For Christmas I put together scrapbooks of their early years for our two children. The idea wasn’t an original one. Studly Doright’s mom, Saint Helen, had given Studly and his four siblings scrapbooks several years ago as Christmas gifts and for him at least, it remains one of his all-time favorite gifts.
I’m not a very crafts minded person, but in preparation for assembling these scrapbooks I made multiple trips to Michael’s (for non-Americans, that’s THE place to go for creative types) in order to purchase the books and to find appropriate decorative touches for each page. I bought tons of stuff and ended up using only a fraction of it. Project ideas, anyone.
I’m so awful at this type of thing that I actually started all this at the beginning of 2016 and had planned on presenting them with their gifts at Christmas that year, but I got bogged down in the minutiae, and it took me almost two years to complete the task. I’m still not sure how my mother-in-law put together five such books without going crazy, because I’m fairly certain some of my sanity was lost in the process.
I’d looked forward to presenting the books to my kids in person when we were all in Nashville that Christmas, but since I was an entire year behind, and we weren’t getting to see them for the holidays this year, I had to put them in the mail.
Now, I’d worked my butt off cropping photos and arranging them with curlicues and doodads. I’d spent countless hours searching through old school pictures and awards. The thought of trusting these works of heart to the mail almost drove me crazy(er). So, before I boxed them up for shipping to Dallas, Texas, where our son lives and to Port Byron, Illinois, where our daughter resides, I documented each and every page with the help of my trusty iPhone camera.
I’ll spare you from viewing all of the pages (you’re welcome). While I wasn’t there when they opened the books they both assured me they’d enjoyed their trips down memory lane. I’m so glad I spent the time creating these, but even more glad that I had only two children.
Peace, people.
I’ve been wanting to do this for so long!!!! Trying to get motivated at what I know will be thee biggest task ever due to trunks, suitcases, baskets, and bags full of pictures buried deep within a closet that hasn’t seen the light of day for 20 plus years is just so easy to put off for yet another year!! I’m inspired by you doing it, so if you could just come over and help me since you’re the expert now I could get it done by maybe 2020!!!! hahahahahaha!!!
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You bet! Glad to have inspired someone to do something….our photos are all crammed into a cabinet in Studly’s office. At one time I’d organized them, but every move took me back a couple of steps.
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AW, that is so sweet. And sometimes it is lovely looking at old pics of your kids xxx
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Thanks!
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Yeah, scrapbooks are a lot of work. I have a friend who does it for a living, and she’s said you have to have LOTS of patience. I could never do it. From the glimpse of what you shared, it really looks like you put lots of love and attention into this, Leslie. I’m sure they’ll love it and keep forever. – Marty
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I hope so! It was hard to let go of some of their stuff!
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So important, Leslie. I have given all mine photo albums, several volumes each. Grandchildren tend to look at them more than their parents. Well done.
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Thanks, Derrick! I’m hoping the grandkids will enjoy these as well.
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They will – definitely
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