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.

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 gotten a lot more independent and can even keep himself occupied playing by himself with toys or balls. He does want to do everything that we’re doing, especially Collin that 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.

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!

Lake Tahoe

We FINALLY made it out to California to visit my brother after living on separate coasts for over three years. The trip was everything I’d hoped it would be…quality time with family, a wonderful getaway and great skiing- thanks Mom & Dad for a wonderful vacation! My pictures are linked to the 1st picture (as usual)...click to see Mom's pics & Rob's pics. We flew into Sacramento and spent a day and a half in Folsom seeing Rob and Kristen’s new house and spending time with our nephew Owen. Unfortunately, Mike had a stomach bug that made his flight out to CA, the drive to the mountains, and the first few days of our vacation not fun at all, but luckily he got better in time to ski and enjoy our the last half of the vacation. Collin and Owen got along great but Owen seemed to feel quite threatened by Carson and didn’t want anything to do with him. Carson was his happy-go-lucky self, but Owen looks quite concerned as you can see. I know they will be good buddy cousins some days being only seven months apart, but not good friends at 13 and 20 months. Rob & Kristen live about 90 minutes from South Lake Tahoe. We stayed at the Marriott Timerlodge Time Share RIGHT at the bottom of the gondola at Heavenly, one of the most beautiful ski resorts (see picture). We’ve never stayed anywhere that was ski in/ski out and it was quite a treat to be in the heart of everything. Collin went to ski school for two days. He liked the snow and the idea of skiing but it will be another few times before he can ski with us.We got over 18 inches of powder the second night we were there so we had some great skiing! It was quite cold for spring skiing and because of the snow storms we didn’t have the beautiful views of the lake until the last day (our birthday). I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday – skiing with my husband and brother in beautiful sunshine and a great Mongolian BBQ dinner and carrot cake with my whole family. The night before our birthday – March 22nd Carson began walking for the first time! It was sooo exciting and I was happy that we could share it with my parents and Rob & Kristen! Since he had been practicing so much by holding our finger so tightly (basically walking on his own for several weeks) he didn’t just take a few steps like he had done before or gradually increase how far he could walk. He was OFF! Check out the video…Carson was walking all around the hotel room, turning and practically running back and forth between us. He was so proud of himself for being able to walk independently and loved all our attention. Collin was excited to watch his brother walk at first but then started to get a little jealous and wanted some attention too. I forgot how exciting it was to watch your child take his first steps and learn to walk. While I had gotten tired of holding his little finger and following him all over the place I started to get sad and sentimental about my little baby growing up. After a great time in Lake Tahoe we headed back to Folsom and enjoyed some warm weather before we had to head out super early Wednesday morning. It was fun to watch the boys run around in Rob & Kristen’s back yard, especially since a few days before Carson wouldn’t even walk by himself. It was a wonderful vacation and so great to see family. It’s sad that we live so far away and who knows when we’ll see their new baby girl due the end of April.