How I'm Documenting the Story of Our Growing Family
Since becoming a mom three years ago, I’ve been searching for the right method for preserving our family photos and memories. I've looked at tons of baby books, scrapbooks and photo books online but I couldn’t find one that felt thorough enough without feeling overwhelming to complete. I wanted to document each of my pregnancies and actually do something with the thousands of kid photos I have on my iPhone! But one thing every parent is short on is free time, so I needed a method for documenting our family life that was simple, easy and didn’t take too long to do. And because I’m big on aesthetics I wanted whatever memory-keeping system I used to have a modern and minimal design, so it would look stylish on a shelf too! The solution I arrived at is a combination of two products I really, truly love:
Promptly’s Childhood History Journal + Chatbooks Instagram Series Photobooks
My best friend surprised me with my first journal from Promptly shortly after our first daughter was born. It really is the perfect baby book! It covers pregnancy, birth and ages 0-18 with simple prompts to help you get started and plenty of room for writing special stories and memories. There’s even a section in the back for you to write letters to your child. The prompts are monthly up to 12 months then switch to yearly, so it really doesn’t take long to update. I usually pull out Sage’s journal once every couple months and spend 5-10 minutes adding to it. So I knew I needed a second one when we found out we were expecting Sona! (In case you missed it, our second daughter was born June 30th! Her birth story is coming soon.) I love the simple letterpressed covers and pretty color options. I chose Sage Green and Dusty Rose linen books for our girls and I love how seamlessly they blend into our home decor.
There are spots for cute mementos, like sonograms, baby’s first foot prints and special photos, too!
So the Childhood HIstory Journals cover the bulk of my written memory-keeping needs, but what do with the masses of photos I take of our kids each month? Enter Chatbooks.
Shop Photo Books from Chatbooks
With affordable pricing and customizable options, there’s definitely a Chatbooks product to fit your memory-keeping needs. I chose the classic Instagram series photo books in the 6”x6” hardcover style because I loved the simple look that really lets our photos shine. All I had to do was connect my (private) Instagram account and the Chatbooks website automatically created a series of photo books. I could choose to buy all of them at once or have a handful delivered each month until I got caught up. It really couldn’t be easier to have photo books printed via Chatbooks! My favorite part is choosing the cover for each book. Most of my very favorite photos of our girls are represented on the covers of the 24 books (and counting!) we have so far.
My Tips & Tricks
I am so excited to be caught up on printing our family photos from the last three years! I’ve definitely learned some hacks along the way for simplifying and streamlining the process. Here are the things that are helping me keep on top of documenting our family life as we go.
Keeping my journals displayed in a room we spend a lot of time in, because “out of sight, out of mind”. If I’m looking at them every day, I’m more likely to grab one off the shelf and jot down a special memory or a funny story that happened that day.
Set aside 10 minutes every 3 months or so to work on a couple of prompts. That’s really all it takes! Especially for our toddler now that we are just doing yearly prompts. For our newborn, I am trying to write something in her book every week or at least make a quick note on my phone to add to the book later.
Keep a separate Instagram account just for photos you intend to use for your photo books. It makes it so much easier when it’s time to print! Ours is a private account we just share with family and friends and it’s such a joy to look back at. Both Anthony and I scroll through old photos and videos of them pretty much every day.
It’s okay to not include every single photo. I post whatever I want on Instagram - 5 photos of the girls cuddling that are nearly identical, I just couldn’t choose a favorite? I share them all! But when it comes time to print my books, I try to pick just one to print. This is one instance where “kicking the can down the road” is really working well for me.
When I just had one kid, I would carefully edit each photo and write out captions for each Instagram post. Now that I have two, I only edit the really special photos and rarely include captions for the simple reason that I’m much more likely to stay on top of posting if I don’t have to do that extra work. I know with our Promptly Journals, I’m capturing the most important memories so if a photo has a relevant caption to go with it? Great! But if not, I don’t stress. And Chatbooks makes all our photos look great, edited or not. Done is better than perfect!
Do you have any questions about how I use my Promptly Journals and Chatbooks? Let me know in the comments below, or better yet, ask me on Instagram! With two adorable kiddos keeping me busy these days, I’m much more likely to respond there anyway. Thanks for reading! xo
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase a Promptly Journal using my link, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I am not an affiliate for Chatbooks but I am one of their brand advocates and received these products for free in exchange for sharing them with you. Thanks for supporting brands that support this blog!