It's been a decade and a half since I could round up a few kids for an impromptu photo shoot on a whim, when neighbor kids and stranger kids roamed through the house as if they lived there. My own three (and their roam-thru pals) are all grown, and kids are the farthest thing from each of their minds, they tell me.
But our Bilderhoos photos would benefit from having real kids in them. Kids will give a 'hoos a sense of scale. They'll spark imaginations like stick-kids can't, guiding people to seeing their own kids playing with a 'hoos in their own back yards. 
Or so we hope. Marketing is a mystery.
So in our quest for Real Kids, we asked around. Well, we asked one person, our new friend and Gail (proprietress of The Commons @ Fertile Ground and the Annex, where we've been living while in Olympia). Gail, we have come to realize, knows or knows of just about everyone, thrives on and excels at making connections, and has smoothed the path for us more than once since we arrived on her doorstep. Gail made a phone call to a couple she knows and arranged for two real children to come to the shop on Saturday for a photo shoot.
Bilderhoos+real kids :)