Warning: It is the day after Mother’s Day and I’m gonna brag on my kids, they spoiled me yesterday.

It started with Ava making me breakfast and giving beautiful homemade gifts.  I had the morning with Kyleigh chatting on the sofa while I sipped my coffee, a nice long phone call with my mom. Then Bryce and I rode bikes to North Beach Bar & Grill for a lovely mother’s day brunch. We couldn’t resist the sweet sugar sand of Tybee perfectly blended with 85 degree weather and refreshing waves calling us, so we spent a few hours on the beach. While I was working on my tan I received a nice phone call from my oldest son Carder (who lives in Virginia). Later I had to go to my job and ‘work’ in the evening photographing a beautiful elopement at sunset. The day was perfectly wrapped up when Baylie took me to Savannah for an awesome South African dinner. This all happened in one day.

I am blessed beyond measure with loving children that surround me, and fill my life with smiles, laughter even a few disagreements and tears.

When Sean and I decided to have five kids… yes we had always planned on having five. (Sean always says “You know why I have five kids? Cause I didn’t want six!”)  Some came at unplanned times, but nonetheless all were planned. I had no idea of the joys and pain that raising children would bring. I can honestly say that it has been more joy than pain. Although a few times they have given us a run for our money! Currently, two are adults, one is only months away from adulthood and the other two have a few more years to go before leaving the nest.

One thing I have learned for certain is that the time and years fly by and slow down for no one. I am so thankful that in the midst of living a crazy and full life, we still took time to build memories and enjoy both family and individual relationships with each of our kids. It’s pretty remarkable how five people can grow up under the same roof with the same two parents and yet be so incredibly different from each other. I celebrate their differences.

Since we moved to Tybee we have even more time with them. Every moment I treasure. They are growing up, finding their voice, and learning valuable lessons as they start to spread their wings and begin to make their own life choices.

Letting go is hard, especially when you want more for them than they would ever realize or want for themselves. They are each making their own way in this world, mistakes and all.  There comes a time when you can only trust that the values and virtues you have instilled in them have stuck and will guide them through the course of their life.

My biggest dream is for my kids to live a fulfilled and purposeful life. I can’t expect for them to have that figured out, until they start to experience the options that life has to offer them and see their life plan unfold. Sure I can fantasize about how nice it would be if I could set each of them up financially, hand pick their education and careers to have them start their adult life in a comfortable place. But unfortunately that’s just not reality.

Lessons that shape and guide each of us into our personhood aren’t learned in comfortable places or received in a gift wrapped box with a red bow on top. It happens in the making of decisions, both good and bad. Celebrating the good decisions and walking out the consequences of the bad, learning along the way. I hope they make more good choices than bad, but it ultimately it’s an individual choice.

I raised my children to know compassion, love with reckless abandon, work hard, play hard, and be respectful to those around them. Whether or not they walk in the same Christian beliefs and faith as Sean and myself, well… that is not my decision. God will have to do his part to reveal himself to them, just as He did in my own life. I can only raise them and extend to them the unconditional love that I have been given. They know where to come when they need a pep talk, a hug, shoulder to cry on or prayers from mom. We are always here with open arms and unconditional love.  I can only say thanks to God for allowing me to raise them. I trust that his plan of revealing himself to each of them individually is a far better plan, than mine would be.