Our Growing Library

Two months or so ago, I talked about our Family Year in Review book that I put together (read it here). I loved how it came together and decided that I wanted to do more. I wanted to do more Year in Review books each year but also more books. And I knew exactly what I wanted to do with the books.

Throughout my pregnancy with Addison, I wrote a weekly blog post with a picture about that week of pregnancy, what was happening, how I was feeling, and other small tidbits. Plus I wrote other posts regarding my pregnancy about everything from working out to gestational diabetes to her birth story. (You can check all those out if you are curious by going below and choosing the pregnancy label.) And I decided that I would love to have all those posts in one book. I thought it would be awesome to not just be able to look back on my pregnancy but when Addison is older and pregnant (so obviously way way way older) it might be cool for her to look back and see what I went through when I was pregnant with her.

So for months at a time I started putting it together. I added every last typed word, and yes I had to type it all up again because you can just copy and paste in this program. I added every picture and ultrasound. And after I got it together exactly like I wanted, I spent another month or so editing each and every page (and unfortunately I still found a pretty bad error, where I didn't move a thick line and it is covering some words - double sad!). The entire book ended up being about 89 pages total. So it was a little costly. Now I just waited for the next major discount. They were constantly having sales and discounts, but nothing more than 25% off. I had seen 30% once, which would still be better than the normal 20% off. So when I saw 40% I couldn't help myself. How could I pass on this opportunity?!

I couldn't.

Despite my one little error, I love how the book turned out. I got the dang thing for 40% off so that's even better. It's crazy to look back on my pregnancy and remember things I forgot about long ago. I love having it all in one place, in book form.

In addition to this pregnancy book, I have also been putting together a book of all the letters I write to Addison on a monthly basis. I added in all her milestones and pictures from that month.

Can you believe that that's even the same girl?

All these letters and pictures are from the first year of her life. I'm already putting together another book about year two. It's just as crazy to see how far she's come and how big she has gotten. This book wasn't as big as the pregnancy one but still more than I wanted to pay out of pocket without a discount. So of course 40% off is hard to resist.

I love how both books turned out. Yes, they are a little costly when you have tons of pages in there (which I did and couldn't help in books like these) but it was well worth it.