October 13, 2012

Going back in time...

Cheesin' with Daddy, age 4
Our family is not known for its organization.  Or, rather, most of our family is not very tidy.   One of us is very orderly, and he tries to survive in a family who values entropy.  Most of us also have amazing skills of procrastination.

We have a couple of decades worth of family photos.  All jumbled in series of shoe boxes.  All of them are from pre-digital age.   One of Hannah's favorite ways to spend time together is to pull out a box of photos and run through handfuls of pictures.   She loves pictures from she was little; shrieks of laughter emerge when she sees a ridiculous pose, or a satisfied sigh when she comes across a beautiful one.

Hannah has remarkable stamina and interest in the family pictures.  (means=the rest of us are sick of it)

But she's been in heaven lately because we're finally sorting out all the boxes and loosely organizing pictures by year.   Then they'll all be shipped out to be digitized and put somewhere in the cloud or hiding in a terabyte external hard drive.

Two year old bunny...
Mischievous and hungry two year old.  
One of my favorite pictures ever.  Fourth birthday!
It's a good time for us to take on this task. We have a month to get it all done.  Our formal dining table is COVERED with pictures.  With Thanksgiving coming up, we'll need a clean table for our turkey!



Disclaimer:  Kate and I spent a long time organizing these same boxes of pictures over a decade ago. We sorted them out along the perimeter of my bedroom.  We had almost finished when Hannah managed to sneak into my room. She made an ENORMOUS mess, shuffling all of the pictures into a mound.  We were so disheartened that we just put them into boxes where they've lived since.

3 comments:

Anna said...

What an enormous task! I'm sad to say I found a Walmart bag with film needing to be developed. Much of it was ruined. I'm glad you at least had them developed! The photos we have developed are thankfully in pocket style albums so they are in order. I recently brought them out so the adult children could reminisce. Enjoy the special times reminiscing with your daughter.

Cindy said...

Oh no!! I think I would have ended the task all those years ago too. Before I started working, I would take a roll of film, get it developed, buy the album at the same time I picked up the pictures and it would be done by that night.

The last 10 years? IF I develop them, they sit in photo boxes on the shelf, sort of organized with labels, 'Family; School; Pets'.

I'm impressed that you're taking on this task! Good for you!

Becca said...

Wow, you're brave! I have a zillion photos that need organizing, too, but at least most of them are still in their original processing envelopes with the negatives, with the date and location written on the flap. All in boxes in our crawl space, which isn't very useful. Sammi loves photos, too -- thanks for the reminder that I should pull her old albums out again!

Love these adorable pics!