The Whole Picture

In the year that we lived with Bruce's parents, time sort of stopped.  We were living our lives, yes, but it was all out of focus.  We were going through the motions in the most minimal way.

Most new parents take a plethora of photos of their first-born child.  Usually, some of those get framed and displayed.  We took hundreds of pictures in Emmie's first year and a half, but there was little follow through.  Why print pictures if you have no wall space of your own to hang them?  Last year, we got portrait studio pictures taken around Christmas.  Since it was a package deal, we got a few 8" x 10"s and smaller prints.  We gave some to our folks, who did the normal grandparent thing and put them out for everyone to see.  Our copies, however, stayed in the envelope and got tossed in a box.

One thing our new home has been missing is photos.  We have the ones that were already framed of our wedding, friends, and family on the stairway ledge down to the basement, but we have almost no pictures up of Emmie!  It felt very weird and bare here, like we weren't acknowledging the most significant aspect of our life.  Before the housewarming party, I cut up a collage photo of Emmie's baptism and used the 4" x 6" from it for a cute owl frame we got as a gift.  That was the only photo out on the whole first floor.

Recently, we discovered a black and white photo collage my friend Jeanette made us for our engagement.  It has six snapshots of Bruce and me from when we were dating.  We forgot we had it!  It, too, went up in the living room.

For the housewarming, one of our friends got us a gift card to a home furnishings store.  I found an awesome picture frame/shelf set online on clearance.  We used a free shipping code, plus another coupon and the gift card to get it super cheap.  Bruce is all about couponing and getting a great deal.

It was at our doorstep when we got home yesterday.  Bruce promptly started drilling and hammering.  I pulled out the prints from that box, including the Christmas ones from last year.  We had just enough for each frame.  

We're really pleased with how it turned out.  It adds character to one of the many blank walls and best of all, we can show off pics of our adorable daughter now!

This morning, I made an appointment with a portrait studio for this year's Christmas photos.  You can be sure that those pictures will make an appearance on our walls.

Slowly and steadily, we are adjusting to this new vision of our lives.