Christmas at Grandma & Grandpa Stauffer's

Brielle had a lot of fun celebrating Christmas at her Grandma & Papa Stauffer's house. It was our last of many wonderful gatherings with family.

Brielle and Grandma

Grandma, Brielle, Cousin Camden, and Aunt Shanni being silly playing peek a boo
Brielle got her 1st bike and LOVES it :)
Snuggle time with Aunt Shanni

Grandpa & Grandma with the grandchildren...Jaxson, Camden, Gracie, and Brielle

Christmas at GG Jo's House

The day after Christmas we spent some time at GG Jo's house with Mommy's cousins. We got a family zoo pass from GG Jo....we can't wait to use it next summer!

Brielle and her great grandma Joanne

Daddy and Uncle Luke got Gator hats from Uncle Mike and his family. We thought the kids looked cuter in them :)
Opening her presents She got a really cute Nike outfit from the Lederman's..Thanks everyone, I love you!!

Christmas Day with Grandpa & Grandma Brower

Merry Christmas! We spent the day with Grandpa and Grandma Brower. Brielle again had so much fun and got some really great presents!

She usually has more fun with things other than her gifts. She loved the little confetti streamers that came out of a gift bag. Daddy would drop them on her and she would just giggle :)

Daddy and his princess
G & G Brower got Brielle a picnic table for her birthday so one of her presents was a picnic basket with all kinds of neat things in it!

The BEST present was her American Girl doll...Bitty Baby! Brielle and Bitty Baby got matching jammies...that will be so fun! Thanks G & G Brower for a wonderful Christmas...I love you!

Christmas Eve at Papa & Mema Dunbar's

We spent Christmas Eve with the Dunbar side of the family and had so much fun! Brielle is the only girl out of 6 grandchildren, but she sure knows how to keep up with the boys :) She got a lot of really great gifts!

She loved playing Cousin Jack's DS with Uncle Luke

She got a really cool book from Cousin Garrett that sings songs
Papa and Mema got her a Little People airplane
Having a good time playing....Thanks everyone for all the awesome presents! I love you all :)
Update: We went to Riley Hospital on Dec 23rd for a test to see if Brielle needs to have a second surgery or if the fluid is flowing into her bladder....PRAISE THE LORD it flowed into her bladder and she doesn't have to have another surgery! Thanks to everyone who has prayed for our little princess we have been so blessed :)

Cool New Look!

Brielle thought it was so funny to wear her Daddy's hat backwards and of course we thought it was too cute! She ran around our house with the hat on for atleast 25 minutes just laughing as hard as she could. I tried my best to get some good pics, but with her on the go it was kind of hard.

This is our new favorite pic There she goes....
and she is still going...
Young singer in the making??

Little Artist

We have a little artist in our house! Brielle is now obsessed with pens and paper. She does a pretty good job holding the pen and making scribble marks too :)

Our artist hard at work!

Give me back my pen! I took it from her so she would look up at the camera.
Focusing hard to make it just right... Ugh...I don't like it! Cute pic of my 2 favorite people!

Our Brielle Is Back :)

Brielle is recovering very well. She has been trying to catch up on much needed rest. She slept 13 hours last night and had 2 naps today that were 2 hours each. Brielle is back to her normal little self today and we couldn't be happier! Here is a video of her playing catch with Daddy tonight!

We Are Home!!

Dr. Cain was in this morning to see Brielle and said she looks great! He released us to go home today...we left about 12:45. We were in the hospital for 29 hours which doesn't seem long considering she had surgery. We are so happy to be home and Brielle is doing so good. She was sent home on pain medication, but never acts like anything really hurts. He was able to perform the surgery without cutting her muscle which helps make it all less painful. We thank the Lord for protecting our angel! Thanks for all your prayers. We will keep everyone updated on the next set of tests when we know more. Love, The Brower's

Surgery Is Over!!!

Brielle made it through her surgery....thanks for all the prayers! It took about 2.5 hours. They said she did very well. They gave her some medicine this morning when we got here to make her sleepy so she wouldn't be upset when they took her from us. It made her very tired and goofy. All the details get to be a bit confusing, but basically she has a blockage at the bottom of her ureter where it connects to her bladder which is the initial cause of all her problems. The narrowing of the ureter at the bottom caused the ureter to get huge and fluid to back up and not drain from her kidney. A blood vessel and her ureter up near her kidney were both kinked so the dr. cut a portion of her ureter so he could unkink it and move the blood vessel. I know very confusing. Everything with that procedure went well. She has a tube inside her kidney that comes out of her incision that is draining fluid from her kidney. There is still the initial problem at the bottom of her ureter which may require a 2nd surgery. In 2 weeks (scheduled for Dec. 23rd) she will have a test done where they will shoot dye through the tube that is connected to her kidney and they will watch to see if it drains right out into the bladder or if there is still a blockage at the bottom. More than likely she will need another surgery to repair this, but because he repaired the top it may take pressure off her huge ureter and allow the bottom to open up....this is what we are praying happens. It's a lot of information that makes more sense hearing it from the doctor. Right now our princess is resting and doing great. We just need to pray that she won't have to go through this again! Thanks for all the prayers and support, Jake and I really appreciate it. I will update again tomorrow. We may get to go home tomorrow night, if not Friday morning.

Daddy and his little princess before surgery. She was getting very sleepy!

After surgery in her room. She would open her eyes for about a minute then she would go back to sleep and snuggle with Mommy
Very tired girl....Got some milk in her tummy and was out like a light! Brielle had pain medicine put in her back like an epidural which will last about 20-24 hours, but can make her itch so she was given benedryl to help with that. She was also given tylenol with codeine to help when the other pain meds wear off. All the meds have really hit her and she is out!

Keep The Prayers Coming!

God is so good and our prayers are already being answered. I got a call this morning from Dr. Cain's (pediatric urologist) assistant telling us that Brielle's surgery has been moved up!! It is now at 8:45 am which is so awesome because she isn't allowed anything to eat after midnight and noon would have been a long time to keep a hungry girl happy. Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers we greatly appreciate all the love and support we have! When you wake up in the morning say a little prayer for our princess! I will update after surgery and let everyone know how she is doing. Love The Brower's

Please Pray For Our Princess

As most of you know Brielle is scheduled for surgery this Wednesday December 10th at 12:00. We just ask that you all keep her in your prayers and Jake and I as well that we will be able to be strong for our little girl. It will be so hard to watch our daughter be wheeled away and not be able to be there by her side. The surgery is expected to last 3-4 hours which will be extremely long for us as parents. We have put all of our trust and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ to protect our princess and get her through this and to help us have a peace with it all. We believe that He will heal our Brielle and she will be just fine. Say a few extra prayers for Brielle and our family this week....we greatly appreciate it!

Dear Lord, please watch over our princess, protect her, and keep her safe. We have put her in Your hands and know that You will be there every step of the way. Our trust and faith lies in You that You will get us through this. This is only going to make us stronger and our faith in You stronger! Be with the doctor and guide his hand Lord. We BELIEVE in YOU! Heal our precious angel Lord...In Your name we pray. Amen

Happy To Be Home!

Mommy and Daddy are finally home! We went to Hawaii with Brielle's Aunt Shanni and Uncle Luke and were gone for 9 days. We got home yesterday and are so thankful to be back. Brielle got to spend time with Grandpa and Grandma Brower, Papa and Mema Dunbar, Papa and Grandma Stauffer, Great Grandma Joanne and cousin Camden. Thanks everyone for taking such great care of our precious girl. We know she was loved and spoiled. We had a great time, but missed our daughter more than we ever thought we could :) Brielle had a lot of fun, but she sure was happy to have Mommy and Daddy back!

Mommy and Daddy at one of the many nice restaurants we ate atHere is one of the many waterfalls we saw on the Road to Hana. We had to hike through trails to find them...it was quite a workout, but very rewarding. They were so beautiful! We got in this waterfall and it was freezing!!

Beautiful sunset

Brush, Brush, Brush :)

We have started trying to get Brielle used to brushing her teeth. First Mommy brushes them for her then I let her try and do it! She ends up just chewing on the toothbrush because she is working on her molars. She is very good about letting me brush them and get them clean! She currently has 4 on top, 2 on bottom, 1 molar on the bottom and is working on 2 other molars. As you can see from the drool on her chin she is definetly teething.

Daddy's Girl!

We have a special little someone who is becoming quite the little "daddy's girl". She loves to play rough and have her daddy tackle her down! She literally runs to him when he gets home from work everyday. He absolutely LOVES it. He could have the worst day of his life and to have her run into his arms with a huge smile, so happy to see him just makes his day! I wanted to share some cute pics of the two most important people in my life :)

Happy Halloween!!

Brielle was a butterfly this year for Halloween. This was her first year to dress up because last year she was only 2 months old! She was the cutest little butterfly we have ever seen :) She was literally in her costume for about 30 minutes, long enough to get a few pics before she went to bed. She was all about walking around on our street and didn't really want anything to do with posing for pictures so this is the best we got!!

Daddy and his butterfly

Brielle's cousin Camden came for the weekend and he was such a cute little monkey!
The butterfly on the go......

and flying away!

Happy Halloween from the monkey and butterfly!

Dancing Queen!!

We now know that our little Brielle loves loud music. Papa Tim was playing his guitar and she started clapping her hands and going nuts all over the room. The louder and faster he would play the more excited she would get. It was too funny! I got her to stop long enough to snap a couple cute pics :)

Peek-a-boo...I see you!!Here is a video of our little Dancing Queen