Life After the Baby Book

Yearly Photo Book, C1 00

After finishing my son’s baby book I struggled with one question… What next?

I knew I wanted to make another book for him, but I didn’t know where to start or what to include.

There are tons of baby book ideas out there, but it’s hard to find books focused on the second year of life (or the third, fourth, fifth, and so on).

So, after a year of creating, here’s what I came up with. It’s a project I lovingly call, “Life After the Baby Book”. (My affiliate links are in this post.)

Baby Book 01

Once again, I used Mixbook to print off the finished project. I went with a 12″ x 12″ hard cover book. It’s durable, has great binding, and the pages look fantastic! (This book is huge! It’s just shy of four pounds!)

Baby Book 02

You can look through the majority of the book by clicking here.

What did I include? Let’s start with…

The Cover  Every year on my son’s birthday, we take a photo of him in his Dad’s baseball jersey. The goal is to watch him grow into the jersey over time. I decided to put this photo on the cover. I plan to use these pictures every year so each book looks similar.

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Reoccuring Cover

Dedication I wanted to make the first two pages special. I included a collage of photos (one photo from each month) and a short note to our son.

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Dedication Page

Calendar Pages Just like his baby book, I included calendar pages. I tried to write down special occasions, play dates, milestones, holidays and family celebrations. I included two pages of photos for each month. I love the way these pages turned out!

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Calendar Pages

Want to add calendar pages to your scrapbooks? Find my templates here: Calendar Templates. And my tutorials here: How to Add Calendar Pages to Digital Scrapbooks.

Letters from Mommy I couldn’t help myself. I wrote him a letter each month for his baby book and I didn’t want to stop recording the memories! I tried to include funny stories, milestones, phases he was going through, and lessons I’d learned from parenting. It’s so much fun to go back and read the letters. There are so many details I would have completely forgotten if I hadn’t written them down!

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Letters From Mommy

Monthly Milestones I included a two page spread for each month and recorded his height and weight, milestones, our schedule, his new words, favorite foods and favorite toys. I love the look of these!

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Monthly Milestones

Holidays I threw in some photos from each holiday and wrote down how we celebrated. They’re great keepsakes!

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Holidays and Celebrations

Seasonal Photos I also included a spread for each season with photos of my son playing outside. It’s fun to look back at the outdoor activities we did as a family.

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Seasonal Photos

Cards and Letters I scanned all of the cards and letters my son received throughout the year and included them as well. These pages always make me smile. I love seeing our family members’ handwriting in his yearly book!

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Cards and Letters

The First Day of… We take photos of our children on the first day of each season. It’s a little family tradition – I love the way the photos turn out!

Yearly Photo Book, C1 First Day Photos

All the Extras! I try to scan in little mementos throughout the year. We ran quite a few road races with our son, so I included race bibs and the newspaper results. I also included his birthday countdown. He also learned how to color this year, so I included his first pieces of art and a brief description of each piece. All the little things I don’t want to forget!

Yearly Photo Book, C1 All the Extras

The Year in Review We take a lot of pictures. A LOT. There’s no way I could put every single photo into his baby book. So I took all the photos that didn’t make the first cut and made a two-page collage for the end of the book. I think the page turned out beautifully!

Yearly Photo Book, C1 Year in Review

Did I forget anything? What do you like to include in your family photo books? Share your own ideas in the comment section below or head over to our Facebook page!

You can also view our other family photo albums by clicking on their photos below:

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