First day of School!

Claire in her first day of school outfit (that I got for a dollar and change) with her hello kitty backpack.


Getting on her bus for the first time ever.


Waiting at the bus stop with her friends and Jake.


Best buds.


Claire had her first day of Kindergarten on Monday. She was so excited. She did great! She was kind of disappointed that she didn't learn anything the first day. It was just a practice day she said. But she is excited for chocolate milk at snack time, PE day and music day. She rode the bus the 2nd day. She has been talking about riding the school bus, for at least a year now and it didn't disappoint. She is so big! I already journaled this, but Sunday night I was a bit emotional, Chris gave her a father's blessing for the first day of school and it made me tear up a bit. Claire saw that I was sad about her going to school, so when I was tucking her in bed, she handed me one of her my little ponies and said, here mom, to remember me by while I'm at school so you don't get sad. Well I really lost it after that and had a good cry. Very unexpected, but I was glad to get it out of the way, so I could just be excited for her on the first day. And ya know, that darn my little pony works great! I put it on my kitchen counter and whenever I walk past it I think of her-- and smile. It's hard as a mom to see your kids have more independence and realize that they don't need you quite as much as they once did, but I just can't wait for all that she will learn. She loves to learn so I know she will do great.

Well Jake is just so excited for his little "school" - preschool to start. He gets his school shoes on and his backpack on to take Claire to the bus stop, too bad he can't ride yet! He has been a perfect little angel while Claire is at school, and I can tell he is fighting for attention when she gets home. I'm excited for us to have some time together alone and I hope he does well in his preschool group. He's such a happy, goofy, caring kid. I just hope we can keep his attention! He keeps asking me what his teachers name is. I think he's going to be disappointed when he finds out I'm one of them. There are five kids in his group, so I only have to teach every month and a half and we can opt to do the field trips which are combined with a few other groups once a month, he will love that. I Love my kids!!

I wasn't sure how I'd like having my day more structured due to school, but it's been good. We got in a routine last week preparing for school. The kids are in bed by 8, and I'm finally forcing myself to get up early, and get everything done before the kids wake up and have breakfast ready and waiting for them. I decided to stop nap time with Jake, so he would go to bed earlier and get up later, it's finally starting to work, all though he gets pretty hyper in the afternoons when he is usually napping. That's when I know he's tired. Pretty good routine so far.

Snedaker Reunion

We went up to Spencer to camp for a few days with the Snedakers. It was pretty low key. Jake caught croup the first night we were there, so Chris had to drive all the way home to get him some medicine because there was no where open. I stayed in the tent with Jake and listened to animals crunch branches much of the night, while I imagined all the horrible things that could happen without Chris! We played games, did crafts, rode the 4 wheeler and the boys wrapped everything they could imagine in bacon. We did skits at night and that was pretty fun/ny.

A busy saturday

Two Saturdays ago we went huckleberry picking. I have enjoyed doing this and the kids love it too. Hunckleberries-as they call them. I was kind of worried that I wouldn't get much picked since Jake doesn't have a very long attention span yet, but I should have realized that since there was free unlimited fruit involved he would be all over it. I think we decided he picked as many huckleberries as Chris, but just ate all of his. We got about a 1/2 gallon. I am saving them for huckleberry/raspberry jam. There should be raspberries to pick this week or next. If I have enough I might try some huckleberry syrup too. I've been wanting to try canning syrup for some reason. It's a food storage essential right? After huckleberry picking we stopped at the Reed's Dairy family day. They had free horse rides and we ended up getting free icecream cones too. We spent a while there, the kids loved it. We saw about half the ward there too :) After that I started canning, I had beets and green beans that needed to be processed. After I got most of that done I had a photo shoot that got rained out, went back home and finished canning. It was a long day, but a good day. Good memories.






Jake, the horsie-lover was being so serious!


At kelly canyon after picking hunckleberries

P. Family preview

Brothers. Cute.

W. Family Idaho Falls Photography

What a cute family! I love when sessions run smoothly, had so much fun.

Rainbows and Butterflies

A CD cover idea

Too much growing up for one week!

We have just a few more weeks before Claire heads to Kindergarten. I also got Jake into an at home Preschool two days a week. I promised we would go school shopping we got her school supplies and some new hair accessories and we got Jake a little backpack. When we got home we went through all the school supplies and clothes. I buy most of their clothes a year ahead so we had to go through the stash and see what fit and see what we were still missing. Jake was bummed to see Claire's "school clothes" since he was going to "school" now, where were his school clothes, so I got out some shoes for the fall and his winter coat for next year and Claire got on her stuff too. When did they get big?? They both seem so tall.




finally got Jake in for his 3 year well-check, it's not that accurate seeing that his birthday was in June, but better late than never. I some how walked out without his actual height, but he is 80th percentile for height and 36lbs and 76th percentile for weight. We had just been in there because Jake had an allergic reaction to something, we still do not know what and he got hives all over his body and the next day he was swollen head to toe. Poor boy, he really didn't complain, but he looked awful!


Claire is going to hate that I'm posting this, but we had a rather crazy week as far as talking about things that are just a bit too old for her and I was in shock parenting mode. It started with a random question about how babies get out of the mom's belly. That was fun. Then the other night she turned to us and said, I want to marry a man (wispering: with his shirt off) Whoa. Didn't see that coming. And then minutes after a little conversation about that she starts asking about getting a tatoo?!? Um I have no idea where this is coming from. Lets hope this is all for a little bit.

We have been doing the typical summer stuff, my garden is in full swing and I have just about enough green beans to can a batch and I think I will be canning beets in a few days as well, also we should have summer squash and zucchini coming out our ears here in a few days--it's about time.



Also the latest thing is keeping Jake indoors, he will wake up and go straight outside to ride his bike at like 7am. Not good. I've got the child safety door locks but he's learned to rip them off and I can't seem to find anything better-other than putting in a chain lock. It would probably be fine, but he doesn't quite understand boundaries and he will go play in the neighbors back yard and ride his bike in the street. It's hard because we have so many fun kids in our culdesac I don't blame him for wanting to go play, they have been spending hours and hours out there, but he's just still too little. What to do, what to do. Okay, that's all for now.

Color Palettes

I've had a few people ask me about colors for family portraits. I think everyone wants a little help when it comes to organizing outfits for pictures, so here's a little cheat sheet :) This is especially helpful for large family groups.






Colors are not the only thing that will make your pictures pop, textures and patterns go a long way too! Chevron, polka dots, or stripes along with different types of fabrics look great.


I will probably be putting this up on my website soon. Enjoy!