“Stacee… you know how we’re not actually lost?”

I wasn’t ready to hear that.

Last year when Jack and I started playing The Lost Game after Wednesday night church, I naively thought he’d always think we were lost. I thought I’d never stop hearing “can I touch your nose?“. I thought he’d always run after me for a hug and a kiss goodbye. I thought he’d always be a little boy.

No one told me watching a little boy go from 3 to 6 would be so hard.

He is growing up so fast and I’m not ready for him to grow out of so many special and quirky things he’s brought to my life. So 2 weeks ago on a Wednesday night after church when Jack started telling me about landmarks and how he knows we aren’t really lost I gripped the steering wheel and wanted to go back. To the day in Phoebe’s room when he just wanted to be next to me, to the summer days when he was first brave enough to jump into the pool, to the day of the AVID summer photo shoot when he was so excited to ride home in my car, to bedsheet tents in the living room, to “heeeeeeeey staceeeeeeee“, to moving in next door. Even to just 6 months ago.

That Wednesday night, I got home from church, raced Jack down the driveway [really, it’s an unfair race, I have to run with his car seat in my hands, but I race him just the same. ;)] and when I walked in the door at my home I emailed my friend Lizzy and asked if she’d take photos of Jack and I. I don’t want to forget these days.

I was *really* nervous to be in front of the camera on Sunday, ridiculous nervous. But I needed these photos. I told Alexis that aside from all the nerves, the thing that kept me going was knowing that these photos would make me cry in 5 years, when Jack is almost a teenager, and he’s too cool to hold my hand when we walk to the post office. But the reality is these photos made me cry yesterday. ♥ I’ll never be able to thank Lizzy enough for these, please visit her blog where you can see more of the photos she took and leave some love. She is one amazing photographer.