Memory Keeping

I was one of those girls in elementary, middle, and high school who kept a journal. No "dear diary" about it (okay, maybe in elementary school...), but I liked to record the things that I was doing. I'm almost certain that this is an inherited trait because Dad has several books from his mother and he wrote for us as well when we were little. I think this is why blogging appeals to much to me and why I've stuck with it for so long. I would likely be doing this even if it wasn't on the internet and definitely even if no one else was reading.

When James was born I started making photo albums for each month of his "busy" life. Typical first child. :) He had so many photos that I HAD to do it month by month instead of yearly. I quickly realized that the easier thing to do was just to copy and paste blog posts into my Shutterfly albums. {Yes, I have tried other websites - Picaboo and Blurb - and I just love Shutterfly too much to quit. It's SO MUCH EASIER to me. But to each their own.}

My momentum fizzled out and I wound up with just a few albums for James completed and a lot of half-finished albums. When Will came along it just added to my "to do" list and I've not been good about it. However, since the beginning of the month I've been working like crazy to get our albums caught up. It will likely take me years to finish, but I thought I'd share what I'm doing if for no other reason than to feel like I have to be accountable. Ha!

This week I've been working on Will's hospital book and his February book. {Once you're over a year you get quarterly books: Jan-Mar, Apr-June, July-Sept, Oct-Dec, and a birthday party book.}

So far, it's been relatively easy, just very time consuming. I'm going to work on cranking out a few of Will's for his upcoming birthday party. I'll get started on a few of James' after that. I'm trying to devote at least a few minutes every day to work.

But Lauren, you say, aren't these SUPER expensive. The short answer is YES. I don't buy them all at once or that would be outrageous. The one you see above is a 12x12 hard photo cover (not the premium) and is 32 pages long. Its price right now is $51. I have a $20 coupon right now that they sent to me. I do a LOT of business with Shutterfly and they periodically send me coupon codes. If you work on your books ahead of time and have them ready you can use coupon codes AND shop when they have great deals. The books are actually also on sale right now. Another thing is to collect Coke Rewards points. They have 12x12 books right now for 400 Coke points. I use those as well. It will make the book free (the limit is 20 pages so I'll have to pay for the additional 12 pages).

Hopefully at some point I'll get completely caught up and have these memories for my boys. Until then, I'll keep blogging to keep the grandparents entertained and so that I don't forget in the meantime. This is such a fun way to look back!