It is no secret I love doing newborn photoshoots. Between the newborn snuggles and getting to know proud moms and dads, and the little bit of chaos that young children bring into a home…it just breathes a little life and happiness into me.

Believe it or not, I really miss the younger kid crazy phase of life.

Whittaker, 7 day old newborn with Tink, 12 year old Weimaraner

This family of seven in their gorgeous Portland, Oregon home was no exception to all the beauty of family life. Four kids under the age of 11, welcomed number 5 on April 5, 2019. He weighed just over 7 pounds and he is a beautiful, obviously well-loved little boy.

He has a perfect little nose and chubby cheeks and kissable little baby toes.

They named him Whittaker, which is such an AWESOME name. My husband and I could never agree on boy names, especially if we were considering less than traditional names.

My husband loved to come up with all of the ways a name could rhyme with something inappropriate or list the ways a name could be made fun of.

Needless to say, we always decided at the very last second on our boy names.

Jade and Ashton struggled as well, though Ashton came up with a brilliant solution and asked that Jade either pick one of her top three names or come up with a top three of his own for her to choose from. Without any suggestions of his own, Jade chose Whittaker from Ashton’s list.

I approve. (My approval is of course, VERY important ;).

How cute are these Pottery Barn Easter Baskets Ashton has monogrammed for each of her kids?

One of my favorite things about doing a photoshoot with a bigger family is that it rarely (if ever) goes super smooth—there are always the inevitable meltdowns, tears and chaotic moments that accurately represent family life.

Why then would this be one of my favorite types of shoots? Let me explain:

Mom (and sometimes dad if he cares about photos at all…which isn’t very often the case in my experience) is thoroughly convinced by the end that the shoot was a bust. She often wonders if this family photo thing is even worth all the time, energy, bribing, threatening, frustration and of course money. She starts to question whether having children at all was a good idea (okay, maybe they don’t get to that point, but sometimes it gets pretty darn close).

Then, when they get to view their gallery, they ALWAYS end up surprised I was able to get so many photos of their family looking happy and the kids looking like they actually like each other.

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I don’t love all of this feedback only b/c I love a good compliment (though Words of Affirmation IS my love language), but more so because it SO PERFECTLY represents motherhood as a whole.

Being a mom is hard.

It is overwhelming and tiring and frustrating and overwhelming (wait did I say that already?). We wonder if we are failing like, oh, 97% of the time. We question if we are cut out for this, sometimes we might even wonder if it is worth the time, energy, bribing, threatening, and frustration.

We, as moms, are so caught up in the crazy of the little things, we often miss the big picture. We hyper focus on all the things that are going wrong or that aren’t going right, that we sometimes completely miss this big, beautiful thing we have in our family.

So, bottom line, just like motherhood is worth all of the long nights, frustrating days, mental, physical and emotional heartache…family photos are worth it too. Your kids are only this exact age ONCE. Your family is in this exact stage of life ONCE. Don’t miss documenting it just because it is hard.