This post is sponsored by Kodak Digitizing Box
One of my earliest and most memorable pre-holiday posts wasn’t about decorating or styled photos. It wasn’t a curated Instagram-ready spread. It was a handful of candid shots from a chaotic evening when we were trying to vacuum what we thought was a dead rodent in a dark, messy, undecorated hallway. That’s old-school blogging for you.
Those photos were taken just 48 hours before we hosted Thanksgiving at our house. A bit of holiday chaos from kids, pets, or home projects has always been part of our story — and some things never change.
The scene was wild, but it was exactly how our hallway looked that night.
My son Luke had just turned seven and was wearing underwear on his head — his go-to costume that served as a makeshift mask. I don’t even remember the last time he ran down that hallway with his “underwear helmet.” A year later we left that Portland house and moved to Washington.
How time flies.
A decade later, that boy is now an eighteen-year-old finishing his senior year of high school in Seattle. In June I’ll photograph him again, this time wearing a tasseled cap as he receives his diploma. A few months after that we’ll drop him off at college, take a family photo, and then his dad and I will drive away as new empty nesters. We’ll probably take a selfie in the car to mark the moment.
We take photos for ourselves and for future generations.
Our family has saved countless photos and videos that might not be “Instagram-worthy” to anyone else, but they mean everything to us. They tell pieces of our story, and preserving those memories matters.
Those wild, messy days — with kids wearing underwear on their heads and toys tumbling down stairs — felt endless at the time, yet they were fleeting and precious. I’m grateful we kept candid images like the giraffe scene because they capture our life exactly as it was: gloriously chaotic and unedited. No filter or staged backdrop could make those moments more meaningful now.
Some memories ended up framed or tucked into scrapbooks, while others landed in dusty boxes in the garage or bins in the attic. Maybe you have albums or boxes of photos and old tapes, too — perhaps even cassettes or VHS tapes you can’t play anymore.
The safest and most practical way to organize, protect, and share photos and videos is to convert them to digital files.
Whether you’re sorting through albums and bins yourself or gifting the task to a loved one, the KODAK Digitizing Box makes the process simple and reliable.
Each year we digitize more of our family media. The process is straightforward: gather your prints, slides, films, or tapes, label each item with a tracking sticker, and pack them into the KODAK Digitizing Box. The service accepts up to 19 media types, so you can mix and match formats — from VHS and Super 8 to 35mm slides, reel-to-reel audio, and printed photos.
KODAK handles the rest. Combining decades of trusted experience with modern technology, the service streamlines preservation. Each Digitizing Box includes clear instructions, safety barcodes for every item, a prepaid return label, and access to a personal concierge for questions.
I appreciate that the service uses state-of-the-art tracking and personalized updates, so you know where your items are throughout the process. A few weeks after submission you’ll receive your originals back along with a link to your digitized files, and options such as a thumb drive, cloud storage, or DVDs.
What better gift could you give your family?
Start preserving your memories today. For a limited time, KODAK Digitizing Box is offering 30% off your first order with code INSPIRED — a thoughtful way to save your past or give someone else the chance to preserve theirs.
Sponsored by KODAK Digitizing Box