Sad to Leave but Happy to Move!

I am just so excited to announce that we are moving next week! We have been in living in a studio since we got married...well actually I have been living here since a month before we got married; 17 months! We are moving to the intern house where we were both interns. I am so very excited to be close to lots of people again and especially close to some of our best friends! We have been trying to figure out if and where to move to for such a long time so to finally be at this point is super exciting.

When we first found our studio we were so excited! We were just engaged and didn't have much time to find a place. I looked online everyday for something we could afford and close to our community when one day I found it! For $450 a month we were so shocked and it was within waking distance of the neighborhood where most people in our community lived! We called right away and came to look at it.

The lady from the property management group looked at us like we were crazy for wanting to look at such a tiny place. She talked to us like we were going to laugh at the thought of moving in once we actually got to see it. Then she didn't know how to react when I said I loved it!!! And I did. It was perfect to begin our new life as a new couple and eventually family, although we weren't expecting to start so soon. We were so excited about it we didn't even notice the broken screen door or the kitchen faucet that has the tiniest amount of hot water flowing from it. It had character...sort of. So we moved our stuff in and I moved in the month before the wedding.

First Arbuagh Kiss!

I enjoyed making the space ours and preparing it for Chris once he became my husband. There wasn't too much to prepare but I loved laying in bed at night picturing what my near future would like like after we said "I do". A few weeks later on June 11 we came to OUR little haven and became husband and wife then went out to eat India Oven : ) . We soon left for our honeymoon and returned with an extra person unknowingly hiding in my womb.

BFP!!!

I started feeling different and suspected I might be pregnant. Anxiously I waited to take a test and took a few way too soon! Then finally the first day my period should have started the test was positive! I couldn't believe it! Just 2 weeks into our marriage we found out I was pregnant! We began taking weekly belly photos almost immediately...and then forgot after a while.

First Weekly Pregnancy Picture

I remember the air conditioner broke towards the end of my first trimester. Yuck! It took the a whole week to finally replace it. And a week to a nauseous pregnant woman is a long time! Then winter came and my belly grew. I loved when I could start feeling her move inside of me! I spent so much time sitting on our only chair staring at my belly waiting for her to move. We rearranged our furniture and set up the co-sleeper before I was even 20 weeks! My excuse was so that we could get used to the new layout by the time she came but really I just wanted to daydream about when she would be laying in that bed next to me!

Last Pregnancy Shot at home at about 5 months

Winter began to fade and my pregnancy was coming to an end when I got the worst pregnancy rash called PUPPP. Ugh it was horrific. I was already past my due date and all of a sudden this incredibly itchy rash spread over my entire body and was constantly itchy! Scratching became my drug of choice. During the day we tried everything we could think of to get my labor started and to distract me from the itch but at night I would wake to find myself scratching like a madwoman! Chris would hear me and get me out of bed to throw me into the cold shower. Terrible! We would sit there for so long with the freezing water pouring over my body while I sobbed begging God to make it go away. I think that was just as hard as labor!

Sorry its blurry; first time to inspect my daughter

Finally 2 weeks after my due date labor began! I spent my labor walking around our small home back and forth from the bathroom to the kitchen into the main room and then all over again. I was in the bathtub when I broke down and cried to Chris telling him how hard this was. And after 18 hours of labor my beautiful daughter was born on our bed in our tiny home into the hands of my amazing midwife. I will always remember that corner of my bed right next to the door to the bathroom where I met my daughter for the very first time.

First Potty

This is our first home as a family and where many of my daughter's "firsts" have occurred!
Like her first time to get dressed, first laugh, first cry, first bath, first time to potty in the toilet, first time to roll over, first time to sit up, first time to roll off the bed, first time to have a poop explosion, first time to understand "no", first time to eat a food other than breastmilk. For her first 6 months this has been her home!

First Tantrum

So although I am very excited to be moving and to have much more space for our family there is a part of me that is sad to say goodbye to the first place we called home as the Arbaugh Family. I will cherish every single memory that I have of this tiny studio; the good and the bad. And now I am looking forward to our next home and all the memories it will bring.

6 months!

She is half a year old! I can't believe it! 

It looks like my posts have turned into monthly posts...and I am just fine with that. Now that Samantha is getting older I am finding that I don't have as much free time to blog. And like I said when I started, I would rather be spending my time living my life than writing about it. So if I can only do a post once a month that will have to do. 

She has grown so much this month mentally and physically.It is such a neat experience to see her mind trying to understand something and then a couple of days later it clicks! 

She is trying to crawl. I thought she might be crawling by now but not quite. She is getting up on all fours and doing some push up type motions. (It actually kind of looks like she is humping the ground : ) ) She tries reaching her very hardest to get something out of reach but usually ends up pushing her self backwards. However she is getting very efficient at rolling. She can roll in any direction and get where she wants to go. Since we don't have too much room in our house I try to give her time each day outside to practice her rolling/crawling.

Two days ago she started getting on her belly from sitting position! We were in church when she did it (we go to a house church) and it was in the middle of someone talking so I couldn't say anything but I almost jumped out of my seat I was so excited!! And she has done it a couple more times since then. 

She is really talking now! She especially loves to yell as loud as she can when we are in public bathrooms, and she can be so loud! A few times I have come out and Chris told me he could hear her over the busy restaurant or mall! I think she likes the sound of her voice when in echoes. So cute! 

She is still to obey to the word "no". She definitely knows what it means but sometimes she just really doesn't want to let go of some things she really likes. We have had a lot more opportunities this last month to work on training her to obey. We like the saying house proof your child don't childproof your house. So we are teaching her to not touch certain things like cords. But they look so enticing! It is so funny to watch her process the decision to play with them. She will see them within her reach and stare at them. Sometimes she will just look away and find something else to play with. Sometimes she will look and start to reach for them and remember what happens and then pull her hands away without us even saying anything. But sometimes she just wants to touch so bad and she will just go for it. Then we switch and tell her no. She cried for a few seconds then looks at them again before finding something else to play with. She is such a smart girl! Hopefully we will have moved by the time she starts crawling so that I don't have to retrain her on what she can touch and what she can't. 

My poor baby got diarrhea this month. And she still has it. It has been almost 4 weeks now! When she first got it she had a low fever and just didn't seem to be feeling well. I started researching what it could be and the 2 things it could sound like are parasites or Rotavirus. We did a parasite cleanse for a couple of weeks but nothing seemed to happen. If it is Rotavirus there isn't anything we can do since it is a virus. We have been watching her to make she she doesn't become dehydrated and she has been perfectly fine so far. They say that diarrhea from Rotavirus could last up to 6 weeks!! Poor thing! She actually doesn't seem to be affected by it at all. Other than the first week she hasn't been uncomfortable or fussy so as long as everything is going well I don't see any reason to go to the doctor. 

I did read that taking probiotics can help it to go away faster by healing up the intestines when the virus is gone. So I started giving her yogurt last week. And she loves it! She especially loves her spoon! It has been very fun giving her her first foods! Since then we have given her a tiny bite of tomato, chicken, and broccoli. And then this last weekend we went to Apple Hill and I had a pickle. Once she saw it she immediately wanted to chew on it so I let her waiting for the much awaited reaction to a pickle...and I got nothing! She LOVED it! I had a hard time getting any bites in for myself! I am not sure how much of it she consumed herself but she sucked on it until it started making her eyes water and I was at the bottom of it! She went nuts over it like it was a drug! Funny kid! Loves her pickles just like her mom! 

Due to her having diarrhea, EC hasn't been going to great as far as catching goes. It is almost like she has reverted to when she was only a newborn and would have poop farts all the time. Almost every diaper has a smidge of poop on it because she just can't hold it in. It's a bummer but practicing EC has helped her during this process. It has been helping to keep her out of her icky poop diapers. She hates sitting in a soiled diaper especially poopy so she isn't in them for very long preventing a nasty diaper rash. At first she did get a rash but I can only imagine how much worse it would be if she had to sit in it. I think we are on the tail end of the runs because the color is going back to the traditional breastfed yellow. I will be very happy to be back to normal!

This month's photo session shows the difference between the 5 month old Sam and the 6 month old Sam who wants to go go go and figure everything out. She just would not sit still and give me her million dollar smile so I just decided to go with it and take pictures of what she was doing!!

Unless I find some downtime, be back next month!