Scrapbook Saturday

Took this one just before I made a big 'ol mess!

Very thankful for the opportunity to use mom and dad's house (while they are out of town) for a spot to get away and work on some memory keepin'! And even more grateful to Dan for spending the day with the kiddos so that I could go! The only problem, is that when I go so long between times of working on these things, I end up spending the first hour just organizing my thoughts and getting set up! The good news (for my neurotic-need-a-plan brain) is I think I've FINALLY got a strategy to set-up/maintain our memory keeping.

For each child:

• "My birth-day" album-detailing the day of birth
• "Baby" album-age 0-1
• "Toddler" album-age 1-2
• from ages 2+ all photos will go into the family album

For the family:

• "Milestones" album (for storage of enlargements, and professional photos)-thanks, Choley, for this idea! I don't really journal in this one-only dates.
• general "Family" album, for this I plan to use a binder-type of album so that I can easily rearrange pages around or remove individual pages to make copies for kiddos if they want their own copy of the album in the future
• web log as a means of recording/sharing stories and thoughts, and help along with journaling in albums
• Special events (vacations, etc.) will go in a mini-book or digital scrapbook
• Christmas album (maybe) could include memories from each Christmas, traditions, cards, photos received from others, etc. -may make a mini-book this year...not totally sure how I'm gonna approach this one, yet....something like this might be cool...

My goal is to keep it simple...let the words & photos be the focus. I'm telling our story as one way of deepening our faith in God as we, and future generations look back and see his activity and faithfulness.

I'm trying to include the some smallest details of life- provisions and even those things that are hard or uncomfortable to write about! For example, I'm still struggling to write in Graham's album about the time we were in a car accident with a drunk driver, but I think it's important for him to know later in life, how God has protected him in this situation, and how He's brought good out of the whole thing.

My friend, Kim, is also a "faithbooker", (I think she may have even coined the phrase!) and she's got some neat perspectives on memory-keeping with the intent to honor God now and in the generations to come....and a good reminder to embrace imperfection in the process!

"Our children will also serve him. Future generations will hear about the wonders of the Lord. His righteous acts will be told to those not yet born. They will hear about everything he has done." Psalm 22:30-31