{Messy Monday} Baby book project

I must tell you that I wasn't glad to have the books finished as I was glad to have a tidy study again.

Picture it - about 350 pics, 6 albums, post-it notes organising the madness...

Thank God it's done!

Here are a few pics of what it looks like.

Remember my best tip is to let go of your perfectionism.

D and I, the kids and my mother looked through these 6 albums and we all focused on the pics, not how imperfect the photography or the light was, we just remembered the moments.

Have I inspired anyone to print some photos and put them in an album? 

The baby book project begins.... nearly 4 years late

So. I had this bright idea to make baby books for the kids.

It all started when I saw REALLY cute baby books at a Christian bookshop. They were on sale, they were cute and they only took 50 pics each.

I thought, "I can do that! That's only 4 pics a month" which in retrospect, are some famous last words.

I had a bit of a bee in my bonnet around the end of the year (as one does if you have annual lists) and started the process of choosing pictures. After looking through the birth month, I was totally drained. I then picked another random month (month 8) and while that was a bit better, I really just hated the project.

When I met up with Louisa and Jeanette in January for our photowalk in the Jhb CBD, I told them about this craziness and they both said to just let it go if I wasn't feeling it.

However, me + cute stationery = ISSUES!

 

With me being all up to date project-wise, I organised (decluttered and tidied) my study recently and found the cute baby book albums.

And so they once again went onto my to-do list.

For one of my April goals, I put "3 hours on baby book project" thinking that if I really focus, I can get it all done this month.

Choose pics, print, put in book.

How hard can it be?

This week my goal was one hour. Last night after chatting to Beth, I thought I'd do my one hour quickly.

Well friends, quick it was not. THREE hours later and I still don't have the 50 pics per child!

However, this is what I managed to do:

• chose 12 pics for each child for the 12-month photo frames (don't buy those things - they are a big mission)
• finally put the Jen.na Pr.att pics (first photo shoot - do you remember the hot pink and lime-green blog I used to have with the black clothing pics in the header?) in a little album
• went through about half the first year "starring" pics in Picasa

I've been thinking about why this is such a mission for me- I'm usually such a get things done person:

1. my photos are terrible compared to now and my photo organisation was a bit OTT so it's a real mission to go into each little folder. This is called over-organising.
2. small babies have never been my favourite kind of kids (except for sleeping babies!), not even my own!
3. D and I look terrible in most of the pics. I think this is shocking to me because somehow we functioned well enough in life to kind-of have a life. We went to work, we took care of the babies, etc. And yet the pics tell the story - we really do not look our best. Now that we're past that stage, I can see better how we looked!

And so I really want to rush through this process and really get it done. I'm tired of dwelling on that first year.

 

Today I got home and printed the 24 little pics. I tried to line them up to show through the little frames and it's driving me nuts (remember I don't have patience for fiddly things). But after I press publish, I'm going to try another way and hopefully those two photo frames will be DONE tonight.

Then I'm going to count up the pics and see if there are 50 or if I need to add some - truly there really are terrible pics from the first year so if I get 50 I love, it will be a miracle.

Do you have baby books for your kids? Do you intend to do them?

Do you think I'm mad? (I do!)