Photos tell our Stories

For those that know me well, know I am a photo nut. My mother long ago when I’d complain about being bored would tell me to get a hobby. I grew up watching her spend her spare time sewing and reading. So following my mother's advice and example early on in life I began the three hobbies that I still indulge in today-reading, writing, and photography. But not photography as in taking pictures but as in using pictures to tell a story. In our new digital age, we love to share photos and even create digital albums on social media. I do this a ton, but I have always loved to be able to look back at pictures years and even decades ago in an organized photo album or book that tells a story of a different time in life.

In high school I took up scrapbooking.  My memories of my  four years in high school are saved in one of those giant three ring binders full of scrap book pages that I spent years creating.  Unfortunately or fortunately because I didn’t have much spare time and I was busy having a lot of fun, my college photos never really made it into anything memorable. At the time I was in college I had all my college photos pinned up on one of those cork boards, but I never took the time to create a college scrapbook the way I did for high school. For now they are still stored  almost ten years later in an old shoe box in the storage of the basement.

Once Nate and I began what would be become our story, I started keeping our photos in those big nice photo albums that had the lines to the left to write captions and words to explain the memories I wished to save.  However, I realized pretty quick I was going to need a whole bedroom, not a closest, to store hopefully 50 + years of photo books.  About a year ago, I decided to jump on board with the technical age. Now that I take all digital photos, I started uploading them into shutterfly rather than printing them. From there I would create what started off as seasonal family albums. However, I’m thinking instead of putting the pictures throughout the year into four separate albums, I might cut it down to three: Summer, Fall-Christmas, Winter- Spring.

I have also with the birth of each daughter started creating a year in review photo book for each of them on their birthdays. Originally it was looking like at 18, I would have 18 photo books to hand over them that retold the stories of their childhood. However, I’m backing out on that idea. With Averi turning 5 this will be the last yearly one I do for her. My plan then is to create an elementary, middle school, and then high school one so they’ll have eight instead of eighteen to take with them. The memories and stories of their childhood will forever be kept in these books. I would also at some point like to also print the posts I have on here that I have written for or about them to put in some kind of notebook for them to take too when they are ending this chapter of their lives and embarking on the next. I love pictures and I don’t want them to just sit abandoned and forgotten in some box. Pictures tell the stories of our lives, our families, who we are and where we’ve been.  I hope one day the girls enjoy these as much as I've enjoyed putting them together for them.

 

I am affiliated with Shutterfly, so for those that don’t know what that means, it means when you visit and make a purchase with Shutterfly after you click on one of their links or banners on my website, I get paid a commission.  However, those of you that are frequent readers know I don’t push this very often, but if you do business with Shutterfly in the future I hope you can come through my site to do so. Right now they are having up to 50% OFF on their photo books.  Valentine’s Day is coming but they are great for any family moments and memories.  Below I’ve included links to view one of our family photo albums and the most recent year in review album that I’ve made for the girls. This one is Nakenzi’s but with Ave’s fifth birthday just five weeks away I need to get started on hers. If interested in creating and purchasing your own, click on the bottom link.

This time is flying by. I hope you get a chance to tell and save your story through your pictures J

A Year in the Life of Baby Girl


Family Summer 2013






                    Click Here to get up to 50% off a Shutterfly Photo Book through January 27!