David & Angela gave Kirsten this huge balloon for Christmas. She was busy yanking the string up and down and smiling about all the 'noise' her balloon was making! I tried to capture that happiness and didn't quite make it. Kirsten likes the balloons more when they are starting to deflate because they make 'lots of noise.' :o)
After several attempts, she turned her back on me and hid behind her balloon!
For Christmas 2009 I made a special gift for each of our 6 children. I worked on this project for 3 months. I put together a photo album of almost 200 photos each and wrote a journal "When Grandma Was A Little Girl." Kirsten even got the same gift!
The cute individual block photos you see in the background were a 'hand made' gift from Chris and Michelle for Neil and I. Aren't they cute?! :o)
It took me a month just to 'sort' all the photos. I had a bin for each child's photos. Then I had to chronologically put them in order. Can I just state that it's better to 'date' the photos as you take them, not wait until 20 years later! Thank goodness today's technology 'dates' photos!
In this blog, Grandma's Cookie Jar (see older posts), I wrote 98% of these stories (63) from about May 2008 to January 2009. I re-edited and added photos and put it all in my laptop and then went down to a local printer and had '6' softcover books (95 pages) made. There are even color photos in it.
A page from my book "When Grandma Was A Little Girl." I realized that my grandchildren didn't know very much about when I was growing up, thus came about 'When Grandma Was A Little Girl.' I worked on this for a couple of weeks.
Another page from my book.
The last portion of my book was about my entering a pageant and the diary I kept. Just to think, several years ago in one of my 'spring cleaning' modes, I wanted to throw this out and Neil convinced me to keep it. So 'hooray' for Neil or this entry would not have been there!
Kirsten's photo album, birth to present!
A page from her photo album.
A page from her photo album.I have to say it was quite an undertaking to do this project but I had 'joy in the journey' through time to the present! It was a gift of my time and love for each of our 6 children. I think they all enjoyed the gift. I read somewhere...'A gift is from your heart.' This gift was truly from my heart. I cherish and love each of our children, their spouses and our grandchildren. They are a treasure! My hope is that they will read these stories to their children and years later my greatgrandchildren. I hope their children will also enjoy the photo albums too.
3 comments:
I thought these were such special and heart felt gifts, I'm so happy to have them. Looking back through the years is so bittersweet given how quickly it is all flying by, so it's nice to have something tangible of all the memories.
Thank you mom! And thank you dad for not letting mom throw things away!
Thank you for the wonderful books. They are a really great gift, a true treasure. I hope someday I can do something for my kids, photos, scrapbooks, something. Love you!
Ack! Ever since you've gone private I completely forget to check in! I'll be trying to be better about that (and blogging in general) this year.
And thank you for our awesome gifts. I'm so thankful that you took the time to record and organize all of those pictures and stories for your posterity. It doesn't get much more special than that!
And give the pack-rat a big hug and a thank you for me ;-)
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