remembering the joy of real-life photos

The other day,  my dad sent a card to the kids, along with a recent picture of himself.  My kids grabbed ahold of that picture and ran around the house, exclaiming “it’s a real life picture!  Look!  A REAL PICTURE!”   They treated it like a long-lost relic from the past.  Their excitement over a printed photo was kind of a wake-up call for me.  While I do a great job of curating our family photos on facebook, instagram, and on my blog, I am not very good at printing out real photos for our home or for my kids to enjoy.  In fact, when I interviewed our last babysitter while the kids where at school, she asked to see a photo of them and I didn’t even have one.  I had to pull out my phone to show her a picture. In part, I blame the refrigerator for our lack of photos.  In our early married days, our fridge was covered in overlapping photos.  It was the spot I always put the pictures that were meaningful to me. But shortly before we had kids, we upgraded to a stainless model that doesn’t hold a magnet.  So we have a pretty, shiny fridge, but no place to display our photos. In an effort to remedy this, I created a little chalkboard/photo collage area in our house and (for the first time in years) printed some pictures out.  The kids are loving it, and I’m hoping I can keep it rotating with all of our newest photos.  *Tip: trying to write on a chalkboard that has been painted over an orange-peel paint texture means your handwriting looks like you are 95 years old. Kodak is currently running a promotion for folks like myself, who have great photos that they fail to print out.  They asked us to identify “the one photo” – the photo that means so much – the one that captures a defining moment.  That is a hard one to narrow down for me, but I do love this photo from Kembe’s homecoming.  It’s the first time he has seen India since they were 18 months old.  I love the tender hug she is giving him, and the way Karis is straining to propel herself out of the baby carrier to see what’s going on. If you are wanting to get into the printing habit, Kodak is offering 20 free prints from October 17-23 to help you turn your virtual photo into a real photo.  Time to set those facebook/instagram/iphone photos free!  Click “like” on the KODAK Facebook page and you’ll receive a coupon for 20 free prints at a local KODAK Picture Kiosk. To find one near you, click HERE. National retailers include Target and CVS/Pharmacy. To sweeten the pot, Kodak has partnered with the popular Tumblr blog, My Parents Were Awesome. You can submit your own photos to My Parents Were Awesome Facebook Page throughout Free Prints Week and enter to win a Kodak prize package. How about you?  Are you good at printing out pictures?  Do you have a spot where you highlight recent photos in your house?  And what is “the one photo” for you?  If you have in online, link it up in the comments. {This post was sponsored by Kodak}