A Day in the Life with the Dekker Family

I was so excited when Janine contacted me about wanting to do a day in the life family session with her adorable family. One year ago I did a lifestyle session for the Dekker family and it was one of my favorite sessions to date. To see the triplets one year ago and to hear a little more about the Dekker families story click here (I highly suggest checking it out)!

I joined the Dekker family on a Sunday evening. Janine and Jordan are busy people between all of their farming, greenhouses, and 3 toddlers of course, but they make sure and take Sunday off as their family day. We started at their hop yard and it made for the most beautiful backdrop. Wait until you see the kids outfits… they look beyond adorable. There are suspenders, jean shirts, and bows in the hair involved(I know… adorable right?). We had some beautiful sun glowing through the hops and the kids were so good! Janine made a good call by starting with the more formal family photos because the kids were still warming up to me at that point and they were smiling away for those family photos looking adorable. I never knew that I could get 3 toddlers to look at my camera at the same time, but they made my job easy! By the end of the night they were their silly fun selfs. They even had a bunch of ideas for photo poses. It was the cutest.

After the hop yard the kids got to put on their play clothes and show me around their farmhouse. I got to meet their adorable goats: Peanut, Annie, and Sunny. Annabelle was chasing them around and keeping them out of moms flowers and of course giving them hugs every now and then. And the boys got to cruise around on their very own John Deere tractors. I am pretty sure they could jump in a car right now and drive better than most adults after seeing how good they drive those things. Next, we journeyed over to their backyard greenhouse where they showed me how to plant. These kids need to come over to my house and work their magic on my extremely small vegetable garden because they know their stuff! They planted away and then got to go harvest some of their favorite plants in the garden. They were really excited about the zebra tomatoes (and so was I). Annabelle was stashing away all of her veggies in her new vegetable dress (those are some big pockets!). This is Janine’s first year having her garden for Farmers Wife CSA  at her home and her and Jordan put a lot of work in to make it happen. She grows for several families that have weekly pickups and she even grows for a local chef. Janine’s blog is one to follow because she shares awesome recipes on how to prepare different vegetables. One of her Instagram posts even influenced me to try Swiss Chard for the first time because of all of the health benefits she shared about the leafy green.

Then we got to go see their chickens and collect the eggs from the day. My favorite quote of the day was Jameson yelling “This one’s a double yolker”.

They got to jump on their trampoline and play in their huge sandbox and then it was time for a snack. Deacon was kind enough to bring out some chocolate chip cookies to share with everyone. We had the most perfect evening for the Dekker family that ended in the most beautiful sunset. Thank you so much Jordan, Janine, Deacon, Jameson and Annabelle for letting me be part of the family for an evening!