Photo courtesy of Rachelle Wilkinson

From setting up appointments at the fire station to squeezing five teenagers into a wheelbarrow, my experience recreating family pictures was a wild ride. Despite the challenges we faced, we completed our goal and the end result is 12 months of cuteness and nostalgia that will proudly hang from my wall for many months to come.

Five babies, one camera and 12 months of a calendar to fill—what could possibly go wrong? It turns out there are plenty of things that can go wrong, but none of them stopped my mom from making a calendar of me and my four quintuplet siblings from the year we were born until 2022. Not only have we captured plenty of adorable poses over the 16 calendars we’ve created, but we’ve made a lot of memories too. So, in 2024, we decided to do something big to relive those memories and to make some new ones before the girls leave home for college and the boys leave home to serve missions for our church: create a recreation calendar.

To begin this monumental task, we first went through our past calendars and flipped through the months to find our favorite pictures and the pictures that would actually be doable. Some—like the picture of us in plant pots decked out in diapers and flower headbands—we doubted we would be able to recreate, and those were knocked off our list. Soon enough, we had chosen our 12 photos, and it was time to get to work. 

Back when we took these pictures as babies, there were several challenges we, or rather my mom, had to face. One of the biggest ones is that we just wouldn’t stay still. My mom would work so hard to get us in the right position, whether it was walking on the railroad or posing in the pumpkin patch, but as soon as she had it just right, someone would mess it up by wandering off, picking their nose or bursting into tears. My mom had to start bribing us with candy and even enlist the help of a friend to hold up a computer in the air with a show for us to watch while getting our picture taken. 

We may not be running around rampant in diapers anymore, but there are definitely challenges to be faced when recreating calendars that were made over 15 years ago. For one, there are several places that have changed a lot from the time we took our original picture. For example, we took a picture with the “Quint 2” firetruck at the fire station when we were four, but when we went back, the original fire truck had been retired, and the new one was painted yellow and red and had only “Q 2” written on the back. We had also taken a picture on some wide steps in a business park, but when we went back to recreate it, the steps had been shortened significantly, and buildings had been built around them, causing our recreation picture to be slightly different from the original.

As we began taking these photos, we also realized it’d be a little more difficult to find the right props than we thought. For example, we took one picture on our back porch when we were one-year-olds where we held, and attempted to eat, giant lollipops. As we began searching for similar lollipops, however, we struggled to find anything close to what we had in the original. In the end, we had to settle for some slightly smaller lollipops instead. We also struggled to find a candy cane similar to the one that Kassidy held in a picture of us with Santa hats on, and in another, our new rose isn’t quite the same as the original. Pro tip: if you ever take a picture that you may want to recreate in the future, keep the props you used! 

Another challenge we faced was fitting into the positions we once squeezed into as kids. It turns out there’s a significant size difference between one-year-olds and 17-year-olds. One picture we had taken before we were even one, shows me and my siblings piled into a wheelbarrow by the fence in our front yard. After borrowing a wheelbarrow from our friend, we tried our very best to fit inside, and the end result was limbs sticking out in all directions and a very squished Kassidy in the middle. Another time, as we were recreating a picture of us sitting on a bench eating ice cream, it was a very tight squeeze to fit on that same bench compared to when we had once sat there with room to spare. Fortunately, my family is a bit vertically challenged, (particularly me at 5’0”), so we were able to fit just right for many of our poses.

Now you may be wondering how in the world five teenagers were convinced to take all these pictures.  I’m proud to say that we no longer have to be bribed with candy… Instead, we’re bribed with Diet Coke. After long drives to various locations, or many minutes of squinting into the sun, my mom kept our complaining at bay by promising us a Diet Coke at the end, and it truly worked miracles. Pro tip #2: bribery works wonders. 

My mom’s determination and our love of Diet Coke did the trick in the end, and we made our goal of completing the calendar by the new year. Now, much like it was then, our calendar isn’t perfect, but I’ve learned that’s the most fun part. It’s the little imperfections that give the pictures personality and make them so fun to flip through, even after the year has passed, and those 12 months of cuteness and nostalgia will proudly hang from my wall for many months to come.