When COVID hit, a lot of photographers started doing "Front Porch" pictures--taking family pictures on your front porch to document being quarantined at home with your family. I loved the idea behind it, so of course we hit up Rachel and paid her to take our pictures. :) And it was the fastest and easiest photoshoot ever! One of my favorites!
LOVE this picture of the kids:
I posted this to social media when I shared these pictures:
Front porch pictures, taken by the fabulous @rachelamyphotography. It’s taken us 6 weeks (or is it 7? Or 5728 like it feels like?! ðĪŠ), but I think we’re finally starting to get a hang of this quarantine thing. Basically, I’ve just finally lowered my standards low enough that I hardly expect anything of anyone anymore, so if anything even remotely productive happens during the day, I feel like we’re rockstars. ðŠðŧð Seriously though, it’s been quite the roller coaster—fluctuating between loving having everyone home together with such an open schedule...to hiding in the closet sobbing because there’s no end to everyone needing me, and all I want to do is just get ready for the day and have some peace and quiet. But overall we’re doing well. And lowering my expectations has helped a ton. And we recently made some changes to work on spending more quality family time together, which is helping us love each other a little more/fight a little less (though there’s plenty of that that still goes on ð). But even through it all, there’s no one I’d rather be quarantined with than this crazy little/big family of mine. ❤️ And how grateful I am to have pictures to document this time—in front of our house that we love and are so grateful for. ðĄ (And can we just talk for a minute about how HANDSOME the boys look when they actually do their hair and wear something besides basketball shorts and t-shirts?! ð) #frontporchproject
I've had such mixed feelings about this whole quarantine thing. In some ways, probably more than not, I've really loved it. I've realized I'm an introvert at heart, so having an open schedule and being able to stay at home without anywhere we've had to be has been really nice and freeing. I love that we've been able to focus on our little family so much more--focus on teaching the gospel in our home even more, focus on brotherly relationships instead of friend relationships, focus on doing things as a family instead of running to our separate activities, etc. I love all the TIME we've had together. But on that same token, in some ways it's made me feel really guilty for not taking more advantage of that time to do more intentional, quality things together as a family...instead of just focusing on surviving (& giving up and letting the boys spend way too much time playing Minecraft and things like that). Those first few weeks/months were really rough as we tried to get the hang of everything, especially with Hallie being so young and still nursing a ton and me running off so little sleep. I mentioned above sobbing in the closet, and that really happened a few times. There were some days that my only goals were to get ready for the day (shower, hair & makeup) and maybe get one other small thing done...and nursing baby + crazy disaster-making toddler + homeschooling for the older three made it so that it would be late afternoon sometimes before I'd get a chance to start getting ready, and it was SO hard! And then all the non-stop fighting & whining & complaining from everyone! So I had to finally lower my expectations and plan on not getting anything done for myself until after lunch, and that helped a ton. And we made some changes as a family and started doing some more planned family activities, which helped. And then as time wore on and Hallie got faster at nursing + more predictable, and as we got more into a groove with the big boys, life started slowly getting easier. (And it helped to have things open up more in the world/us get more comfortable with covid and how to handle everything so that we could start getting out of the house a little more) And now we're at the point where I feel like we're finally in a pretty good groove (not that we don't still have our hard days)...just in time for school to start and to have to figure out a new groove all over again, haha.
But overall, I really do think I'll look back at this time with fondness. When life starts to pick back up and get super busy again, I'm sure I will long for these days.
So I'm so grateful to have these pictures to document this time. And I'm so grateful for the time we've had together as a family--I love our little family so, so much. (Even if we drive each other crazy sometimes...!)
