Our oldest

Our spotlight would not be complete if I didn't share about Carter. I wanted to post pictures but I ( imagine this) can't figure out how to scan them in. Sorry. He was born Mar. 2, 1997. He was born with Down syndrome and about 40% of kids with Downs have heart problems. He had many heart surgeries. The first starting at 9 days and then 6 months, 7 months, 3 years. The 3 year surgery he had his mitral valve replaced with a titanium valve. He was very very sick for a long time and was on the ventilater for about 4 weeks. We were in Denver at the time which is an awesome childrens hospital. From there I flew to CA to live with J parents hoping we could return to CO. Well it never happened and J moved to CA. C also had eye muscle surgery, tonsils and adnoids removed, pneumonia a few times requiring hospital stays. He was on oxygen most of his life and enough meds to have a medicne cabinet with his name all over it. That is some of the depressing medical parts of his life, but he didn't know any different. He loved life and was so happy all the time. He had to have blood draws every week and he was so tough he would just put his arm out and rarely cried. He never talked so we signed to him and he signed back but he understood everything we said. I think he really understood alot more than we did about alot of things. He loved to look at the childrens friend magazine and would find the pictures of Jesus Christ and sign Jesus. He loved Primary songs. He loved cheetos and hotdogs, broccoli and water. He was tube fed for 2 years so we think that he didn't know the joy food could bring and it was a fight. And with all the meds his mouth was fried of taste buds. When he did eat it was very strong flavors, salsa, garlic, chips, lemon juice, ketchup, mustard. Well this is getting long so I will wrap it up here soon. He was happy. He loved to have J come home everynight that was the highlight. He would play and talk his jibberish and love his dad to pieces. He passed away on June 14, 2002 in my arms. We miss him but are so grateful that we got to enjoy him as long as we did. Well I guess that is all of our spotlights or is it?