Success

Just a note about Casey, he got an elk yesterday!  He went out by himself, his area is right along the Wyoming border, and saw just the one elk. He hiked for about a mile and was able to drive the truck most of the way back so he didn't have to drag it too far, there was a foot and a half of snow though.  Woohoo, of course now we have to process it....not the best Christmas activity.

10 months

Megan is 10 Months old!!!! Time goes by so fast.  She is walking like a champ and growing teeth like crazy!  She weighs in at 14 lbs 12 ozs!  Smaller than my neighbor's 6 month old :) She is a lot of fun!!

Merry Christmas

Here is our tree :) and our attempts at trying to make our own Christmas card......yea for camera timers!!

Thanksgiving Adventures

Thanksgiving this year was very eventful for our family.  We ate our feast with Casey's family in Idaho Falls.  It was so much fun to watch all the kids run around.  We played a game of "touch" football.  It was a bit of a ruff game, grandpa got knocked over, kids were being thrown into the goal posts and I rolled my ankle.... needless to say my team lost and Casey's team won.

The next day Casey got ready to go out hunting for Elk and I got ready to travel to Adrian to see my family.  Megan traveled really well and we had a great time.  Megan got all the attention she could ever wish for and I got a well deserved break from 100% mommy time :)

Casey headed out hunting with our friend Cory and it was a pretty uneventful trip until the last day.  They didn't see any animals until it was dark and they were just coming up to their camp for the night.  All of a sudden there were Elk!  Right in their own camp...... of course they were gone fast and you can't shoot them in the dark anyway.  Sunday they were packed and ready to come home but the roads were really muddy and the trailer got stuck, they had to leave it in order to keep going, but that plan didn't get them too far because of a flat tire..... after that their car starting making a weird noise so they stopped and hiked to find cell phone reception.  A few miles of hiking later they decided to go back to the car and drive it to the main road, there they were able to call a tow truck.  So, after Megan and I had driven from the west border of Idaho that morning we now had to drive to the east border to pick the boys up. 

What an adventure!!!

Hunting

Casey and I spent last weekend with friends of ours, Cory and Stef.  Cory and Casey had a successful duck hunt with Cory's new puppy Brohm. (Sorry I'm not sure how to spell that.) Thanks for the great weekend guys!

Casey is out of school this week for Thanksgiving break and is planning on hunting for Elk.  Lets hope we get one! Of course I hate packing the meat but it is so nice to have meat stocked up for the rest of the year.

9 Months

Megan is now 9 months old, as of this past weekend.  She is busy, busy, busy, always going and moving.  She's been crawling now for a few months and is trying so hard to walk, and yes she has two teeth! She loves to clap, wave and dance. It is so fun to watch her grow and learn new things everyday. I'm so grateful that I am able to work from home so that I can be with her. Yea for moms!

The Holiday Spirit

You have probably seen this in previous years but I just found it in my e-mail and thought I would share it again.  (You'll have to copy and paste it in your browser)

http://www.eastvalleyproductions.com/blog.cfm?postID=31

Oh to live in my own house.....

The woes of living in old, campus housing........

1. It's an arm workout just to turn on the kitchen faucet

2. The wind blows through the windows like they're not even there

3. The shower pipes make a hideous screaming noise

4. The carpet is multi-faceted with stains

5. With the thermostat up to 90 we can get the temperature up to 70! 

6. We have awesome retro plastic base boards, and they're brown

7. The water turns from ice cold to blazing hot in just over 5 minutes

8. And best of all there is no dishwasher

I'm not usually a complainer but I am really ready to get out of an apartment and into a home, only a year and a half left!  Woohoo! 

Real Salt Lake Soccer

Saturday Casey, Megan and I went to the Real Salt Lake soccer game, it was in their new Rio Tinto stadium. It was a great game, they played the Chivas from LA in their first ever playoff game. RSL scored the only goal in the 90th minute, very exciting. Megan loved all the noise. We got to the game late and so we bought our tickets from a scalper (sp?), with the money we saved we decided to buy some souvenirs. GO REAL!!

Halloween!

Here is Megan as a bunny, we went to the ward trunk-or-treat it was so much fun to see all the kids costumes. Other than that it was a pretty quiet night.

Catch Up

Well I thought I should post some recent activity about our family.  

Casey is 2 months into the PA program at ISU and it is a lot of work.  So much memorizing.  He's excited for the book work to end and the hands on stuff to begin.  

I am working from home with the same landscaping company I've been with for three years now.  It works out pretty well.  

Megan is growing up so fast.  She crawls around easily and is trying so hard to walk.  We've been working on clapping and waving as well, she's a genius!  :)

I just finished sewing my first apron and it was a lot of fun.

There's a little bit about us

Carter Bradford Schanz: Reflection

Carter lived for 10 weeks.  Such a short time in our lives, and today it seems like such a long time ago.  Almost like it was another time, another life. There are so many things that I've learned and am still learning.  I am so grateful for my knowledge of the Savior and his sacrifice.  Our family will be together once again and we will be able to see Carter grow and take part in everything we missed out with him here. 

Carter Bradford Schanz: Life

Ok...so through 'lot's of prayer, fasting and priesthood blessings we decided to bring Carter home on just fluids.  We knew with this decision he would only live for a few months at the most.  We were so excited to bring him home with us.  The time we had was so amazing.  Casey and I took the semester off from school and just hung out with each other.  We had so much support from our family and friends. This trial turned into the greatest blessing of our lives. There were a few scary moments, like when Carters central line broke and we had to drive him down to Salt Lake in order to get it fixed.  We took him hunting, on a drive through Yellowstone park, traveling all through out Utah to watch Casey play soccer.  He was the perfect baby, a great sleeper and loved to be held.  We took many photographs and videos. We thank Heavenly Father everyday for the chance we had to take care of Carter and the many blessings we have received. 

Carter Bradford Schanz: Diagnosis

Casey and I went back to our room in the hospital and waited to hear from the Surgeons. Finally the call came, they wanted to talk with us in person. They told us that Carter had no small intestines, and only 1/4 of his large intestines. His intestinal track stopped right after the duodenum and then began again in the large intestine. They would be able to connect thetwo ends together so that Carter would be able to eat. This could have been caused by a few things: Mal rotation or a blood clot, but the doctors weren't sure what would cause such extensive damage. They then presented us with many different options of how to care for Carter. This would prove to be one of the hardest decisions Casey and I would have to make.
Carter would be able to eat but he wouldn't get any nutrition from it. When he came out of surgery he would be on a ventilator, and have an IV into his heart, called a Broviac. Through the Broviac he would be able to receive the nutrition he needed to survive, called TPN, but this could not be a long-term solution. Ultimately, we had to decide how and when Carter would die.

Carter Bradford Schanz: Birth

As soon as we got to the hospital in Rexburg they hooked me up to a monitor, checked my cervix and called the University of Utah Hospital to arrange a plane to come and fly us down to Utah.  I was dilated to a 3.  The plane didn't get there until 1:00 am.  They gave me some shots to slow my contractions down, that was absolutely amazing since I had been having contractions for 2 1/2 days now, and then drove Casey and I to the plane.  We finally got to the U of U around 4:00 am Friday morning, and they hooked me up to patosin, (however you spell that), to get my contractions going again.  I finally got tired of those again and asked for an epidural, it went very smoothly and Casey and I took a nap.  They woke me up around 3:30 in the afternoon and said it was time to push.  So they wheeled me into another room, I pushed for about 20 minutes and there he was.  We didn't get to hold him right away, because they took him to the nursery for a check up.  He received a 9 out of 10 for the APGAR score.  As soon as they had hooked him up to all the IVs and got him ready for surgery they wheeled him into us so that we could see him.  They had him in an incubator, with 'lots of tubes, and sucking on a pacifier.  We learned that he was 5 lbs 15 oz and 19 inches long.  Casey went with them to take him to the NICU at Primary Children's Hospital.  I was able to go see him a little later that night and hold him for the first time.  His surgery was scheduled for 9:00 the next morning, (Saturday).

Carter Bradford Schanz: Pregnancy

I thought I'd start out by discussing our first boy, Carter. 

 

We found out we were pregnant in Feb of 2006 and that my due date was in October.  When I was about 20 weeks along we got an ultrasound to find out if we were going to have a boy or girl.  We were excited to find out it was a boy, but they also saw dilated bowel.  This could be caused by many different things including, a malrotation or cystic fibrosis.  The doctors advised us to wait for another month and see if they fixed themselves.  So we went ahead and waited.  

The next month Carter's ultrasound looked the same, dilated bowel, but there were no answers to what it was or what needed to be done to fix it.  So we waited yet another month, until finally our doctors referred us to a specialist at the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City.  

By the time we were able to see him I was 33 weeks along.  The specialist was very disappointed that our doctors waited so long to refer us to him, because I was so far along it was very hard to pinpoint what was wrong with Carter and we would have to schedule an exploratory surgery for him as soon as he was born.  Our appointment was on Tuesday afternoon and we left to go back home for the first day of school on Wednesday, planning to make an appointment for me to be induced at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City.

But, Carter didn't want to wait for an appointment.  I started having contractions on our way back home and by Thursday night I was tired of them and we went to the ER in Rexburg, around 11 pm.

New to Blogging

OK, so this whole blogging thing is completely new to me, so I thought it would be fun.  Anyway, I'll be doing a lot of working and updating so have fun looking around.