Holiday Family Yearbook { Pope Family 2013 }

I’d like to share a tradition I started 6 years ago when I met my husband. I thought it would be a nice gift to give a photo book of everything we did in 2008. We did a lot! One of the things I wish I had from my childhood was some of the memories that I have forgotten. I remember a few things here and there and have a few photos of those times, but I dont remember much before the age of 5 with the exception of a couple stories. My little sister is worse than me!
When I had children I wanted to make sure they had the photographs to look back and see the times they spent at daycare with thier little friends, or the places they got to visit like the Zoo or Museum, which they will probably completely forget later. Having these photographs in these books not only helps me get them off of my computer and seen by the world, it also is such a fun way to look back at your family yearbook each year and see how much people have changed or how much the kids have grown. I LOVE sharing these with my family on Christmas morning when they open the book and see everything we did that year. It so fun listening to everyone say “look at your hair!” or look how much weight you lost or Look at that old car!

Here is how I do these books:

I use Shutterfly! I know I’m a photographer and I should be using a Professional program, but hey, its somewhat user friendly and it gets the job done.
I almost NEVER pay for the book! yep! You heard that right… Shutterfly always has super sales and they give away free photo books ALL the time. Ive gotten some free photo book codes in my email and Ive gotten some from register reciepts at Safeway and this year, I saved all of my pamper diaper rewards and turned 1,000 points in for a free book. I use the 8 x 8 book in hard cover * You stil have to pay shipping, which I think is $13 or so. If you cant find a code, I think the book is around $30, which is still cheep considering you will have it forever.
Each month throughout the year I save my photos on an external hard drive under the month is was taken ( Pope January, Pope Fabruary etc.)
Each Page in the book is usually one month. Sometimes I’ll have no activities for that month so I will just extend an event like October usually has 3 pages due to Halloween and all the birthdays in that month.
I always put December in the following year.. because I give the book as a Christmas gift, it goes in the following year.
Good Luck and I hope all the new moms that had babies this year are taking lots of pictures and starting their own albums!