I've been collecting pictures of my children for a "When You Were Little" book. I think I'll use Snapfish or Blurb or some such self-publishing/photo processing option. And maybe give them to my children when they turn eight. Or ten.
Even at five, Henry is already amused when I tell him about the way he used to pronounce words, or the gestures and routines of his toddlerhood - there is an obvious warmth and satisfaction in imagining himself as a tiny boy.
I just thought I'd share the idea. And if you're inclined, you can start capturing your littles with this in mind. Here's a little sampling of what I've collected so far (for Henry):
When You Were Little...
You were kind
You had Fred Flintstone feet
You loved to suck your thumb
You were smart
We played in the Texas rain
We were pals
I kissed your cheeks all day long and wanted to eat your neck for dessertI could post 47 (hundred) more, but I think you get the idea.
How are you recording your childrens' lives?
10 comments:
What a darling idea (and sweet pictures)! I love this.
wonderful post - it can be such a struggle!
I am an artist and I draw and paint portraits of my children and other parent's children as a way to capture and preserve special moments in time.
I blog about this post and my portraits here...
http://lovelybud.typepad.com/lovely-bud/2010/04/capturing-memories-keeping-record.html
I post almost everything about our lives on my blog, and then I use Blurb to upload it into book form. I just printed off my first volume for 2009 and I love it! I'm also planning on going back through and making a smaller book of just the pictures and posts from DD's first year of life and publishing a book like that for her.
I also set the goal at the beginning of the year to type up at least one story from my life each week to begin my personal history. Usually I end up typing several more though! I have folders on my computer labeled as different eras of my life and when I think of a story I just go and type it up in the correct folder, so there's some sort of order to them. Eventually I plan to publish them via Blurb (or such similar site) so that my kids will have a history of me too!
That is such a great idea! I have scrapbooks for my girls, but I'm now 5 years behind. I plan to catch up very soon, but I am worried that they won't want all the books. My oldest has 5 already. Yikes. I didn't think about that when I started. But maybe I'll get to keep them and I can review them often. I often wish I could have seen pictures of my childhood in a similar format, but what would I have done with 10 scrapbooks of my childhood???
One thing I love is the blog2print option of printing my blog in book form. I just got my first full year in a book last week. It's a wonderful journal of what we were up to for the year, complete with digital pics. It was about $100 for the book, but worth every penny. I blog A LOT so it may have been more expensive than another who doesn't blab as much on their blog. :D The only problem now is that there is only one book, and I have two girls. I'll have to figure out if I should get another so each can have one?
That's such a lovely idea. my kids love hearing stories about themselves from when they were little.
I Keep a little notebook on each of my kids that I record silly, funny, memorable things about them in. Then when I finally get down to scrapbooking, I have some "meat"! Sometimes we just read the notebooks and have a good chuckle!
I love the storybook feel of that Em, so sweet. And Henry? I could eat him up. So fun to see him as a baby. :)
A couple of years ago I started collecting little things throughout the year (cute artwork, Dr's appt. stats, a random snapshot from a special date with Dad etc.) I put them all in a little cupboard, and at the end of the year put each item into one of those clear view sleeves, then have all of those in a binder for 2009. etc.
It's been great to have a place for that stuff that's too cute to throw away.
I have done something similar. Actually, I have taken this same idea for other special events in our life also. I have liked using Shutterfly.
I have thought about this so much lately. I just had my first child 2 1/2 months ago and I hope to add many more to my family, so I didn't want anything too complicated. In trying to figure out what I would think was manageable, even once I have a large family (I don't want to have tons of stuff for my first and nothing for my last), I came up with two things I want to do. First, I decided that every birthday, I will take five minutes of video of that child. I think it will be fun to watch them change year by year. The other thing I am doing is once a month I write her a letter. This letter talks about firsts, things of importance and the things I love about her at this age. The letters may space out in frequency as she gets older, but they dont take long to write (10-15 minutes, usually) and I put them in a binder with some pictures of that time period. I plan to share this with her as she grows up so she can see how she's grown and also hopefully always know how much I love her.
I started out with paper scrapbooking and was able to keep up pretty well, but with a third on the way and the pain of adding SO MANY BOOKS, I have fallen behind. I have since gone to digital scrapbooking, which I love.
I decided to make ONE digital scrapbook a year of a record of all our events. Then for each kid, each year I will make a 2 page lay out for each month, so each year they get a small 24 page book of highlights of their lives.(maybe a 8X8 size, or I will just print it in book form like blogs are printed out).
At the end of their books I will include a DVD of all of my digital pages that are in my ONE fmaily scrapbook, that way they have everything to look at or print when they desire to do so. It still seems like a lot, but I wanted to do something more then just my blog. I do love my blog and have one volume printed, but I still love to scrapbook, so this is a way I feel I can do it without feeling too much of a heavy burden.
Oh and I decided that each of my children will get one big scrapbook of their first year of life since that is when they change the most.
I have tried to sit down and do one to two pages a night. It's not too bad when I just have to sit at my computer and not cut paper and use glue.
I am still behind though, it's so hard to catch up!
I think everyone's ideas are great though, I just think it is important to keep some kind of record in one form or other.
Good question! We were going to do one of those online books for her first year, but life got busy and complicated and we never got around to it .. I like your idea though.
Post a Comment