ashleyo.photo: The LaRue's as a Family of 8!

We have some very good friends named the LaRues. You've seen them grace this blog several times, from our trip to Vegas, to Isaiah's first babysitter, to freezer cooking, and multiple family sessions (growing in numbers with each one)! Well, they've gone and done it again.. but this time they've doubled their kids! The LaRues are now blessed to include Jordan, Hayden, and Corbin in their family. The adoption of a sibling set is something God put on their hearts and it's been quite amazing to watch the process of how these 3 sweet kids ended up with the LaRues. I wouldn't call it an easy task to take in a 7, 6, and 5 year old when you already have a 3, 2, and almost 1 year old, but as Chris says, what God calls you to, He equips you for. Chris and Melanie make fabulous parents and quite honestly are one of the parental models we look to (I don't know if I would be telling Isiaha to "use your words" if I hadn't heard Mel say it years before!). It's fun to have the girls around, Melanie and I are so used to boy stuff! They had us over for dinner after the shoot, and Ray commented on how odd it was to have pink around the house ;c) Isaiah loves to play with all the kids, it makes me wonder if he wants to be a younger brother (he enjoys the roll of youngest at his sitter, Alice's, house as well). Anyways, I have only shot one other family of 6 (which actually was another really beautiful story of a sibling adoption, the Marlows). With so many young ones, I wasn't quite sure how things would go, but the kids were happy and smiling and we enjoyed a beautiful summer evening as I snapped away! p.s. I'm pretty excited that there was only 1 picture I did a head swap on (not my favorite thing to do, but sometimes necessary with a crowd).. crazy things was, it wasn't even a kid! **note: in looking for the links in the above paragraph, I came across an old blog post of mine titled, "my thoughts (on others thoughts)" (I'm clever, I know), but in it I wrote 3 quotes, one from the Bible, one from a blog, and one from Francis Chan. I had just read Chan's book, Crazy Love, and was commenting on his chapter over the lukewarm Christian. One description was saying that "Lukewarm people are moved by stories about people who do radical things for Christ, yet they do not act. They assume such action is for "extreme" Christians, not average ones. Lukewarm people call "radical" what Jesus expected of all of his followers." (p. 70. 71) I can not think of a better way to describe this post. Melanie was telling me after the shoot about all the "good for you, I could never" comments she gets. She went on to say that she is only making it by the seat of her pants (which I can tell you, from my vantage point, they are doing excellent as they shift so suddenly to a family of 8), but there are children with a need and they feel called to provide for them. That is Christ lived out. Even though I sometimes think of them as a super couple who can do anything (Chris is referred to as Google LaRue due to all his knowledge), they are people, who read God Word, and do what they can to live it out. Ray and I are very blessed to have had them in our lives the past 5 years. Okay, for real onto the pics now- For the first one, I was imagining the pictures with the pregnant belly, then the baby after he/she's born in the same position (if you're on Pintrest you should know that one). Here's my adoption take on it.