Birthday Camp Out

Our little Ricky turned 3 years old yesterday! Months ago he'd requested to go camping for his birthday so that's exactly what we did over Memorial Day weekend. We all had a great time. How can you not when there's a camp fire with marshmallows & hot dogs, a four wheeler with a plethora of jeep trails, a baby backpack with lots of ground to walk, a wall tent & a camper with tons of delicious food, friends & family, & an adventurous, energetic, superhero birthday boy?!

Yesterday we spent some lovely time with grandparents, Ricky got to open quite a few birthday presents, & we went to Burger King for dinner so the boys could eat ice cream & play at the playground. It turned out to be a nice day for our boy! So, a BIG thank you goes out to ALL the grandparents for their contributions in making Ricky's birthday quite grand. You are all simply wonderful!

Cedric has grown so much in the last year in many ways. His speech has improved immensely & he is getting quite tall. He loves to do EVERYTHING his brother does to a point where it rather irritates me at times. This next year Ben will be starting preschool & I think it will be really good for Ricky as well to hopefully start developing a bit more of his own interests. Ricky loves to play baseball & catch & has become quite good at riding his balance bike. He is an awesome helper to Brian & I when we do projects around the house & is a hard worker (when he's in the mood). He can be a bit fussy at times but is usually surprisingly good at controlling himself when we ask him to stop & take a deep breath. And more often than not, he's very willing to share his toys (even his new birthday presents!). One of his greatest struggles this past year has been staying seated in his chair while we eat... this boy can NOT sit still!! He's always got to be moving! We are incredibly thankful for our sweet boy. He brings so much joy & spunk into our lives!

Happy Birthday, Cedric! We thank God for you every day.

Now, before you scroll down any further, I'll warn you that there's a good possibility of your drowning in pictures!

Grandma Parker visited yesterday!

So did Grandpa & Grandma G!

The camping trip:

The whole crew.
Some friends of ours from church came, too.

"We love our Grandma!"

"Sooo big!"

Papa & his girl.

Our birthday boy

Dad Schultz was quite the chef with his dutch oven!

The boy's quarters

We were singing "Happy Birthday" to him... he was thrilled!

Ricky requested a train cake... so he got one!
The boys made sure that no details were missed.

The boys enjoyed the cake.

Mmmm... Cake & ice cream for Evie!

Opening gifts

A real super hero!

Evie had a ball crawling around in the dirt.
She didn't care one bit how cold or dirty she got!

Ben resting on the cot. He thought it was quite cozy!

Roasting hot dogs & mesmerized by the fire.

Even Evie got a ride on the four-wheeler!

"Oooh... Not quite long enough for me to pull. "

The boys loved climbing the rocks.

"Here I am!"

This girl was a mess, but boy did she have fun!

A Glorious Day

It's official. As of yesterday afternoon Evelyn is no longer in need of constant oxygen! She had a great check-up with her cardiologist in Missoula and after a thorough exam he gave us the okay to take her off the oxygen. We will be going back to see him in 3 weeks so he can confirm that her body is handling it well but I am confidant that our little peanut will pass the test! There may come times down the road when she will need it temporarily (when she gets sick) but otherwise we are free of chords and heavy tanks and noisy concentrators. So excited! And it couldn't have come at a more perfect time. Evie had really started to become annoyed with the tubes on her face & the chords were becoming much more of a hassle as she is much more mobile these days. We celebrated her victory by stopping to get ice cream on our way home which she LOVED. She was quite mad at Papa when he took it away from her!

Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

"Just get it off & get me out of here."

"Ahhhh... This is much better!"

"Mmmm... this is yummy, Papa,"

"Life is good!"

Our Birthday Girl!

This past Friday our little peanut turned 1 year old! God is so good! We set out planning a big birthday bash to celebrate this big milestone in her life & to thank God for the incredible mercy & kindness he's shown her in this first year. It was all planned out, food prepared, tables & chairs picked up and hauled home, new outdoor patio completed, gifts made, and over 40 people were planning to come when not just one but three of us (including the birthday girl) came down with some sort of flu bug. HUGE bummer! I had to call everyone on Friday and cancel the party that was supposed to be held the next day. Not only was it a major disappointment to have to cancel the party but it is no fun feeling crummy. Despite it all we still had a little bit of a celebration amongst ourselves. 

We are thankful beyond words for our sweet little Evelyn & the miracle that she is. May she continue to astound us in her strength, in her good health, & her joy. May God be glorified through the life story He has written for her. And may she continue to be blessed immeasurably.

Happy 1st Birthday sweet little Evelyn!

Major Milestone

Our little peanut has hit a major milestone this week & hasn't needed to use her feeding tube for 4 whole days! The only exception has been to give her daily medicine but all her meals have been taken orally. We are so incredibly proud of how far she's come in the last handful of months. In addition, her first little tooth has popped through on the bottom this week. It's been a wonderfully eventful week at the Schultz home!

All glory, praise, & honor be to our good & merciful God!

Big Boy Ben

Our oldest son turned 4 years old a few weeks ago & we celebrated with a birthday party in honor of him. He had his friends from church over for fun & games & all had a good time.

 

We've seen him grow and mature so much this last year and we are so proud of our bright and beautiful boy. He has learned to write his name along with most of the other letters in the alphabet and has developed a love for race cars & mazes. He's discovered video games & is easily consumed by them so has to be limited on the amount of time he's allowed to play, but he's quite good at them and is surprisingly tech savvy. Doing arts & crafts projects is a favorite activity especially when it comes to cutting things out & gluing shapes on paper. We look forward to the coming year & what it has in store for our little sponge!

In honor of Ben, I'm posting some great pictures he took all on his own the other day. I gave him complete control over the camera as I was cleaning up around the house and these are some of the things his creative mind captured! I was rather impressed & am planning to print some out to hang in his room.

Home at Last!

After 5 weeks away from home and having our family separated, we are now home and have been reunited. How sweet it's been to bring our baby girl home and to have our family together once again! The passed couple months have been a trial to say the least, but we are comforted knowing that God is sovereign, that the temperature is just right, and that this is just a snippet in his big story. We continually pray that God will use the life and trials of our sweet girl to bring glory and honor to his name.

Evelyn was a happy girl before we left the hotel to
go to the hospital. She is such a sweet baby!

Getting ready for her heart cath. procedure.

As most of you know, Evelyn had her 2nd scheduled heart surgery at Children's Hospital Colorado on October 5th. She was admitted into the hospital on Thursday the 4th for a heart catheterization procedure prior to her surgery. All went well and she had her surgery early in the morning on Friday. It took a good 5 or so hours and the surgeon said it was a technically difficult surgery because the anatomy of her heart is very unique even to their standards, she had a lot of scar tissue on her heart from the last surgery, and they had a few different repairs to make (I won't go into all of that here). During her surgery she developed complete heart block which the surgeon was very surprised by, so they put her on a temporary pace maker hoping that her heart would recover proper function once the swelling subsided. Her recovery after the surgery went very well and by Wednesday she was smiling and playing with her toys and in all reality we probably would have been getting ready to go home if she wouldn't have had the pacemaker.

Evelyn just after her heart surgery.

However, very unexpectedly on Wednesday afternoon Evie had a major "episode" that sent everyone spinning and still leaves the doctors puzzled. She had a sudden massive bleed in her chest that they still cannot explain, she had a very difficult time breathing and her oxygen saturation levels dropped very low. It was an extremely scary time that stretched over hours in which there was a team of medical staff trying to save her life and stabilize her. They called to have her placed on the ECMO machine twice but thankfully never had to use it. I thought for sure they were going to come and tell us that we had lost our baby. Once she was in a little better place, they took x-rays and immediately took her to get a CT scan thinking she had a seizure and/or stroke and wanting to make sure she didn't have any bleeding in her brain. Praise the Lord there was only one small blood spot in her frontal lobe so they hooked her up to an EEG to monitor over night. 

Evelyn with one of her wonderful nurses in the CICU.

She was quite agitated and uncomfortable all that night and the next day and gave us a bit of scare the following day with heavy breathing and really blotchy skin - similar symptoms to the "episode" the day before but thankfully it never escalated into anything serious. Then on Friday they decided to proceed with surgery to place her permanent pace maker. She was a little unstable throughout her surgery but the pacemaker went in fine. After the surgery, as they brought her back to the ICU, she became very tachicardic (fast heart rate) with really high blood pressure and low oxygen sats again. It took them a while to stabilize her but she finally came to a good place. They decided to monitor again for seizures and determined that she had been having several seizures. So they started medicine to get them under control. It took a little time and a couple different meds but they were able to stop the seizures. During this time she was very sensitive and agitated by touch so the nurses and doctors and even Brian and I tried to leave her alone as much as we could to let her rest and recover from all the trauma she had been through. Amidst all this she also became very congested with thick mucus so was tested and found positive for the Rhino Virus (a cold) and we also think began teething. 

Getting to hold my baby for the first time after surgery!

Because of her history and unpredictability everyone wanted to be extra cautious and move slowly with her. Therefore, we spent another good week in the ICU before they sent us to the Cardiac Progress Care Unit for her final stages of recovery. Physically, she seemed to recover well although it took some time for her to get over the cold. In addition, there was concern over her brain function due to the low oxygen levels and the trauma from a possible stroke and seizures. Over the following weeks many different specialists evaluated Evelyn for signs of disfunction but praise be to our good and merciful God everything seems to be functioning well! However, after all the trauma our little peanut decided she no longer wanted to eat. We tried for a couple weeks to feed her by mouth but for one reason or another she simply was not interested. Every kind of specialist you can think of consulted with us and everyone agreed that there seemed to be no reason she shouldn't or couldn't eat. It's as though she was choosing not to. There are a few different ideas as to why this is but no one knows for sure. On October 30th she had surgery to get a more permanent feeding tube placed in her stomach and abdomen. Surgery went well and despite everything she has gained a significant amount of weight in the last 2 months. She still does not eat much by mouth but we work on it a little every day. In addition, she is still on oxygen continually and there is a current narrowing in the shunt she had constructed during surgery that will need to be addressed in the next few weeks, but for now we are home and thankful to be among family and friends.

"Papa, what a nice beard you have!"

Now, I don't want the rather negative story you just read to be deceptive as it does not paint an entirely accurate portrait of our experiences. There have been countless blessings and beams of light gleaming through the darkness every step of the way. During our stay at the hospital we were able to meet some neat families each going through their own trials. It was encouraging and sweet to get to know them and we thank God for his many answered prayers.

We are so thankful to everyone who has helped us by sacrificing time and energy to watch the boys, to those who have provided meals and other gifts, and to all who have been praying on our behalf. We know God hears the requests of his people! Evelyn's journey is just beginning and there will be at least one more major heart surgery ahead of her but we take comfort in knowing that God loves our precious girl even more than we do! 

Looking out the window in her hospital room.

"Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:4-7