Home Is...Family Heirlooms

I'm participating in Sandy's "Home is..." series over at The Reluctant Entertainer for the first time today. I've been wanting to join Sandy's party for awhile, and things just kept coming up. The theme for this week is Family Heirlooms.

I know I've shared recently that the majority of "Special Touches" in the T home are of the Fisher Price and Polly Pocket variety, but we do have some special family treasures in our home.

We have some furniture and accessories that I'd classify as heirlooms, but I really treasure family photographs, whether it's a snapshot I took last week or a black and white portrait dating back 100 years.

Many people link their sense of smell to memories. I have no sense of smell (ever!), so I tend to remember things in snapshots in my head, if that makes any sense. I think in pictures a lot, and I believe that's why I value photographs so much.

They say a picture's worth a thousand words, right?

I think the mix of old and new photos in our home is a nice blend of stories and memories from several families over the past century or so.

The photos over the couch are copies of black and whites from my dad's side of the family.

My dad's mother and his father (playing in the Swiss Open, how cool!):

The photo wall in the Addition is a blend of old photos from T's side of the family and really really old photos from my mom's side of the family:

The large one is a portrait of my great-grandmother (4th from the left) and her six sisters, dated in the late 1800s.

Pretty cool, huh?

And this last one was a Mother's Day gift from Natalie last year:

An heirloom to me because my baby was so proud to decorate the frame and give it to me.

These photos don't mean a thing to people who don't call us family, but I enjoy peering at the faces, wondering what stories these people lived. I know someday, somewhere, someone will do the same with portraits of me.

Be sure you're camera ready at the next family portrait session...you never know where that photo will end up!

{Cheese!}