Our Very First Blog Book!

I'm so excited! I just finished our 2008 Blog Book, and it's off to the press! It turned out to be 127 pages long.

Blurb makes it really easy. All you do is download their program to your computer, then start a "Blog Book." You choose which blog entries you want it to "slurp" into the program. So, I chose all of the 2008 entries. Then you choose your layouts for each page and drag and drop the pictures and text into the boxes. If you need higher resolution photos, you can easily download those from your computer and use them instead. (Good for the bigger pictures.)

You can see the first 13 pages of our book here. That's all that blurb.com will allow you to preview, unfortunately. But you can get an idea for it. Just for your info, it came to $108 for 127 pages on their premium paper. This is a hardback book. The front cover is fully wrapped and bound to the book.

It has been so fun laying out the book. It gave me the opportunity to go back over the past year and look at it as it's own little chapter in our lives.

I have never been a consistant journal writer or scrapbooker. When I used to scrapbook, it was such an ordeal and by the time I got around to scrapbooking about something, I forgot a lot of the best details. Sure, the pages look cute, but very little of the true story of each picture was told either because there wasn't room on the page, or I didn't have the time to sit and think it out, or I had simply forgotten the details. Even after a year or two.

With blogging, you write about things as they happen, while it's all fresh (ideally, anyway.) It helps you step back and take a look at your day-to-day life from a more grateful, purposeful perspective.

Here is something that M. Russell Ballard, an apostle in our church has said, that I think really captures the essense of my reason for blogging:

"What can . . . young mother[s] [do] . . . to reduce the pressure [of raising young children] and enjoy [their families] more? . . . "Recognize that the joy of motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times. But amid the challenges, there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction. "Author Anna Quindlen reminds us not to rush past the fleeting moments. She said: 'The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less'

It's true! Motherhood is the hardest job in the world, and the joy comes in little moments. Sometimes those moments are very quick and fleeting, but they are truly wonderful. Every time I think about my children growing up and leaving the nest, I get teary because I worry that I will not remember the little things. Pictures can only say so much. And even this will not completely capture everything. But these books, all full of fresh memories and thoughts and feelings will be the best way of bringing it all back to life. I have a feeling they will be read by our grandchildren. I can picture 20+ books all lined up on a special shelf in our house someday. Our family history, complete with photos and journaling.

So here's to modern technology and the people who invent ways to capture our memories more easily!

And here's to all you "Mommy-Bloggers" in "Bloggernacle" Land. (Have you ever heard that term? I read it today for the first time. It's what they call the culture of Mormon bloggers.)Cheers!