Arianna's Birthday pics

March 17 was Ari's 1 year birthday. We celebrated with a party on Sunday the 16th. Ari got alot of new clothes and toys and also an umbrella stroller and a wagon! i can't wait until the spring weather comes so we can put them to good use.


here she is cheesin' it up



making faces with Aunt Deb

this is her new favorite face

she got this bow stuck to her butt and was walking around with it, oblivious





getting ready for cake







i have no idea what this face was for!

getting her first taste of cake

she did NOT like it!

we tried to feed it to her so she would taste it

she just spit it out







one of her presents was this cream colored hooded sweater. i love it on her

just a few more pictures from the last few weeks...



Ari giving Daddy kisses



Daddy giving Ari kisses



watching t.v. together



wearing her new dress from Aunt Connie (Harris). i think it's so cute on her! it's Carter's brand, and is kind of like polo shirt material. it's short-sleeved, but i wanted her to wear it so i put a long-sleeved onesie and some tights on her.

this weekend is her 1 year old birthday party! i will be sure to post some pictures of that!

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.