Photo Shoot

I love my sweet Tyler! He is such a joy to have in our family and makes us smile everyday. He's getting over an ear infection and some pretty bad congestion right now. It's made for some pretty restless nights. But then my little boy smiles at me and all the frustration leaves. How can you not love a sweet face like this:



Thanks Raylene for the photo shoot!

Soccer Games

Jake's been playing in an indoor soccer league for the past couple months. It's out in Queen Creek at the new Barney Family Sports Complex. It has been really fun to see Jake play. He's never really played soccer before and ended up being one of the team's greatest players. He's one of their top scorers! His all time high was 5 goals in one game! All of the guys on the team come up after the games and tell me what an animal Jake is. They're all so impressed he picked it up so fast. I love watching Jake play because he gives it his all, but doesn't get to worked up when the refs give bad calls and stuff. Their season just ended and his team only lost one game (and that was because they had 1/2 the team with red cards and they didn't have enough players to play!). This picture is of Jakey boy with his 2 good friends that he grew up with: Curtis and Jesse. Check out how sweaty they all are. They seriously never stop running. It's crazy! I love having an athletic husband. I can't wait for Jake to be able to teach Tyler how to play sports. I think it will be so fun!Tyler with Grandma Richardson at the last soccer game.

Baby Idol

Alright. Listen up all ya'll! So my best friend, Raylene, has one of the cutest little girls I have ever seen. Raylene has entered little Brooklyn into a Baby Idol contest that one of the local radio stations is doing. I'll let her tell you the rest. Here is her blog post pasted here:

(the picture we entered)

"Okay everybody, I heard about this radio contest from my sister so I thought I'd send a picture of Brooklyn because I know I think she's stinking cute. Mix 96.9 is doing "Baby Idol"-Season 3 and the top 200 contestants will battle it out in round 2 where they will then narrow it down to the Top 50 finalists. The Top 50 will then compete in the Finals Round where the Grand Prize Winner gets $2000.00 and the title of Mix 96.9 Baby Idol.

This is where I need everybody's help. Today, Friday May 1st starting at Noon, people can begin voting for their favorite baby. Her picture is located in Gallery #2 (I think like the 10th baby) but here is the direct link to make it super simple for you to find it. (Click here.) Just click on "Vote for me" and enter your email address to vote for her. You can vote for her everyday from a valid email address. To make it worth your time, I'm giving away a $50 dollar Gift Certificate to any store/restaurant of your choice if Brooklyn becomes the next Baby Idol. All you have to do is cut and paste this post onto your blog and then leave me a comment on my blog (or email me at bradbowles3@gmail.com) telling me you voted for Brooklyn and also that you posted this post on your blog too (to help spread the word)! If you have a facebook account, you can also upload this picture of her and tell people to vote for her there as well....and then you will have double the chances of winning the gift card. (send me a message on facebook if you do, so I know to enter your name twice into the drawing) Since this is an ongoing contest to try and narrow it down to the cutest baby...every time/day you vote for her send me an email or comment, and you'll have an even better chance of winning the 50 BUCKS!

If Brooklyn does happen to be the next Baby Idol, I'll be using a computer program my friend created to randomly choose a winner out of all the comments left on my blog, email, and facebook. There are tons of cute babies entered in the contest, but if you think Brooklyn is cute too, she'd love your vote every day....! It's never to early to start saving for your kids college education...and to help pay for the next baby on the way....(40 DAYS left!) Thanks for everybody's help! You rock!"

So go ahead! Vote for sweet Brooklyn. Vote for her everyday! Vote for her from all of your email accounts!

Swimming in April!

Sorry that the pictures are out of order, but I'm a little out of practice. It kind of makes the post anticlimactic, but I'll get better! It has been pretty hot here the past couple of days so we took Tyler swimming on Wednesday at my parents' house. The water was pretty cold, but my sister Cindy's girls loved it. Ty absolutely loves his baths every night, so I thought he'd like the pool, but the poor little guy did not like it at all! But he sure looked cute in his swimming trunks and sun hat. Hopefully he'll like the pool more when it warms up a bit.

Ty fell right asleep after the traumatic experience of sitting in the pool.

He sure is sweet!

This was his face after taking a little dip.

Happy Ty before entering the pool. No, Jake doesn't usually pop his collar, he was just trying to keep from getting his neck burned. He he- I love him!

I wanted to post the video of him getting in the water- it's pretty funny, but I tried and it just takes FOREVER to upload. Am I doing something wrong? Do you have to compress the file or something like that? Any suggestions?

Photo Update

Ok, ok. I'll give you some more. Since I didn't post anything for so long, some of these pictures date back to when Ty was only a month old. He has grown so much and can do so much now. He has even rolled over a few times. He's also starting a kind of army crawl where he bunches up his legs and pushes off real hard. No more leaving him on the couch unattended! We love him more and more each day. Here's what we've been up to lately!

1 month old

6 weeks old

Merrell Cousins! Tyler, Savannah, and Shae

Uncle Erin and Ty

Blessing Day- It was a very sunny February 1st!

Ty's blessing day just happened to be Super Bowl Sunday. We didn't really watch the Super Bowl, but we had all the fixin's for it at the luncheon!

Sleeping like a baby- 8 weeks

Ty and Daddy- 2 months

With Uncle Blake- 2 months

Sweet Boy!- 2 months

With cousin Claire

Kind of random, but for Valentine's Day Jake got me a wedding band. It is absolutely beautiful! He went to so much work to get it- he had to have it special ordered to match my engagement ring. What a sweetheart! It's kind of a blurry picture, but that's just because it's got so much bling! jk

Ty and Grandpa Richardson- 10 weeks

Happy St. Patrick's Day! We had a St. Patrick's Day Dinner at the Merrell's complete with green apple sauce, green salad, green peas, green mashed potatoes, and green mint ice cream oreo cake. And of course green attire! (Tyler was sleeping, so he's the only one not in this picture)

Don't you just want to squeeze him? 3 months

Tyler and cousin Savannah. They like to hold hands- they did it all on their own!

Family walk around the Mesa, AZ temple.

It snowed a ton on the mountains back in February and Jake and Tyler and I went for a drive to get a better view. I love it- Saguaro cacti with snow in the background. Only in AZ!

Tyler with Aunt Cindy, Grandma, and Savannah.

Our Sweet Tyler

Well, I've been getting a lot grief from family and friends because I haven't posted new pictures of Tyler. Our computer has been broken for awhile, but Jake's bro-in-law is letting us borrow his, so now I can share our sweet boy with you. Tyler is such a joy and we love having him in our family. He is 3 months old now and can do so much. He LOVES smiling and laughing and it really doesn't take too much to get a smile out of him. He has a little stuffed monkey that he loves and has learned to put it in his mouth. It seems like anything he gets his hands on goes into his mouth! He's a pretty good sleeper during the day at nap times, but gives us a bit of a hard time at night. I'm hoping he'll grow out of it- we've even tried letting him cry it out, but after 25 minutes of a crying and sometimes screaming baby, I can't take it any more. He is so funny because if he's crying at night and I finally go in to get him, he'll often look up at me with a big grin on his face- how can you stay frustrated with a sweet smile like that! I don't have many pictures of Tyler here on this computer, but I'll try and get some more on soon. Enjoy!

Day of his blessing- 2/1/09 Thanks Grandma Merrell for my handsome tux and blankie!

Ty with his cousin Eli- Eli is a month younger than Tyler and weighs 4lbs more than him!

Cousins again!

Tyler with his friend Monk the Monkey

Have a happy Saturday!

Here he is!!! His name is Tyler Jacob Richardson. He weighed 8 pounds 5 ounces and is 21 inches long. It took him a while to get here but he finally came. They had to take him by C-section becuase he wasn't progressing after 17 hours of labor. He is so handsome and cute! He's also very mild mannered and content, except for when he is hungry!