Family Yearbooks

One of the true joys in my motherhood is creating our family yearbook. I understand this is incredibly nerdy, but it offers me a huge outlet for creativity and the preservation of our yearly memories gives me so much peace.

We live in an odd time for childhood (hah, that's the understatement of the century!) but particularly when it comes to capturing memories. People are taking pictures of ev.ery.thing.all.the.time. and then snapping or 'gramming or tweeting them - but where do they all go? How often are we going back to look at these moments, or having them printed somewhere for the kids to enjoy?

Our family yearbooks are some of my most prized possessions (truly! I say that if our house was burning down besides living things - our yearbooks is what I would save). The kids love looking back at them, especially the ones from the years they were born and spend the whole time calling out, "Oh! Remember this?" to each other. It is such a treasure of all the smiles and moments that make us this blur of a life; we pack so much into the year that often times Brandon and I can't recall a single thing we actually did. And then we all look back through the yearbooks and snuggle up a little closer because we can see it right there - in the smile laughs of those we love most - we really made the year count. We keep them all easily accessible in the living room and they are a favorite choice for screen free indoor time.

I have a family yearbook from 2010 (the year we had Grey) up until 2017-18 (last school year) and this is the first summer in the history of my project that I am up to date on the current yearbook! By the start of the new school year, I will finish last year's yearbook (Sept2018-Aug2019) and be able to start the new one!

So how does one start a family yearbook project, you ask? I have written about it before here and here  and here- but I would suggest you start where you are; in this year! When I started, it was 2012 (we actually have 2 yearbooks that year because I was just learning how and really included way more than necessary). Then I went back and worked on previous years which was a lot harder because my photos were all over and unorganized. Speaking of photos - that's the first step...

Photos: this past year was the first year that every picture in the yearbook is from a phone - I did not pull out my 'real' camera once (!!) I have a google pixel that takes beautiful pictures and then automatically backs them up to my google drive, which is also linked to my shutterfly. The ease of not having to upload pictures is nothing short of miraculous.

I take photos all year long of big events and normal every day things. It helps that I write a weekly Around Here post for my blog because that holds me accountable to capturing even the 'boring' things we do that really make the yearbook meaningful in later years when it highlights all the tiny things that made our life full during the year that our kids were exactly that age.

And then really, once you have the photos - the rest can be as easy or challenging as you want. There are some awesome companies out there that will do ALL the work for you. You just dump all your photos in and they take care of the organization and layout, then you print that sucker! Do a search, read some reviews, and you'll have an idea in no time.

Me? I like to go the challenging route of choosing each border, sticker, and layout design for each page. Thanks former life as a high school yearbook staff member (Hi, Mrs. McBreen!) I love the creativity and design that goes into each page - so I pour my heart into all the little details and re-sizing of photos. It is major geek town, but it brings me joy.

Read on for more info on how I put our yearbooks together (all photos are from our current yearbook that is in progress, so some pages having missing photos yet!).

You definitely do not have to put the time and meticulous effort that I do, but I think a family yearbook is a worthwhile investment no matter how much time you put into it. It is meaningful for the whole family, and I can promise that remembering those moments with your kiddos while looking through the photos will bring you a lot of gratitude and happiness.

The skinny on Team Studer family yearbooks:
Company used: Shutterfly photo books
Size: 12x12 flat lay pages
Timeframe: September-August (school year)
Photos: 1000 (or close to it)
Pages: 90-95

Layout: most of my yearbooks use the format below which makes it easy to follow for creation purposes but also for using the max amount of pictures in the least amount of pages. (when I first started creating our yearbooks when our kids were younger than school age, I organized by moths of the year).

Introduction Pages 

• Dad & Mom - including questions that we answer each year (what meals were our family favorites, what #parentingfail happened, our favorite memory from the year, etc)
• Kid photo page (12 photos each of just their faces from the whole year)
• Pets page 

The rest of the book is then organized by category based off of the same seven questions. After years of looking through our photos and figuring out a way that I can get as many photos in the book in an organized way in the least amount of pages, working through these categories/questions helped me so much. Each question has it's own "title page" that includes some photos that also fit into that category.

What was it like to live in our home this year? 
photos on title page: random little moments from normal life (sunrise/sunset from our porch, kid doing homework at the kitchen table, kids in the bathtub, snacks, etc)

• Big 'ole Snugs (hugs and no personal space couches)
• Indoor & Outdoor playtime
• Kids who are growing up (responsibilities, chores, cooking, etc)
• Kids who are silly (silly photos)
• Bumps & Bruises (literal, and life challenges)
• Upgrades (home reno, new vehicles, new haircuts, home projects, etc)

With whom did we spend our days?
photos on title page: any picture with anyone!

• Siblings 
• Just Us
• Family
• Friends

What milestones did we accomplish?
photos on title page: first time events (a kid at the dentist), a kid with a trophy/ribbon, a good test score, a piece of artwork, etc

• Parent work accomplishment/Teaching year
• Kids in their grade levels (including a preschool page)
• Races
• Competitive/All Star sports/Shows (not regular season stuff)
• Volunteer group pages
• Religious events (baptism/holy communion)
• First time/year events (raising chickens in 2018)

What gave us cause to celebrate?
photos on title page: parties, new baby visits, graduations

• Birthdays (for friends/family)
• Our kids' birthdays (dbl page spread for each)
• Family Reunions
• Bridal/Baby showers
• Weddings

What seasonal traditions did we enjoy? 
pictures on title page: screen free week, ice cream stands, adult leagues

• 12 Months of Kindness
• County Fair
• Sport seasons (football, cheer, basketball, soccer, baseball, volleyball)
• Hunting Season
• Winter fun (sled-riding page)
• Summer fun (swimming page)
• Fishing Season
• Camping

Where did we go to visit?
photos on title page: local favorites (playgrounds, pools, parks, libraries)

• Pumpkin patches/berry picking farms
• Hiking trails
• Ski/Snowboarding lodge
• Amusement Parks
• Zoos
• Vacation
• travel (trains, planes, boats)

What do the holidays feel like? 
photos on title page: mini holidays we celebrate (st. patricks day, mardi gras, juneteenth, valentines day, etc)

• Halloween
• Thanksgiving
• Marco & his antics (our Elf on the Shelf)
• Christmas season
• New Years eve
• Easter
• Mothers & Fathers days
• Fourth of July
• (The title page includes mini holidays we celebrate - Valentines day, Juneteenth, Mardi Gras, Day of the Dead, St. Patricks, etc)

One of the hardest parts of family yearbooking is that you feel like you have to include every single photo from every single thing. I'm here to remind you, you don't. Choose the best ones and move on. Honestly, the best part about the photos/pages is that they are going to jog you and your kids memories about things that happened that day/trip that you never even got a picture of!

Good luck and happy reminiscing!

Tips for making family yearbooks

look what we got in the mail today!

Our newest Team Studer family yearbook to add to our collection, which makes our coverage through six years now:  every year of our family since having kids!

I first started making our family yearbooks in 2012 and as you can see above, as it was my first year and I had little self control, I went overboard with photo selection and ended up making two books just to cover the one year! As time has gone on, I have become more selective as to what makes it into our yearbooks and how they are organized.

I try to make our yearbooks cover most of the things that make up our days in any given year.  A glimpse into what it is like to be in our family for that time (kind of like my Around Here posts but only stretched out over the course of an entire year).  It is one of my very favorite activities to sit and look back through the years over a cup of tea in the afternoon with kids asking questions about every page and begging, "when can we do that again!?"

some photos of older yearbooks' spreads

Now, six years experience under my belt of making yearbooks, I know what I like and how to make it possible to continue this activity - even with a plate full of kid raising and activities that we always have going on.  This is something that's important to me personally, and also a responsibility that I feel like I have as the in-house memory keeper (and photo taker).  It is definitely hard work, but every time we get a new yearbook (or look through past ones) I'm reminded again at how important I think they are.

Here are my top five tips for creating family yearbooks without losing your mind:

1.Organize your photos:  Keep your photos somewhere all together and in an organized way that you know what you are looking at.  I keep my 'real' camera photos (from my DSLR) on my laptop organized by month of the year.  I upload those photos to my Shutterfly albums (also organized by month) occasionally through the year.  I do the same for the photos I take on my phone and upload them (organized by month) through the Shutterfly app to keep both 'real' camera photos and phone photos all together for each month.  So when I'm making my yearbooks, I can easily find photos from someone's birthday to add to the yearbook.  And it helps remind me the events or moments that need added to the yearbook after I give the month albums a glance over and realizing I completely forgot about that trip to the water park!





2.Don't be in a rush:  It honestly takes me about six months (at least!) to complete our family yearbook.  I set time aside on Fridays in my planner that say "yearbook work" and as much time that the kids are willing to give me uninterrupted on each Friday - sometimes that's 20 minutes, sometimes that's an hour (thank you Netflix!) - and I do a page or two, or edit pages that are already done.  There are certainly options where the books can be made for you with a click of a button and the magic of the internet, but I like being in the driver's seat when it comes to photo selection/size/color theme/etc so it takes me a while to get it all polished and complete.





3.Think about layout:  one of the best decisions I made for my own sanity was to organize my yearbooks by category instead of going month by month.  Now I have a intro section which walks through our current family status, including a page for Dad & Mum where we answer questions about the year (what was our favorite tradition/event? our favorite husband&wife moment, #parentingfail of the year, our best lessons learned, our favorite family meals, and our struggles&challenges that year)

And in every one of the yearbooks, the kids each get their own page always with the same photo format (twelve photos around the border) and I write a little bit about the kind of kid they are right at this particular age (personality, likes/dislikes, favorites, hobbies, etc)

From there, the yearbook is divided into seven categories:
What was it like to live in our home this year?
With whom did we spend our days?
What milestones did we accomplish?
What gave us cause to celebrate?
What seasonal traditions did we enjoy?
Where did we go to visit?
What do the holidays feel like?

And then activities and moments are organized throughout those categories.  So things like my volunteer work with the alumni association goes under the Milestone category, and the first day of fishing season falls under seasonal traditions, etc.

4.Hop around the book while working on it - it doesn't have to be perfect the first time through.  I start by laying out the categories and then depending on how I'm feeling on any particular day determines what page I work on.  In the dead of winter, sometimes working on our summer days to the lake are just what the doctor ordered.  I also pull more photos than I need for any page and use them for my People pages (sections: with whom did we spend our days and what was it like to live in our home).  A picture of the grandparents at the hospital for Rustin's birth actually ended up on our family page instead of Rusty's birthday page.  Our family and friends' pages - along with the kids' individual pages get photos slipped in all along the way of creating the rest of the book.  (And usually the very last page done is the Dad & Mum questions because it helps us remember the last year as I do my final lookover of the whole book when it's done, hah!) 

5. Remind yourself that the real gift isn't the photos in the yearbook, it's the memories that the photos help you remember. The thought of this has helped me be much better about selecting the photos that make it into our yearbooks (I'd guess less than half the pictures I take all year make it into the actual yearbook!) I try to make sure the photos that go into the pages evoke the feeling of what it is like to live this life right now in this age and stage of our family.  The photos and pages themselves turn out to be jumping off points for reminiscing and laughing about particular things that happened.  We spend more time talking about the pictures and the past while looking at the books together than we do reading the captions.

Do you do a family yearbook of sorts?  Or how do you keep and cherish all the photos you take along the year?  Any helpful tips to share? 

I have used Shutterfly for every year of my yearbook creation because I have been loyal to them since they have without any issues have held all of my photos since 2004 when I was studying abroad in Costa Rica.  Those were back in the days when I had to upload & dump my camera card after every weekend trip while abroad and then pray to the internet gods that my only proof of my experience was being saved on the Shutterfly website.  It was.  AND STILL IS.  in perfect condition, so I will always be loyal to them. (thank you Shutterfly!)  I find their book creation easy and beautiful and they are also my go to for holiday cards, birthday invites, and photo gifts.  This post has not been sponsored.  I just have always had a great experience with them and I'm sharing the love for a company that has taken good care of my some of my most precious memories. xxox

Family Yearbook: Category Layout Design

Creating our family yearbook is one of my biggest (and time consuming) projects of the year but one that I love doing and our kids love having on hand at the house.  I use Shutterfly to create my family yearbooks (and to store all of my pictures).  Shutterfly might be a little more expensive than other places (I wouldn't know, I've always been loyal to them) - but throughout the year they offer regular specials including sometimes 50% off of photo books (!) and free shipping.  So, it's always been worth the money to order our high quality yearbooks from them.  (these opinions are entirely my own and not endorsed in any way).  

I started the family yearbook project in 2012 and since have gone back and finished a 2011 yearbook and finished our 2013 yearbook this spring.  I'm currently working on finishing a 2010 yearbook (the year our first child was born) and then I think moving forward we'll just stick to the current years.

For our 2013 yearbook, I tried a new organizational plan instead of sticking to the chronological months of the year like I had in previous yearbooks.  And I must admit, I love the new organization.  It has given me the opportunity to use many more miscellaneous pics without trying to use up a whole page on something relatively insignificant in the year just because I love a particular picture. 

By setting up the yearbook by category instead of by month/seasons, the book flows by grouping pictures together that are connected in some way.  The kids have really enjoyed this 2013 yearbook because all of their favorite things are mostly grouped together - so it's easy for them to find all the holiday pics at once, or all the vacation/trip pictures at once.

At the suggestion of a friend, I'm going to share below the categories/questions on how our 2013 yearbook was set up.  If you are in the process (or planning) of creating a family yearbook, I hope these categories/questions can help you brainstorm various ways to organize your family pictures in a meaningful way.

Each category/section transitions like the page above with the overall theme listed and some photos that correspond to the category - usually pictures that I like but don't warrant a full page spread on their own.  In the case of the first category (Our Family), it is a double page spread photo of our family all together (which has been the same for all of our yearbooks regardless of set up).

Categories:

1. Our Family -  this is a great section for using our favorite pictures of just the kids or us.  Lots of instagram pictures included in this section that are captured randomly throughout the year on random days.

Dad and Mum Page pictures and questions:

• What was your favorite trip of the year?
• What is your favorite holiday tradition?
• What was the hardest challenge of the year?
• Favorite husband&wife moment
• #ParentingFail
• Favorite meals
• Best Lesson Learned

Pets Page
Individual Kids Page:  include what they were like this year.  Favorite activities, movies, books, funny things they said/did, knicknames, and things they learned

What was it like to live in our home this year? - This section also used many instagram and phone pictures.  Just the everyday captures of what it was like in our days.  It was a chance to showcase the tiny little things we do to spend the days away in this year, with the kids this age.

Home improvements
Things we did at home (playtime, cooking/baking)
Misc. pics of us at home together

With whom did we spend our days? - The kids love these sections as they are filled with familiar faces and obviously so much love.  These pages are usually created as some of the last pages when creating the book because many of the pictures are overflow from the holidays or events pages.

Big Brother & Little Sister page
Just us (Immediate family)
Family
Friends

What milestones did we accomplish this year? - This was a fun addition to our book this year and was inspired by my 30th last year and Brandon taking on his first year of coaching.  After seeing the connection between those - lots of other things made it's way into this section including big Firsts for the kids and an obstacle race we participated in last year.

Milestone birthdays (30th)
Races/Runs
Big Firsts (first haircut, ride a bike)
New jobs/change in jobs

What gave us cause to celebrate this year? - The pictures here are obvious and these pages would be included in any yearbook regardless of layout.  The benefit of a category organization though groups all of the parties and celebrations together which makes for a very happy and fun section to look at :)

Birthday parties (our friends and the kids')
Showers (wedding, baby)
Family reunions
Weddings
Anniversary

What seasonal traditions did we enjoy?  - This is one of my favorite sections; it's all the little things we do throughout the seasons that have become like traditions for us.  They aren't huge events that we spend months planning, but rather the little things that keep us happy and specific to the seasons.  It's as though these little bits of fun sprinkled throughout the year are what keep us always looking forward to new fun events.

Yearly traditions (Screen Free week, Alumni events, Shark Week, local festivals)
12 Months of Kindness
Winter events (sled riding, hotel sleepover)
First day of Trout/hunting
Annual parties
County fairs

Where did we go to visit? - lots of pictures available because they are the events that I have my camera on hand.  These are the things I'm obviously documenting because they took some planning to accomplish.  It's nice to have them all in one section together and this is section that gets a lot of comments from the kids like, "When can we go there again?!!"

Kid playdate trips to new places (circus, indoor playground, outdoor concert, petting zoo)
Family Day trips (Lincoln Caverns)
Family vacations

What do the holidays feel like? - If there is a most joyful section of the yearbook, it is this one.  Which is part of the reason I made it last (it's easy to locate!)  The holidays are filled with so many smiles and loving traditions.  This is by far the kids' favorite category and we have spent time looking at the previous year's holiday adventures as we approach the same holiday in the current year - as a reminder to what we'll be doing and what it means for our family.

Single page photo collage for most holidays (Halloween, 4th of July, Easter)
Multiple pages for 'big' holidays (Christmas) including traditions, Kids & their Santa wish list, celebrations/parties

My favorite part of this style of yearbook has been that I believe it represents a more true to life picture of what it is like to be a part of our family for the year.  The overall feel of what it is like to be in this family this year; our kids this particular age, the family and friends we spent time with, and just the regular life that we experience right now.

Do you create family yearbooks?  How do you organize the pictures?