I’m trying to be more organized with heirlooms for the boys. We have two – ages 18 months and 6 months. I want to be intentional about documenting their childhoods and creating heirlooms to give to them when they’re older. I want to have special photos and stories to give them, but I also don’t want to have so much that it’s overwhelming and they don’t have space to store it all. I have a few things for each boy that I’m super happy with, and I think cover all aspects that I want to document for them – stories, photos, big moments, and special memories.
Our oldest, Graham, has a Promptly Journal that I LOVE. It’s not just a first-year baby book, but a childhood book that goes all the way up to 18 years old. I absolutely love that there’s space for stories and lots of documentation without being so much that it feels overwhelming and impossible to actually do. It’s one book that I’ll be able to give them full of stories from their childhood.
He also has a 12×12 binder with 4×4 photos. It’s super simple, nothing fancy, and is easy to actually accomplish – again, I’m all for things that aren’t too cumbersome! The only thing I would have done differently is to get a darker binder. I may replace it because it already has lots of marks on it. Not that I mind, that just means it’s well-loved and looked through frequently, I just can’t imagine how gross it’ll look when I eventually pass it on to him! These are the sleeves I ordered and here’s the binder I have. I order the photos from Mpix.
Our youngest, Simon has a Promptly Journal, too. He’ll eventually have a binder with 4×4 photos, I just haven’t started it yet. Life has been a bit crazy with a summer spent in the NICU and adjusting to life with Irish Twins. He also has this sweet little NICU baby book that we were gifted. It’s The Littlest Peanut from Amazon. I love that it’ll be the perfect addition to his keepsakes to remember this extra time he got outside of mama.
It’s fun for me to document the little things for them and I hope they love these things later! All of these things are relatively small and shouldn’t take up too much space for them later. They’re easy to put together and aren’t super daunting tasks – that’s what we all need as busy mamas, right?
