memory keeping

i received a lovely package in the mail yesterday.

2010 and 2011 family yearbooks.  i really like to be on top of things.  in all fairness, the books were actually completed almost a year ago, it just took me awhile to finally print them.

i got the idea for the family yearbook over at young house love.  in high school and college it was easy to sort pictures with a simple "junior year" or the like.  after graduating, everything seems to start running together.  i loved the idea of separating it by years.  not only will it motivate me to get those pictures printed, but it is also fun to look back and see what year special memories happened in.

my favorite part was the highlights page in the beginning of the book.  i wasn't able to capture pictures of every important event, so this page just kinda sums it up for me.  it also works pretty great as table of contents of sorts to know if i'm even looking in the right year {this will probably come in much more handy after 10+ years of marriage}.

since we got married in the middle of 2010, i decided to start the yearbook with our honeymoon.  i already had books printed for our wedding and engagement pictures, so it seemed like the best place to start.  naturally, this book is a lot shorter.  

2011 is a little more exciting, at least to me, complete with many pictures of our family addition, the house, vacation, and just general every day things.  it's the little things that make up our life and i feel it is important to include those in our family picture books.  i have already started working on 2012 and i can't wait to continue adding to our collection.  can you just imagine the row of books we will acquire by our 25th anniversary?

i like to order my books through shutterfly.  i have had really great experiences with them in the past and ordered all my wedding books through them.  i plan to continue using them because of their prices and how easy they make it to put your pictures into book format.  and thanks to my friend jill, you can all get started on making your memory books as well!  she informed me that if you order by the end of the day, you can get one 8x8 photo book for free {pay only for shipping handling} with the code SUMMERBOOK.  happy memory making!