Jolie was a Mermaid for Halloween. She had starfish in her hair with crazy lights hanging from them. It looked pretty cool.

Ben and our little pumpkin, Bronson.

Well, it has now been almost 4 weeks since Bronson was born and he's been a lot of fun (and work) to have around. For the first few nights we had him next to our bed in a bassinet. However, all night (and all day for that matter) he makes little noises -- grunts, snorts, extra-heavy breathing, etc. -- and we just spent too much time awake making sure he was okay. But that's just the way he works. He's a little noisemaker. I can only imagine how it will be when he's Jolie's age -- he'll probably be king of sound effects or something and drive us nuts. So, needless to say, we made a little spot in Amberly's walk-in closet for the bassinet and we padded up her dresser in there and use that for his nighttime changing table. It works great because it's really closeby, yet private enough that we can close the door so we don't wake up whoever is taking their turn to sleep through it. Not to mention we don't have to hear every little grunt he makes. And it's right next to the bathroom which is handy for cleaning bottles and stuff. He's such a sweetheart and has been enjoying his Grandpa Mecham's company when he comes up to stay with us while he's working on his cabin.
A girl in our ward is just getting started taking portraits and she wanted to come over and get some pictures of Jolie and Bronson for her portfolio. We payed her a little sitting fee and she gave us the digital version of the pictures she took. She spent at least two hours on the whole thing, took a ton of pictures, and I think she did a good job. I'll post a couple of them here and a bunch more on our Flickr site at http://www.flickr.com/photos/benandamberly .

Bronson Owens Mecham

He was delivered today, Oct 3rd at 7:42 a.m. by C-Section. He weighed 7 pounds 3 ounces and was 19-3/4" long. He and Amberly are very healthy and hopefully will be able to come home Thursday morning. He cried a lot while he was delivered and afterwards until he was bundled up and fed. This was completely different than Jolie, but most likely because Jolie went through the trauma of being unable to be delivered normally. I'm not making excuses - he is noticably more of a whiner than Jolie was on her first day, but he is still such a sweetie and once he got comfy he was all quiet and content.
Amberly hasn't been allowed to eat solid food, and her diet has pretty much been limited to water, apple juice, jello, and chicked broth. Poor girl! Needless to say, she's quite hungry for real food. Hopefully tomorrow some time she'll be allowed to eat solid food, and she'll feel better. I hope to give a few more updates as things progress over the next few days. Please check back often!

For Everyone!!
To make it easier for family to have pictures of us, Ben set us an account at flickr.com. You can look at our pictures and order them from the site and flickr will send you a print. All you have to do is go to www.flickr.com/photos/benandamberly. Once there you can browse from 3 different folders. Mecham family, Merril family, and Our photos. If you order a picture from flickr you can pick them up at Target within an hour or have flickr mail them to you. If you have any questions ask Ben.

This was taken right after an amazing hail strom at our house. It hailed for an hour and got so cold. We had tons of fun watch the hail fall from the sky.

Holy Cow!! That's the biggest piece of hail I've ever seen.

Looking out our front door.

Baby Ava is so quiet and calm! I hope Bronson will be as easy as she is.

Princess Emma & Princess Jolie!

Ben loves getting Jolie to pose for the camera. And Jolie loves to pose for Ben!

Over Labor Day weekend we travled up to Pinetop for Ava's baby blessing. It was nice to see Golden and Bri and spend some time in the mountains. Jolie had so much fun hanging out with her cousins!

Our trip to Oceanside CA! What is summertime without the beach? This year we split a condo with Ben's parents Del & Vicki. Which made this more afforable. Ben's sister Jen & her family just moved to San Deigo so Cory can attend Law School. The timing was perfect to be able to spend some time with them. Shawn and Colette were also heading up to Ventura to see her sister to the stopped and hung out for a bit. We all love going to the beach and here are some pictures of out fun time.

Jolie lovin' the waves!!

Balboa Park

Jolie found a sand dollar!! What a lucky girl!

Jolie, Justin, & Chance hangin' out!

Grandpa & Jolie just can't get enough of baby Kellen!

As for me I'm so excited to be having a boy! He's about 7 weeks away from entering into our family. Everyday Jolie asks when Bronson will be here to play with her. It will be really interesting to see her reaction to a little baby around the house. I really hope this time the c-section will be a breeze. I'm glad I don’t have to go through the hard labor this time. Scheduling the date and time of the birth will be so nice.

Jolie is 3 and crazy fun to be around. She keeps me on my toes and loves to go go go all day long.

Lower level

Ben is working hard and will hopefully be starting the construction of our new home soon. I'm so glad he took the challenge to learn a CAD drafting program to draw and design our home just the way we want it to be. Drawing plans could be the start of something great for him!

Upper level


Here are some pictures on the plans Ben drew for our house. Aren't they so good? Ben surprises me with every new talent he develops. He's awesome.

Blogs are the coolest things ever!! I dont know why we didn't do this a long time ago. Especailly since we have moved away to Prescott it's been hard to keep everybody up to date with all that is going on in our lives. I mean who would't want to know all about us. We are very cool people. And Prescott is a cool place to live. Well let me get to the point on what's happenin' with us.