and we drew numbers and took turns taking whatever we wanted. i got a few 'new' shirts and some jewelry. it was a great idea! we ended up not watching the movie because we all decided it would be more fun to play a game. so we gathered out on the screened in porch (where it was cooler) and played a fun game of Imaginif. julie won. it was a good game since most of us didn't know everyone else very well. we laughed alot! i am so glad for girl friends! ari doesn't really count as girl time. so it was very refreshing to be around fun-loving girls! i leave with some pictures. of course, i forgot to take a picture of the dessert table. kim brought a chocolate fountain. yum!! sorry i can't make you jealous. you'll have to imagine the river of liquid chocolate cascading down the tower into a pool of warm goodness.

joanna holding ari. jo was the one who took all the pictures of ari when she was born and when she was at the hospital. if you click on the link 'my pictures', you'll go to my photobucket where you can view them.

julie hiding behind her cards, trying not to give away any answers.

kim holding ari

ari asleep, holding a strand of pearls

jenean holding a sleeping ari

Sunday night

it is sunday night...or rather monday morning. 1 a.m. and i am still awake. i'm starting to get tired, but not enough to fall asleep. so i thought i'd give an update on ari. she is sleeping in her big crib now! this is the second night there which translates into the second night since she's been home that dave and i have had the bedroom to ourselves again. she has been sleeping in a little crib, the size of a bassinet, in our room. this has been very convenient for me, since she wakes up around 5 or 6 a.m. to eat. but, she is starting to outgrow it, and i have started to teach her to be able to fall asleep on her own. without me nursing her or rocking her. it is hard. i am not a fan of the "cry it out method" of putting babies to sleep. i just don't see the benefit it has on the child. she needs comfort and soothing reassurance that mom and dad are here and she really IS ok. but she does cry and it is difficult for me listening to her. i tried it for the first time on friday afternoon for her nap. she cried on and off (in between playing with her feet, which let me know she was ok, just not happy about it) for about 2 hours. i was home alone with her and had to call dave because it was so hard for me not to pick her up, which would totally defeat the purpose. so i distracted myself by cleaning things that hadn't been cleaned in several months. and guess what? she fell asleep and stayed asleep for a few hours. so for the last 2 nights, i have been putting her to bed and letting her cry, going in every few minutes to rub her back, sing to her and fix the blankets. after a while, she's out. i am amazed. i now have ALOT more free time. i had been holding her for hours when she had a hard time sleeping and consequently stayed up very late at night. i love holding her, don't get me wrong. but she's getting heavier (almost 13 lbs.) and my arms get tired. and i knew the time would come when she would need to learn to sleep on her own. i decided i'd rather deal with the crying now, than when she got older and probably harder to handle. so my life is changing a little with that. for 5 months, every time she went to sleep, i have held her. so this is a very new experience for me, and i'm not used to it yet. i think i like it. it's just hard on my emotions hearing her cry and seeing her eyes look at me, tears running down her cheeks and a look that is so pitiful, begging me to hold her and comfort her. i am so attached to her. it's amazing how much you can love your own child. i never knew how much in love i'd be with her. i'm smitten. she's MY little girl. it's so so hard to know i'm hurting her feelings by not comforting her the way she wants to be. i had to have dave reassure me (even though i knew the truth) that she would not remember that i didn't hold her and didn't comfort her how she wanted. of course she won't remember. but the way she cries and the way she looks at me, you'd wonder how she could forget!

anyway, i thought i'd post a few pictures from tonight to end my post. enjoy!

dave and ari watching stupidvideos.com

ari asleep in her big crib tonight

dave asleep as i write this post.

videos

ok, so i posted some videos using blogger's new video bar. they are on the right sidebar, you just have to scroll down a little. click on one and then scroll back up to the top where it will play. sorry about the repeats. blogger automatically puts 4 on at a time, and i couldn't switch them out. anyway, enjoy! leave me comments and let me know how you like them!

ok. so i'm getting requests for new pictures and updates, and i have to admit, it is about time. right now, ari is sleeping in her swing and dave is napping on the couch. i am sick with a bad cold and feel pretty miserable. i'm trying my best to keep ari from getting it, so i'm sanitizing my hands with purell every time i blow my nose, which is like every 5 min. dave never gets sick, so i doubt this will faze him. he has tomorrow off and i am very thankful. every tuesday since may he has worked open to close, which translates into 6 am-9pm. there is a weekly tournament and he usually has to be there. but not very many people are playing tomorrow so he decided to have that day as his day off (since he makes the schedule, it's pretty easy to work these things out). i am so glad that he will be home to help me with ari. she was good today and took a 3 hr. nap with me before dave came home. so here are some pictures from a few weeks ago. my best friend and her hubby came out for TLC at BBC with some kids from their youth group. they live near chicago and we only get to see them a few times a year, if that. ash took all this pics, except for the one where she's holding ari. i took that one. we were at perkins having a late night snack. i miss you ash!



ash holding arianna



ari discovering grass for the first time



playing in the grass



laying in the hammock and holding her up

classic ari look. she's always fussing!

dave holding ari in the hammock

joe and ash in our living room

me and ash. yea for best friends!