Mia: 18 months

Little Mia has become a wild and curious toddler! She loves to play outside, run wild, play with blocks, do puzzles, make animal noises, go for rides, lead the way, and dance and sing along any time she hears music. My heart can barely handle the way she says "please" and "thank you", and her little hugs and kisses are to die for. It's unbelievable how wrapped around her little finger she has us. Almost always when Chris is trying to put her in time out or get after her for doing something naughty he will go to pick her up and she will grab his face and give him a big kiss! She knows how to get out of trouble, thats for sure… Her vocabulary has exploded and we love to watch her learn so much everyday. At her 18 month appointment her pediatrician asked me how many words Mia knows, and I guessed at least 30. He was really surprised and told me that he would only expect a child her age to know about 10. After we left I starting counting them up, and I counted over 80 words!!! We have a little smartie on our hands! We can't get enough of our big baby girl.

Mia's always up for some blanket forts :) mommy and daddy are always required to come in too.

Love this baby girl's face, however squished it is :)

Seeing Mia hang on to Chris like this and swim around the pool made me realize just how big my little baby is getting. I love seeing her grow so much, but every stage is just so fleeting. I can finally appreciate how important cherishing every precious moment really is. Mia loves the water, and I love spending time with my two favorite people. 

Daddy holding up our little family of 4. Can't wait for you to come little one!

Mother's Day

Just a few days before Mother's day this year I had just worked a night shift and Mia was ready for an early start that day. I went and got her and fed her some breakfast and then brought her in bed with me to snuggle and watch a movie. We both must have fallen asleep and I woke up at the end of the movie to this little angel still snuggled in my arms and sleeping soundly next to me. My heart could barely stand the sweetness! I love Mia so much and am the luckiest that I get to be her mom. Thank you so much for making me a mommy Mia! You have made so many of my most cherished dreams come true and I don't know how we got so lucky to have you join our family. 

On Mother's day, Chris was up to his usual sweet ways and made me my favorite breakfast; crepes with berries and cream. I don't know where this boy came from, but one thing is for sure. He is way too good for me. I definitely have used up all the luck I deserve for my whole lifetime to have landed my sweet Chris and my perfect little Mia. Happy Mother's day to my two favorites!

Bruce's call this year was so sweet! We're so excited that the next time we see this heartbreaker face will be in person!!! I can't even hold in my excitement! It was so fun to be able to tell the whole family all together that Chris and I are expecting another baby on Dec 3! Life just keeps getting better and better :)

Mia also graduated to a front facing big kid car seat! She wore herself out with all the excitement :) Just in time for baby to take her old one. We love you sweet Mia!

AJ is home!

AJ came home on April 8th and it was such a fun birthday present for both of us! 

 A complete little bunch of Brower siblings.

Just a few hours after getting home the Brower's headed to St. George. Chris, Mia, and I joined them a few days later. We love vacationing with our sweet little family.

Fiesta Fun

Easter

Easter was so fun this year because Mia was able to participate more. She thought it was so fun finding eggs on the ground and opening them up to find awesome surprises. 

That little Easter Bunny is so messy…:)

St. George Trip

The weekend in St George with Cambria and Ron was a blast as usual. This was one of my favorite St. George trips. One reason was because Chris just had surgery on his hand, he wasn't able to golf at all, so I got to spend every day with him! (Sorry Chris…:) ) Another reason is this amazing hike that we went on at the Emerald Pools in Zion's National Park. We were led astray by something Chris read saying that the hike was stroller friendly. That was true for about half of the hike. So we ended up packing Mia and the stroller the rest of the way up. We got a lot of weird looks and I'm sure more than one person concluded that we were a bunch of bozos, but we had a blast and I'm so glad we did it!

There were deer grazing just feet from us off the side of the trail. Too bad Mia couldn't appreciate how cool this was :)

A few years ago Chris got sent home from his mission for surgery on his shoulder related to a high school basketball injury.  After a few months of being home for physical therapy and recovering from the surgery, his shoulder got cleared and he was ready to go back to England. He decided to celebrate by playing some basketball the night his shoulder got cleared. During the basketball game, he ended up injuring his right thumb pretty bad. The ligament in his thumb had been torn off his bone. He had surgery on the thumb to reattach his ligament, and only a few days later was back on a plane to England. Unfortunately his thumb was never given an opportunity to heal properly while he was trying to finish his mission. His casted hand went from swelling, to turning purple, to developing a nasty rash. Health care regulations in England kept him from being seen by a doctor there.  This, along with other medical concerns, led to the medical release that cut his mission short. 

Chris' thumb never fully recovered. This January, while playing basketball (surprise!), he knicked his thumb just right again. The ligament broke, again. 

Chris was stuck wearing this brace for a few weeks before he was able to get in for surgery.

This time, instead of surgically reattaching Chris' ligament, a cadaver ligament was used to fix the problem, and Chris' broken ligament was removed. This is supposed to be a much stronger and long lasting option. Let's hope so because although Chris is supposedly "sworn off basketball"…it's Chris. I think we've had enough injuries and surgeries to last us a lifetime.