I have been meaning to make Tommy an adoption story book, and now that he is quickly approaching his first birthday I am embarassed that I haven't done it yet! I really want to have a book that tells his story so that we can make adoption part of our everyday conversation with him.
Adoptive moms - how many of you have made a story book? How did you do it? I have heard about many different ways: a simple photo book, a memory book, and even making a personalized hard-paged children's story book. What worked best for you?
I would greatly appreciate any advice or suggestions!
I still want to do this too! Shutterfly has a free book offer til the end of this month. As far as I can tell there are no strings attached and they are probably just counting on grandparents buying one. I'm going to try to do that before the offer's over.
ReplyDeleteI am making a scrapbook style memory/adoption book for Isabella. I have been scrapbooking for years, so it is fun to have a creative project to work on. It starts with her birth (pictures from her birth mother, since we didn't find out about her until she was 3 days old) and will continue until her first birthday. I may do more later
ReplyDeleteLove all of your thoughts! And good to know- AYWH!
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking of making a photo book using Kodak Gallery. I did one for our wedding and it turned out really well - I will do the same for Baby C.
ReplyDeletep.s. Kodak currently has 20% off all photo books: http://www.kodakgallery.co.uk/PhotoBookOverview.jsp
ReplyDeleteI made a photobook for E's first year on Shutterfly. I haven't printed it yet, so that's good to know about the offer... I also have a scrapbook with all of the paperwork from his adoption, his first cards from grandparents, etc. I'm hoping to use that book to "explain" his adoption story.
ReplyDeleteNow, bear in mind I've only done ONE (partial, at that!) adoption book so far, but for us, it worked better to do a traditional scrapbook with real paper.
ReplyDeleteThe reason being...I saved every scrap of paper that had anything to do with Isaac's adoption: the back of the envelope I used to jot down notes when we got "the call", ticket stubs from our flights to Guatemala, official acceptance of referral letter from our agency, cards we received in the mail, etc. I also printed out all the online congratulatory messages from our (now expired) adoption blog. Of course I interspersed pictures throughout the book and jotted down memories and feelings I wanted to hold onto forever. :)
I pretty much limit the "adoption book" idea to just the immediate adoption story, the referral, the pick-up and first few days home with him. The rest, as he grows, I just make into digital photo books.
I love the idea of including blogger comments!
ReplyDeleteIn our foster parent training there was a session on "life books". If you google the topic you will find lots of ideas of what to include. It is required for us to make a life book. As of now ours is just a baby book, with saved pages from birth parent communications and pictures. It includes as much family & birth history as I have been able to acquire. I actually photocopied some of the pages and had mom fill them out. We do plan to do a shutterfly photo book as well. But Augie's baby book is much more extensive then Rosie's. I splurged a bit to get an adoption baby book.
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