For the month of January, I am taking up personal project where I take a daily photo of my children. They are the stars of my show.

I decided to finish off my photo-a-day project with the attempt to get all my kids in the same frame. In looking around my house for the best lighting, I’ve determined that my bedroom has a warm, creamy light where I can produce some of my best images. Now, my bedroom has been the catch-all for random stuff that has not yet been unpacked and I give it the least attention, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I decided to put my 4 crazy children, who were on a lunch-high, on my bed in the most chaotic room of the house. “Crazy” is one word I can think of that defined this 15 minutes of photo-shooting.

If any of you are under the illusion that 4 young children will sit still and be sweet in front of the camera, especially the children of a photographer, you are SOOOO wrong! I asked them to sit at the head of the bed, hold Adam and look at me, which was a total flop. So, I pretty much put the kids on the bed and asked the other kids to pin him down. I put my finger on the shutter, letting the it just click, click, click away, hoping for some sort of Hail-Mary success that there would be at least one frame I could score with. The pinning of Adam turned into belly-zurburting, which turned into wrestling between the older two boys, which turned into crying, which turned into a whole lotta crazy. After I sorted through the images, I did a lot of head-shaking, but as I came across this one, I stopped and said to myself “this SOOO represents my kids”.

In the midst of crazy, Mallory has a sweet and gentle approach to it, where Ethan is full-force, 100% WILD. Evan watches his older brother and follows his lead, not yet understanding his own identity in the crowd of his siblings. Adam rolls with it all. He’s a laid back guy who takes his siblings in stride.

I love the shot that I got, since it shows WHO my kids are. It’s amazing how quickly the shutter will capture such an instance in time that is so valuable and priceless. And this, my friends, is why I love photography.

For the month of January, I am taking up personal project where I take a daily photo of my children. They are the stars of my show.

Adam is a great sleeper. He sleeps about 12 hours each night and takes two naps during the day with the naps ranging anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours each. He loves his bed and even enjoys playing in his room all by himself. When he is downstairs, though, I am constantly asking myself “Where’s Adam?”. We do not have a gate at the stairs. The kids don’t always close the bathroom door and the boys don’t always close the lid. Truth be told, the boys don’t always flush either! The kids don’t always pick up the crayons and markers after they’ve used them. Needless to say, Adam has been found climbing the stairs, wet from a recent toilet play with a crayon sticking out of his mouth. Hence, “Where’s Adam?” is on the forefront of my mind.

Patrick worked late tonight, which happens a few times a week, so we had dinner on our own. Since I was flying solo with dinner duty, kitchen clean-up and bath time, I just couldn’t focus on the “Where’s Adam” question, chasing my newly-turned-crawler-to-walker dude around the house. So, he went into the pack’n'play.

Ev and Mallory were bathing and Ethan was waiting his turn. Instead of finding a Star Wars toy to play with, he decided to play “toss the stuffed animal” with Adam. Then he decided to sing to him. While I was finishing up the dishes and checking on my bathing children, I heard giggles and laughter from both my #2 and my #4. I MUCH preferred the music of laughter than the frustrated cries of my sweet boy from confinement within the prison of the mesh walls.

Ethan really does love to play with Adam. These two boys are similar in many ways and I hope that they will be buds as they grow up.

For the month of January, I am taking up personal project where I take a daily photo of my children. They are the stars of my show.

Patrick and I look at our daughter and wonder where the time as gone. In the last 6 years of her life, we’ve moved twice and had 3 other children. And through it all, she remains happy, mainly because she’s with her family and that is enough to make her content. She seems to have the personality to need the security of her Mom and Dad more than anything else in life. She tells us often that she never wants to get married, that she never wants to move away from us, and that she thinks we’re the best mom and dad in the whole wide world. She looks past our flaws and the mistakes that we make and she sees the whole picture of parenting. In her innocent youth, she has great wisdom in what she values: the matters of the heart and looking at life holistically rather than keeping records of all our wrongs at the end of the day. No matter how much Patrick and I stumble along this road of parenting, she faithfully loves us, walking along with us as we figure it all out. She’s trusting us as we guide her, even though most of the time Patrick and I feel like we have no idea where we’re going!!!

One thing I’ve noticed recently about this age of my daughter is that once she turns 7, it seems as though she’s no longer considered a “little girl” in the eyes of the mainstream. The clothes in department stores start getting edgier. The shorts get shorter. The tops get tighter. The pajamas look more progressive, rather than cute and dainty. These kind of clothes just don’t seem to suit her. Mallory is content with being a little girl, though we can see her excitement in getting older. One thing I’ve really liked about keeping her home for school is that her innocence and ignorance of vagrant sin is still intact. I know that as she gets older, she’ll understand how fallen this world is, but I’m hoping that her faith in Jesus and her maturity will help her overcome what she will face in her coming youth.

My sweet Mallory, you will ALWAYS be so precious to us. The way you trust and love your Mom and Dad give us deep joy. We hope that you will walk with us through these coming years as you’ve walked with us in the past years. The path that we guide you on is for your good and God’s glory. When you step out into the world on your own, we hope that you will see the firm foundation under your feet and walk confidently on it.