Our First Camping Trip

We went to Warm Lake for a few days this summer, all 8 of us, in one tent. We cut the trip short by one night because I am not a camper, but I think we still made plenty of great memories!

Saturday Morning with the Franson's

The final days of summer are passing quickly. Since moving to Boise last summer we had never checked out the Farmer's Market downtown so yesterday we decided to go check it out. After we bought some flowers, cucumbers, squash and some Blue Cheese Dressing we headed over to the Idaho State Capitol to look around. The kids had never been inside. Then on our way back to the car we stopped by Guru's Donuts which was AMAZING! I am not particularly fond of donuts, but these donuts are in a class all their own. If you are ever in Boise, you should swing by and try them yourself! Tomorrow Sydney and Talmage return and a week from tomorrow school starts again. I am all at once panicked and looking forward to it. Our summer schedule was all over the place so it will be nice to have a routine again. Tomorrow we find out which teachers the kids have!

Happy Sunday!

Lagoon!

On Memorial Day we went to Lagoon with all the cousins on my side. It was just a teeny tiny bit crazy with 14 kids all wanting to go different directions but I'm pretty sure the kids will just remember this:

Talmage's First Pinewood Derby!

 No captions necessary! :-)

Monthly Update, in no particular order

Green Mustaches and a green necklace for these two girls were the extent of our St. Patricks Day festiveness much to the sadness of Talmage. I felt a bit bad that I didn't do the green milk, gold coins thing that apparently all the other kids at school do at home until I read my sisters facebook update about how she uses situations like that as a teaching opportunity so that she can raise kids who don't feel entitled to do everything the way their friends do. She said it much better than that though!

We signed all three boys up for baseball....Trevor already has his uniform so I thought while he had it on I would snap a few quick pics because I'm no laundry master and I'm pretty positive that his pants will never look as white as they do right here!

Trevor looks so much like the pictures of Jared when he was younger!

Miss Leah was honored as the Student of the Month for helpfulness in her class. She is such a friendly happy little ray of sunshine and Sydney and Talmage just adore her.

Sydney was in a little singing thing for the 3rd and 4th graders and it reminded me of when I was about her age at Northview Elementary singing..."Back to Kansas, good 'ol Kansas where the great big sunflowers grow, where the girls are pretty, and when you see them smile, you know why you would walk 1,000 miles!..."

Jared turned 40! We had a little family celebration for him.

These roasted vegetables were delicious! Carrots are so sweet when they are roasted!

I made this cake from a recipe in the Romney Family Cookbook and if you want to see how badly I botched it and how I loaded on tons of frosting to cover it up I made a time lapse video on my Instagram account that shows it transforming from something that looks like it should be thrown away to this!

Jared had lots of willing helpers to blow out his candles!

 Those envelopes were filled with little birthday letters I had asked his close friends and family to email me. He loved it. (Thank you Pinterest!)

One of my friends here planned a super fun Tea Party and arranged for the movie tickets for 21 princesses and their moms to go to the movie Cinderella. Great movie! My favorite quote was, "Have Courage and Be Kind." Another movie I saw recently was McFarland with Kevin Costner. Great movie!! I highly recommend it!

I have also been busy with my photography business. You can follow me on Instagram @merrakaiphotography or keep up with me on my website and blog at www.Merrakai.com  The pics below are recent photos I have taken as well as info about my upcoming Mini Sessions in Utah. I am also gearing up for wedding season and recruiting senior reps. I decided that I just had too much going on to continue with Bella Baby so I am no longer at the hospitals taking pictures of the new babies. But I had a good experience doing it and I can definitely say, I'm now an expert at taking newborn lifestyle photos!

If you are interested in one of these photo sessions let me know! The Salt Flats sessions have only one spot left and the Mayor of Ogden has already booked one of my Ogden spots!

Hope you are doing well!