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Kaylin Joy Perdomo

@heregoeskj

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follower of Jesus
family photographer

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While travel shaped me teaching me patience, how to notice the in-between moments, or how to find beauty in chaos — it also clarified something for me:

The most meaningful photos are never about the view. They’re about the people!

That’s why, when I photograph families, I care less about the perfect backdrop and more about the connection that fills my frame.

YOU are what I love to photograph the most! ✨ taken in Leander, Texas by @heregoeskj

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a year ago

spent a couple weeks in paradise celebrating my birthday, nate’s birthday, our anniversary, and something else exciting!!! 🤍

came back to find out n8’s job had been completely outsourced soooooo that’s fun!!! life is a big mix of ups and downs and i vowed EIGHT years ago to be with n8 through all the mountain top moments AND all the valleys.

can’t wait to see what the next 8 bring our way. @nathanperdomo you are steady and fun. you make every season worth living. you have the best factoids, jokes, and kisses. ilysm ✨ by @heregoeskj

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a month ago

an old me (probs in college) would’ve thought the #75hard was too silly and legalistic (probs so i just wouldn’t have to do hard things tbh). but discipline isn’t legalism. legalism is using rule-keeping to earn what God already gave you. choosing something hard because you want to grow is just called being a person. paul even wrote “i discipline my body and keep it under control” without a single disclaimer about it. he wasn’t apologizing for the rigor. we even teach river the phrase “perdomos can do hard things!”

i’m not saying you should do 75 hard. but i am saying find the thing that’s been sitting in the back of your brain (the one you keep talking yourself out of) and just start it. and then stick with it longer than feels comfortable. let it build something in you!!!

challenging but good. that’s the reframe!!!

here’s to whatever hard thing is in front of you today!!! 🥳🤍 by @heregoeskj

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4 months ago

a love letter to truecore ✨

a year ago my lower back/hips were bad enough that i was ending most days in tears. i was seeing a chiropractor weekly just to get to a baseline where working out again was even possible.

i came to truecore for myself just to start moving again. i rebuilt my core and got out of pain! but i stayed because of the people, and i don’t think i anticipated that.

in the past i’ve attempted running (ew), open gyms, youtube routines… all of it. and nothing really stuck. what i didn’t know i needed was a room full of actual humans in it who would show up consistently enough that i’d feel their absence when they didn’t.

in every single room there is someone to laugh with, someone to encourage, or someone who’ll encourage me. i don’t find community as a bonus feature of fitness but really the only reason the habit formed at all. (forming abs tho… definitely a bonus.)

if you’ve tried working out and nothing has clicked yet, it might be less of a character flaw or discipline issue. it might be a room problem.

find the right room. mines at @truecoreleander & you’re invited 💙 by @heregoeskj

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5 months ago

This year I shot more families than any year of being a photographer! (This carousel isn’t even half 🥲)

Becoming more secure in my own identity as a mother during River’s second year gave me eyes to see what I was actually photographing. More than sessions, they’re households. They’re covenant communities in miniature, and the primary mission field God has given many of us.

I got to witness so much this year. Chaos, tenderness, exhaustion, and fierce love. I’ve seen discipleship in real time as parents show up even when they felt like they had nothing left. I’m convinced the work of sanctification happens in the trenches of ordinary family life more than anywhere else. Revival doesn’t start in auditoriums. God sets the lonely in families. He calls believers a family. He knows what He’s doing!

If we can steward our own households well, if we can disciple the people sleeping under our roofs, we can disciple the world. That doesn’t mean we stop sharing the gospel with strangers. It means we recognize the weight of the assignment right in front of us. Photography lets me freeze these moments by the grace of God.

Scripture is full of God commanding His people to remember. He told them to build altars, pile stones, observe feasts, probably all because humans forget. We forget who God is and what He’s done faster than we think possible. Photographs can function the same way for families. They become physical markers of God’s faithfulness in the family He gave you. When your kids are older and you’re pulling out albums over dinner, you get to show them cute memories, but also the evidence of the continuity of a God who was present in their childhood.

My call-to-action to you as a photographer is to print your photos! Put them in albums. Hang them where your family sees them daily. Let your children’s story be reflected back to them in tangible form, not trapped in a screen they can’t access.

My call-to-action to you as a mother is to cherish the smallest moments, because discipleship happens there. Your faithfulness in little moments builds the foundation your children will later stand on. 🤍 by @heregoeskj

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10 months ago

turns out you can miss your old life and still never want it back!!! wild how both those things exist at the same time.

i spent months thinking something was wrong with me because i grieved a version of myself that honestly wasn’t even that great… she just had more time to waste. 😂 motherhood didn’t steal my freedom but exposed how i was using freedom to avoid growing up.

i don’t think god’s interested in making me more comfortable with loss but in using that loss to burn away the parts of me that needed to die anyway. my daughter interrupted a life that was going nowhere meaningful, and i’m grateful for the disruption even when it still stings.

motherhood presents new ways to die to myself and be conformed to the image of christ. every day gives me another chance to lay down my life the way jesus did. that old version of me never had those opportunities because she was too busy protecting ✨her comfort.✨

the grief is real but the transformation is better!!! by @heregoeskj

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a year ago

Before you send out Christmas cards this year, here are three of my best tips!

1️⃣ Include the year on the card! Some people save them (me and ur grandma), and it helps when you’re looking back trying to remember when that photo was taken.

2️⃣ Throw them into Canva, add the year and a “Merry Christmas,” and print them at FedEx to save a ton of money. And if you have a label maker, print your addresses instead of hand-writing fifty envelopes.

But if that’s not in your wheelhouse, use the code PRESSSAVER25 at @mpix for 25% off Christmas cards. 🙌🏽

3️⃣ Stop stressing about professional photos! As a family photographer, I obviously think you should get quality photos every couple of years. But your iPhone works, too. And I genuinely love seeing Christmas cards with iPhone photos on ‘em. It tells me you were out there living life!

…but if you do want professional photos, I’m always here for ya 😉 taken in Leander, Texas by @heregoeskj

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a year ago

Your weakness—the one you’re so ashamed of, the one you hide, the one that makes you feel like you’re failing—is actually positioning you.

We live in a world that tells us to be strong, capable, independent. As a believer and a mom, don’t we feel this pressure even more? We think we should exude all 9 fruits of the spirit at all times and spiritually thriving ALL the time.

But that’s not reality.

We snap at our kids. We feel anxious. We’re exhausted. We wonder if we’re messing them up. And sometimes we even hear the lie, “You’re not cut out for this.”

The thing I thought disqualified me most was my anger. My toddler could repeatedly be disobedient, my husband could say something that feels dismissive, and suddenly I’d feel this rage rising up in me.

And I’d think, “What kind of Christian mother gets THIS angry?”

I felt disqualified.

But God started peeling back the layers. My anger wasn’t the root, but a symptom.

➡️ Underneath the anger was grief.

I was carrying all this unprocessed loss, and it was turning into anger.

So I had to learn something really uncomfortable… I had to grieve.

Grieve past hurts I never processed. Expectations I had for how life was supposed to go. How being a wife was supposed to feel. How marriage was supposed to look.

But to me, even grieving felt like weakness.

👏🏼 BUT God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9)!

My anger didn’t disqualify me. It positioned me to wrestle with grief. To let God into the broken places & discover what really needed healing.

And as I worked through that grief WITH God, my anger actually got better. Anger and grief don’t control me anymore. My weakness was the invitation to experience God’s power!

So what if the very thing you think disqualifies you is actually positioning you to experience God’s power? To experience His strength. To show your children what it really means to live by faith—not perfectly, but dependently.

Maybe your anger is really grief too. Maybe your anxiety is unprocessed fear. Maybe your impatience is exhaustion you haven’t honored.

Whatever it is, it’s not disqualifying you.

It’s positioning you to meet God in ways you never have before! by @heregoeskj

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a year ago

You don’t have to love EVERY stage of your kid’s life.

There. I said it. 😅

You don’t have to ✨cherish every moment.✨ You don’t have to feel grateful when you’re cleaning up the third blowout of the day or getting zero sleep or dealing with a threenager meltdown in HEB.

The “enjoy every moment” pressure is one of the biggest myths moms believe. And it makes you feel like something’s wrong with you when the truth is—some stages are just hard. And that’s okay!

Ecclesiastes says, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.” Seasons change. Some are beautiful. Some are brutal.

🗣️ You’re allowed to be in a hard season and not pretend it’s easy !!!

Just because you don’t enjoy a stage doesn’t mean you’re failing as a mom. It means you’re honest… and honestly… your kids need a mom who’s real more than they need a mom who’s faking joy.

Instead of forcing yourself to “enjoy” every stage, look for ✨one thing✨ you can be grateful for in the stage you’re in. Not everything. Just one thing!

Newborn stage? Maybe it’s the way they smell.

Toddler stage? Maybe it’s their hilarious mispronunciations.

Tween stage? Maybe it’s the random deeper conversations you’re starting to have.

You don’t have to love it all. You just have to show up. And some days, showing up is enough!!!

🤍 Stop comparing your behind-the-scenes to everyone else’s highlight reel. You’re doing better than you think. And the stage you’re in right now won’t last forever. So give yourself permission to just survive it if that’s what you need to do today.

And when people say “cherish every moment,” you have full permission to smile and nod and then ignore them. 😉 by @heregoeskj

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a year ago

Let me ask you this: when you talk to your best friend, do you sit down at a specific time with a specific script and a specific tone of voice? No! You just talk to them. Throughout the day. About whatever’s happening.

That’s how prayer with your kids should feel!

Deuteronomy 6:7 says to talk about God’s commands “when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” That’s not a scripted formula… ✨That’s just life!✨

When you think of prayer like a conversation, you can better and more easily model it.

Here’s what this can actually look like:

🙏🏽Your kid empties out your new foundation everywhere (yes, true story). You say, “Okay, let’s take a breath. Jesus, help us not freak out. Give us patience while we clean this up.”

🙏🏽You’re stuck in traffic and running late. You say out loud, “God, I’m stressed. Help us get there safely. And help me trust You with the timing.”

🙏🏽 Something good happens—your kid makes a new friend, you find a parking spot, dinner turns out great. You say, “Thank You, Jesus! That was a gift from You.”
You’re not forcing it, you’re just including Him in your actual life!

And yes, bedtime prayers are great. But if that’s the ONLY time your kids hear you pray, they’re going to think prayer is something you only do at specific times, in specific ways.

And you get to show them it’s a relationship. 🤍 by @heregoeskj

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a year ago

You’re not supposed to stay the same person you were before kids.

I know that sounds harsh, but hear me out. The version of “yourself” you’re afraid of losing was always meant to grow, change, and evolve. Motherhood doesn’t erase you—it refines you! (If you let it.)

The truth is that losing yourself happens when you try to carry motherhood ALONE, without Jesus and without community. It happens when you believe the lie that you have to perform perfectly, show up endlessly, and never need help.

Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” You know what that means for us as moms? Our identity was never meant to come from what we accomplish, how we look, or even from motherhood itself. It comes from being found in Jesus.

So if you feel like you’re disappearing, that’s not motherhood’s fault… That’s what happens when you’re trying to do life in your own strength instead of His.

If this feels like you, here are a few practicals:

1. Stop trying to be the woman you were before kids. She’s not coming back, and that’s okay!!! Ask Jesus to show you who you’re ✨becoming.✨

2. Protect one thing that fills your cup. For me, it’s photography. (And sometimes barre. 😅) For you, it might be reading, creating something, or coffee with a friend. Don’t feel guilty about it… You literally NEED it!

3. Get 👏🏽 in 👏🏽 community. 👏🏽 You can’t pour from an empty cup, and you can’t fill your own cup alone. Find your people.

You’re not lost, mama.

You’re just being transformed.

And that transformation is supposed to hurt a little—because growth always does. 🤍 by @heregoeskj

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a year ago

For the mom who wrestles with perfectionism.

“Being a good ‘enough mother’ is to be a good mother, whereas the attempt to be the best will guarantee that you won’t be — in fact, you may be a damaging one.” — Dr. Richard Smith

What does this mean?

Perfectionism creates anxiety — in you and in your child. It suffocates connection. It trains your kids to believe love is earned through flawless performance instead of given freely.

But we are justified freely by His GRACE! (Romans 3:24). And grace is what mothers AND kids need most!

Instead of aiming for 100% perfection, aim for consistent repair. When you mess up, pause and say, “I messed up. I’m sorry. Will you forgive me?” This phrase makes room for grace, repairs connection, and creates security in your children. 🙌🏽

And messing up isn’t failing! You get to model what it means to turn back to God and each other! 🤍 by @heregoeskj

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a year ago