Our Oldest Son...

Three years ago today our son died.

Three years seems like such a long time... and yet I know more years will pile up before I will hold him in my arms again. I wanted to share a little of his life, mostly through photographs. (click on the photographs if you want to see them larger)


Here is Parker two days after he was born in the NICU at UVRMC. The day after this was taken was when he was taken to PCMC where he had his first angioplasty/catheterization procedure. He finally came home after 10 days. I need to find the photographs that were taken of him in the Life Flight incubator. He looked so little in there.


Parker is about 3 weeks old now. He loved to sleep on his daddy.


Parker loved baths. Because of his reflux and food allergies (to the milk protein) he threw up A LOT!!! He got a lot of baths and loved all of them. We sometimes went through 5 sets of clothes and 10 diapers a day. We took ziploc bags with us everywhere we went ... just in case.


There is one with Parker in a blanket. We used to tie knots at the end of the blankets and swing him. He loved it. Parker had great expressions on his face.


Here are photographs of Parker with his cousin James Shumaker. James was born 9 days after Parker. Parker's other cousin Reese MacArthur was born 5 1/2 weeks after Parker. We have some great photographs with those two, but I realized I can't find them! I think Jenni, my sister in law has them. I need to get copies of those. One of my favorites is when Parker and Reese were sitting at a little table have a "tea party". Sometimes seeing James and Reese getting so big now can be hard, imagining what Parker would be like with them, but I try to use them to help me imagine what Parker might be doing.


Parker loved to copy us... We would shake the bottle up to mix the fomula up. One day he started to shake it periodically as he held the bottle and would get spurts of fomula all over his face. I wondered why he did that. Then I realized he was copying us! He was shaking it like we would before we gave it to him. It was hilarious as he would have milk all over his face.


The eyes on Parker at the 4th of July Hot Air Balloon festivities.... I miss seeing those beautiful blue eyes. One of my favorite photographs is Parker with his cheerios or "de-dos" as he called them. In time he became creative when given stick pretzels and cheerios as a snack. He would stick the stick pretzel into the center of the cheerio and eat the cheerio off the stick pretzel. I tried it and kept breaking the cheerio.... He was good at it :).


At first Parker did the tuck-n-roll to get around. Then he found the art of the army crawl! He had perfect form as he put one arm in front of the other. It was fun to watch! Then he learned to walk at 10 months... he became a very fast kid!


Many events took place in September and October... from going to Parker's first BYU game... to going to the Corn Maze... to Parker's first and only birthday!


Not to mention Halloween was a few days later! And playing with all of his cousins! Our little scarecrow was all worn out!

The first year of Parker's life came to an end. The last 8 1/2 months will be continued another day this week. I hope you enjoyed a brief overview of our wonderful son, Parker!

We love you and miss you Parker.