A couple of months ago, my friend, Cindy — another mama of four — suggested a monthly photo challenge: taking a family portrait as well as a portrait of each individual child, preferably with our “real” cameras rather than with our phones. I said YES! I tend to let my camera sit in the corner collecting dust, so I welcome the accountability to help me get it out and actually use it on a regular basis.
That was back in May, and I’ve already been slacking. Oops. I DID manage to take portraits of the kids individually and together, but I haven’t taken the time to get photos of all six of us. I’ll get it done this month. (I hope.)
I know I won’t always be able to catch everyone looking at the camera, or smiling, or sitting still, but really, that’s not the point. I want to document the kids in real life, which translates into messy hair and dirty faces and holey clothes and silly expressions. I know, down the road, I’ll be glad I took the time to do this. I’m already excited to look back and see how our family has changed, month by month. (I’ll do my best to post the photos here!)
You can see the individual kid photos from May in this post, and here’s a couple of the together shots I took…
Which one do you like more?
And here are the individual shots from June… (I love these kiddos so much!)
The next one makes me laugh. I took at least twenty pictures and could NOT get anyone to look at me for more than half a second. 
But yesterday, the last day of June, I snapped this pic on my phone…and everyone was looking in my general direction!
Feel free to join us in this photo challenge, and please let me know if you do!
-Abby