Who are Walker Hayes' children? Singer celebrates his family completing a year of trick shots challenge

Walker Hayes and his family recently celebrated completing a year of daily trick shot challenges. These challenges included various activities, usually involving sports equipment and household items.

On May 28, the singer took to Instagram to celebrate day 366 of completing trick shot challenges, encouraging his fans and followers "to do something with their family" everyday for one year.

Reflecting on the achievement in an interview with PEOPLE on May 27, Hayes stated:

"It was like an amazing movie but I wouldn't describe it as fun."

Walker Hayes has been married to Laney Beville Hayes since 2004. They have six children: three sons and three daughters. Their daughters are Lela (18), Loxley (10), and Everly (7), while their sons are Chapel (16), Baylor (14), and Beckett (12). Tragically, their seventh child, Oakleigh, died days before her due date due to a uterine rupture.

Throughout the year, the Hayes family tackled various tricks, including heaving basketballs, bouncing ping-pong balls, flipping water bottles, rolling duct tape, toppling dominos, and shooting Nerf guns.

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Walker Hayes detailed his experience of completing a year of trick shot challenges with family

In his conversation with PEOPLE, Walker Hayes shared how the journey of trick shot challenges began with him and his three sons successfully completing a few trick shots and posting videos on social media. The family then decided to do similar challenges for an entire year and record the same for social media, barring the failed attempts. He noted:

"I just thought, hey, it’s easy to post. Everybody likes it. The boys were excited. It was kind of early summer, and the weather was really nice. So yeah, it just made sense. Let’s do an entire year."

However, after a month, Walker Hayes and his family realized it was not a good idea to commit to the challenges for an entire year. There was the need to come up with a new trick everyday, while repeated failures led to frustration, Hayes detailed in his interview. Hayes admitted it was "no longer fun" and a "grind."

However, all eight members of the family remained determined not to quit the challenge midway and kept on coming up with new tricks. He said:

"I truly feel like colleges or high schools should do a trick-shot class. It taught my family — and Laney would agree — more than any class we’ve ever taken."

He further continued:

"Consider it: Every day, they set a new goal. Excitement built at the start, but then naturally, their first attempts failed. Thirty minutes, an hour, two hours later, they were still trying. Sometimes they came close. Spirits shifted constantly between hope and discouragement. And then, finally, blessedly, their reward arrived. Temporarily, of course, because, after all, tomorrow was another day."

Walker Hayes compared his experience to "a metaphor for everything beautiful and meaningful to me in life," such as marriage, bearing children, or chasing a dream. Just like nothing beautiful in life comes without struggle, he and his family had to work hard to complete the trick shot challenges.

Hayes also described to PEOPLE how doing the challenge brought the family closer, melted their "egos," and converted them into a "selflessly supportive unit." He explained:

"At first you’re like, oh, I want to get the shot. I want to be the one that hits the cup. But an hour in, you’re like, I will literally celebrate if anyone gets it, and I will say that I was on the team and take credit for that. You’re just rooting for the team."

Walker Hayes added that it was "amazing" to watch his sons complete the trick shot challenges. After a while, the boys started to "take charge" even in their father's absence. The singer mentioned that some challenges were easier to finish than others.

It was not always so easy for Walker Hayes and his family. The singer told PEOPLE how they had some failures and sad moments due to "time constraints" and detailed that they had around 20 unsuccessful trick shots. Recalling the "nightmare days," he said:

"Those moments would come, sadly, just because of time constraints. We definitely had some nightmare days where we tried and tried and tried for hours, and then when we got it, we noticed the camera ran out of batteries or the person filming didn’t film it right."

Walker Hayes reiterated that the experience has not been like "paradise" or "bliss." Instead, it has been "hard" and a "struggle," but it would be an "adventure of a lifetime" for him.