Carson is 14 months and has 2 new cousins – all on the same day!

What a day! Carson and Collin have two new cousins born on the same day – Carson's 14 month birthday...how exciting! Kristen was scheduled for a C-section today anyway so we knew this would be the day unless she went into labor sooner.

Abigail Jaelyn Gehbauer was born Monday, April 27, 2008, at 8:08am via a scheduled c-section. She weighed 9lbs 5.4oz and measures 20in. Mom and baby are doing great and my parents were present for the birth – dad will be in California for a week and mom will stay two weeks to help. To see more pictures of Abby, visit the Gehbauer online album.

Mike’s parents called us Sunday night to inform us that Karen was in labor and going to the hospital. Benjamin Gregory Ward was born on April 27, 2009 at 12:50 a.m. weighing 7 lbs. As many of you may know, baby Benjamin was diagnosed in utero with Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome, a very serious condition where the left side of the heart is underdeveloped. We anticipated that baby Ben would have surgery within the first few days of life on his heart. Unfortunately, the Echo performed after birth revealed that his right side of the heart isn’t functioning well enough to do the Norwood surgery, so he was placed on the list for a heart transplant. The average wait time for a heart is about six weeks, but it could be shorter or longer. Fortunately, the doctors are fairly confident that they can keep him stable for months if necessary.For more technical details, please visit the Wards' blog and for more pictures visit Laura’s blog. We ask that you pray that Ben will get a new heart quickly and for a successful surgery!

Carson is definitely on the move – it’s amazing that he’s only been walking for a little over a month since he’s so good at it! He still loves his push toys – the tractor, Corn Popper and other ride toy but he’s gotten so much better and navigating, steering, and getting on and off of them. He loves to play golf – hitting any balls with the golf clubs and throwing balls.

He and Mike have a much stronger bond now…I’m afraid he may be turning towards a daddy’s boy – a MAJOR change! He gets so excited when Mike comes home from work, wants Mike to hold him now and enjoys the “I’m going to gettcha” game. He has also gotten a lot more independent and can even keep himself occupied playing by himself with toys or balls, sweeping or digging in the dirt. He does want to do everything that we’re doing. This can be a problem if we’re trying to play a game with small pieces or build a tower. Collin continues to be a GREAT big brother and takes it all in stride, being fairly entertained most of the time by his little bro. Luckily he still loves his mommy the most :)

One of the funniest things he does is shake his head “no” to many questions we ask him. such as “Carson – are you ready to go night night?” or “Do you want more peas?”. It’s really entertaining. He’s such an awesome baby with a great temperament. We are SOOO blessed!

We're so happy to welcome our new baby cousins and pray for Ben every day!

Easter

We decided to take a very last minute trip to St. Louis for Easter for a quick trip. We had originally planned on going, but we decided against it since we knew we’d be up for Karen & Greg’s baby boy soon and they were going to be visiting Greg’s family out of town. Come Thursday we had already had our neighborhood Easter Egg hunt, Collin was on Spring Break and we were feeling the effects of having no family in town so we decided to go up last minute – it’s only an 8 hour drive. It rained almost the entire way and Carson didn’t sleep much during the drive, so we were second-guessing our decision. We had a wonderful time and the boys both did GREAT on the way home Easter Monday so we were so glad to go. Karen & Greg were able to come back from their trip in time for Easter dinner at Mike’s parents’ house.

Collin and Carson had been getting ready for Easter for a month. I really had no idea that Carson would be old enough to enjoy it, but picking up things, putting them in a basket and carrying them around is one of his favorite activities. So we had Easter Egg hunts in the house for WEEKS and Carson got plenty of practice picking up eggs. Collin loved to hide them or have us hide them and him find them. It was quite the game!

One of the many great things about doing things with Mike’s sister Laura is that I don’t have to write much about them, because she is 100 times more thorough on her blog than I will ever be. See Laura’s blog and great pictures….

Basically, our trip consisted of an Egg Hunt in the park and an awesome picnic. We got to go to the Cardinals baseball game on Saturday night, attended 8 AM church so we could have Easter brunch before Bill went to work. We then did an Egg hunt with the boys, we visited with my grandma at my Aunt Pam & Uncle Jon’s, and had Easter dinner at Mike’s moms with all the cousins.