How To Get Old Pictures From Olan Mills: Fill & Download for Free

I actually have several, most of which are stuffed animals. I’ll talk about two.First, I’d like to talk about my stuffed pig. Her name is Clara and she’s a Build-A-Bear product. I got her 8 years ago when my husband and I had been dating for just over a year. He and I went with his mom and younger cousin to do the bulk of our Christmas shopping. His cousin was getting a monkey from Build-A-Bear for his 18 month old baby sister and, as my birthday was only 3 days away, my husband decided to get me Clara. My favorite animals are pigs and I’ve always been a sucker for a stuffed animal from a boyfriend, both facts he was well aware of, so he and I made Clara together and rather than spend copious amounts of money on clothes for a stuffed animal we gave her bows on her ears and an over priced pair of Wayfarer style sunglasses to match our own (what can I say, we were 20 and thought we were the absolute height of cool 😎). We named her Clara after a character in a book I was reading and, until I got my sweet fur baby Fenris, she was my unquestioned snuggle buddy whenever my husband had to stay overnight out of town for work.The other monetarily worthless but sentimentally priceless stuffy I have is considerably older and entirely differently special. His name is Papa Bear because he was five to me by my Papa and Grandma Frog Mog (our special nonsense nickname for each other) when I was still in the hospital nursery after being born. When I first got him, I’m told (and have seen in pictures) that Papa Bear had a light brown face, hands, and feet, a soft pink nose and body, delicate white cuffs at husband wrists and ankles, and a squeaker in his left hand. He was my most treasured friend for all of my childhood. So much so, in fact, that I’ve only ever known him to be a faded and somewhat dirty pink body, and slightly scrabbly brown head, hands, and feet. I have no memory of that squeaker ever working as I apparently wore it out before I had a full set of teeth. No matter how many baby dolls or studies or barbies I had, Papa Bear was always the best. He was the one that until fourth grade I couldn’t sleep without having tucked in with me. He was the one that on a vacation to the mountains when I was 6 got tangled in the hotel bedding and washed by housekeeping. The hotel staff tore the clean laundry room apart looking for him and it was only by luck that he was found at one in the morning in the lost toy box that was going to be donated that next day. Upon his return I was asleep within minutes. For the last decade or so Papa Bear has lived in my dad’s fireproof fun safe because after a string of unfortunate events I no longer felt safe risking his delicate, nearly threadbare body to the harsh possibilities of existing in the world, even if he never left my bedroom. Papa Bear was my greatest confidante for so many years. He had both arms lovingly reattached by the amazing toy doctor Mommy more times than I can even recall. He went on car trips, and road trips, and vacations. He got to be in Christmas pictures on Santa’s lap, professional family photos at Olan Mills (I know, I’m showing my age), and even a couple of class picture day photos for the first couple years of school. He held secrets that have long since been forgotten and soaked up many tears caused by everything from scraped knees, to first love heartbreaks. Every so often I go to my dad’s gun safe and take Papa Bear our for a special cuddle, to tell him a secret that no one else can be trusted with, or yes, sometimes still to absorb some tears. Then I give him a kiss on the nose, snuggle him back down in the doll bed he rests in, and lock him back up where he’s safe. There will never be a time when I wont need my first partner in crime and while he may look like old junk to most people, he is absolutely an irreplaceable treasure to me, worth more than any amount of money or gold or precious jewels.