“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”

One of my goals for this year was to get all my photos that were taken “pre-digital” on old-school printed photos, and scan them in so I could have digital copies of all of them. It is something I have been wanting to do for years but just never had time for it. But tonight, finally, I pulled out all the old crates of printed photos and began organizing them into piles by year. My friend came over to help me and it took both of us about four hours to sort through literally thousands of prints and to organize them into the years they were taken. We were working as fast as we could to try and get them sorted tonight.

Even though we didn’t get to stop and really spend time enjoying each picture, just glancing at these photos that spanned the years from 1996, the year my first child was born about 2005 when I had begun taking digital images instead, the memories came flooding in. It was so amazing. As I glanced quickly at each photo it was as if I was back there in those moments when the photos were taken.  Lying in the hospital bed holding each of my babies, their first Christmases, their first birthdays their first haircuts, their first steps, potty training, their first trip to the zoo and Disneyland, and a million other memories that happened over their early years. There were so many moments that I hadn’t thought about in years!

This exercise tonight was step one of achieving my goal. First organize them by year, then scan them all in to the computer, and lastly, load them onto digital photo frames to enjoy for years to come.  Plus digital frames loaded with awesome pictures of great memories are perfect gifts to give people for Christmas (just in case any of you needed an idea of what special gift you can give someone this year).  I am excited to really take the time to spend looking at each one more slowly so I can relive all of those memories.

I highly recommend that any of you who haven’t pulled out those old school printed photos in a while should totally do it this month! You will be amazed at the memories you will relive as you go through them. It is a great nostalgic way to see your holidays from years past and it will totally put you in the mood to make amazing new memories this holiday season! Plus those printed photos will fade with time and you don’t want to risk losing the reminder you had of those special moments in your life. Because life is about those moments that take your breath away…

~Amy