First Year Books

I have to be honest, I have not written anything in Israel's baby book since he has come home. If they say it all goes downhill after your first kid, then I fear for the documentation of my future kids' lives.

Although the baby book hasn't really happened, I have been faithful to write monthly update posts since we got his referral, and I have made two really cool books using Shutterfly. I'll gladly praise Shutterfly for its user-friendly, creative book options. Especially because I'm not a scrapbooker.

The first book was a recap of Israel's time at Hannah's Hope. Thanks to the amazing families that traveled before us, we have many pictures of his time in Ethiopia. I was constantly tinkering with the album until he came home, so just a few days after his American arrival I was able to print it out. Want to see?




When Israel came home, I figured keeping a book was just easier than printing pictures and putting them in albums. So I immediately started working on his book, continuing the monthly updates. Check it out:

I'm really proud of these books! They look great in person and I am thankful for an easy way to preserve the memories. I want to make another book that is Israel's whole adoption story, but I haven't had the time to start it yet. I like that I was able to spend a good 30 minutes every month working on his pages for the month, so it wasn't completely time consuming trying to recap an entire 6 month period. I also like that it is just about 6 months of coverage, because I was able to devote enough pages to each month and major activities. The twenty pages provided were enough for what I was doing.

So now that his first year is documented, I'm starting on his next book! Will asked me if I intend to do this every six months, and I told him yes, haha. The great thing about Shutterfly is that there are great deals on books, shipping, etc, that you can capitalize on if you just wait for the right time- never buy anything full price on there!

Last year I also did a bunch of books to document our first few years of marriage. I need to get started on our 2012 book!

*Shutterfly did NOT pay me or perk me to write this post. In fact, Shutterfly has no idea who I am. But I am just hoping to pass along an idea to other non-scrapbooking mamas out there!

Comments

  1. They look great! Love both of them. I love shutterfly for a quick album. My current favorite is blurb.com. Working on A-man's adoption book now. But your right, so time consuming!

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  2. So precious! I failed miserably with baby books as well, but I was able to make a few photo books. My goal is to start making a book for every year of our little ones lives, print them out and have them ready at their birthday parties to be signed by guests... like a yearbook of sorts. I just need to be better about sitting down once a month and working on each one.

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  3. These are beautiful! I've never used Shutterfly but have used the iphoto option on our Mac for creating photo books. They are also pretty user-friendly, but I do love the colors and designs in Israel's books. Great job!

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