Ian's Scrapbook

As I have mentioned in this post, Ian's scrapbook has been very front and center in my mind.  I did not make and actual scrapbook for Addie with the detailed journaling and such, but I did order the pages I did for her and put them into some kind of semblence of a "baby scrapbook."  In fact, since getting Ian's scrapbook in order and prepared, I have found other stories from Addie's first year that I want to remember and put down in her album.

I thought I would share with you the few pages that I have completed for the book already.  Those of you who know me personally and have looked through my other scrapbooks will see that the style here is much different from my norm.  They are very simple pages- not alot in the way of embellishments, decor, and creativity.  The journaling has all been printed out fromt the blog.  Each page is mostly words, with a photo, a small bit of patterned paper, and a do-dad of some type.  Two of the completed pages don't even have a photo.  But when Ian looks back on this album, the most important things he will need to know will all be right here (he will see plenty of me without needing photos of Mommy on those pages).

This is the incomplete title page.  In the white space I will be putting a picture of Ian from his first day.  In Photoshop, I plan on turning it into a black and white or sepia toned photo.

Before I move on, I do have to go back and fix the spelling in the title here.  The 2 n's for "announcing" belong at the beginning not the middle of the word.  This is a print out of this post with a little ebellishment.

This is one of the two pages that does not have a photo.  There was simply no room and to me the story (which is a print out of this post) was more important to me than any photo of that weekend was.

This is a little note  to our then "Squishy" from me (found here).  The photo is from my cell phone so the quality was not that great.  I didn't have a lot of belly photos taken this time around so this one had to do for the page.

 As you can see, you have followed along more closely than you realized with the stories in Ian's scrapbook.  (See the original post here)

This page was the first actual page dedicated to a doctor's appointment.  The "journaling" here was a print out of an email exchange between me and Titi Elsie (Lala) about that visit.  I also included some of the important details of that visit at the bottom.  Because I had copied and pasted the email to my word processing software, there was some confusion on the part of the computer and my aunt's name showed up at the bottom of the details.  Not important in my eyes.

This was my 4th doctor's appointment and because he had to work late and my appointment was rescheduled for an earlier time, Brian was not here.  Therefore, no picture.  As sweet and kind and understanding with pregnant women as the staff at my doctor's office is, I wasn't going to ask anyone to take my picture. 

The title actually says "It's a BOY!" (before you think I'm completely clueless and can't spell to save my life).  These are only two of the photos in the book.  We originally received 8 photos.  Two went to Grandma as a souvenir, two are hanging in Addie's room (she is so protective of these picture), and the other four are in the book.  The two here are Ian's profile.  The other two in the book are the proof that Squishy is really Ian (if you catch my meaning).  They are in the book in a 5x7 page protector as a floating page.  I also have another floating page which is the printout of this post giving the story about the ultrasound.

Inside the scrapbook, I have a little page of notes to myself of other stories I want to make sure I include in this album. 

• 1 week doctor's appointment
• each month's doctor's appointment (long journaler with a small photo of Ian @ appt.)
• special moments (be aware/ jot notes)
• include full page photos of Ian at different stages
• thoughts on nursing (kind of a look back at what I wrote about originally and how it is actually coming along)
• thoughts on feeding and making baby food (seriously, how awesome would it have been to know what my mom was thinking during my feedings and how she went about introducing new foods to me)
• baby's schedule at different points of the year (it changes constantly that first year)
• your relationship w/ Addie w/ a full page photo
• your relationship w/ Daddy w/ a full page photo
• your relationship w/ Mommy w/ a full page photo
• your favorite....  (also at different points throughout the year)
• baby dedication
• your room

I have also found some photos that I want to do a side by side layout for.  For instance, I found a photo of Addie and me at her very first doctor's appointment when she was one week old.  I still remember the feelings I had that day.  My Aunt Alice was with me at the appointment, and because I resemble my dad's sisters, the nurses and doctor thought she was my mother.  At the time, they did not know that my mother had just passed away (three weeks before that visit).  My aunt graciously said that she was my aunt, and we left it at that.  When the doctor left the room after the exam, I burst into tears.  My aunt came and hugged me and said, "I know, Suzette.  She should have been here with you today."  (Titi Alice, you are awesome! You have always known just what to say.) 

Needless to say, Ian's first doctor's appointment won't have those same feelings of loss and sadness.  I will know more or less what to expect from the appointment.  And I won't feel like I don't have enough hands for the baby, diaper bag, baby carrier, Addie..... ummmm, maybe I won't have enough hands when I think about it that way!

I also decided that in the future (begining January 2012 and continuing on- yes, I like to plan way ahead), I will be putting an album together for Addie that will be a monthly scrapbook (simialr in style and content to this one) and fill it in with other Addie stories and journaling (many of which I will just print right off the blog).  I probably won't be going back into the past year to "catch up"- I am so done with feeling the need to catch up, because that will probably never happen.  I may occassionally go back and scrapbook a few photos here and there for the fun of it, but they probably will not be in any type of chronological order- I don't tend to scrapbook that way anyway.

I have seriously been so excited to work on these albums for my children.  I am constantly looking through my eight completed pages with the anticipation of adding more. Tonight is my next doctor's appointment, so I will have another page in the works very soon.  Oh, the thrill of it all!