For a parent, one of the most wonderful (and difficult) parts of raising kids is watching them grow up. You hear old adages warning us that “kids grow up way too fast,” but it’s hard to imagine just HOW fast it all happens until you experience it.

The best you can do? Enjoy every moment and try to document it as much as possible.

Well, that’s exactly what this dad decided to do. From the moment he saw his beautiful, newborn baby girl, it’s likely that this father already knew they were about to go on a crazy ride that was going to fly by. So he made the decision to start a project that day: to take a picture of his daughter once a week, every week, for the next 16 years.

To his credit, the photographer father was true to his word! Starting from her first week on earth, he snapped a picture of his little one every single week. In total, after 16 years and 52 photos a year, he was left with 832 pictures that documented his little girl growing up.

What he did next was brilliant. This dad took all 832 pictures and combined them into a time lapse video.

In just minutes, you can watch this newborn baby grow up into a toddler, an elementary school kid, a preteen, right into a beautiful young woman. Watching the transformation of this little human is astounding and we can only imagine it’s especially emotional for her family to look back on how she’s grown!

One of the coolest parts of the time lapse, besides watching her physically grow into a young woman, is seeing where she is in her life through context clues.

We see her at five years old with a dirty face and a backward baseball cap, obviously having just played outside. We see her crying or looking mad through some photos, talking to her dad behind the camera, and showing off tooth gaps in others. She even hoists up a medal at one point, which makes us think she excelled in some kind of a sport or placed at a contest.

The series of photos really does a beautiful job capturing life through these various ages and we’re sure it’s something this creative dad will hold onto dearly. When this girl turns into a full-on woman, she’s going to have a pretty incredible log of her childhood stashed away for her!

What do you think of this project and its heartwarming final result? Make sure to share your thoughts on this idea with us.