Luke's First Year Recap with Shutterfly

As a mother I take hundreds of pictures of my kids, obviously my close friends think I am crazy and tease me all the time as they tell me to put the camera down. My little sister hates sometimes being stuck as my "photographer" for the day when I ask her to snap a couple of photos of the kids and I when we go out. And well...my husband already knows he has no other choice, and besides he enjoys being on the other side of the camera. Which is why I love him even more, he totally gets me because you can never have too many pictures of your family! I mean how can you not have all these cute photos of your little ones? I can't be the only one..right?
I just love capturing moments of my kids whether if it's simply at home, playing in the neighborhood park, hanging out at the mall, going out for dinner with friends or any special family gathering I tend to snap a few photos when I can get the opportunity. Which is why my iPhone is overloaded with all my photos taken with my Canon Rebel and using up all the little available storage space that's left. And honestly many of my photos just stay there and I tend to forget to share them with family and mostly never get to upload them on social media nor send them to get printed. I guess I keep them for my own self, as I get to look back at how much my kids have grown. I tend to do that quite often. 

With that being said, I've realized that soon the holidays will be here now that the Halloween festivities are coming to an end. And as sad as it is to admit to myself my baby is already ONE, as a matter of fact he is going on a year and a half soon and I have yet to print out his first year photos. Two weeks ago I hadn't even started on his first year book like a typical good mother should and I felt terrible about it. I remember with my first child I started a scrapbook way before he was born, by the second month I was halfway done with it. Back then I had so much more time and a routine. Fast forward to now I'll admit that being a mom of 3 kids is overwhelming, chaotic, and there is always so much to do and so much going on that finding time to work on one can tend to feel time consuming. Which makes me put it off even longer, no wonder I procrastinate on a lot of things. I am kinda ashamed to admit we have no photo books in our home, although I have always loved the thought of making one. And that is why I turn to Shutterfly.

To my surprise Shutterfly's Make My Book service made this process so easy and enjoyable. With Shutterfly you save all of the time in creating your photo book because you basically have someone else do all the work, it's like a dream come true. No need to spend hours and hours customizing a book. With this service of only a small fee of $9.99 a Shutterfly rep will professionally begin to design your photo book. Within a few days you will be sent a preview of the book and you can edit any changes if needed to. 

  

The process is extremely quick, in my own personal experience getting the photos uploaded was the longest  process only because I had so many pictures still on my SD card and others that needed to be uploaded to my desktop although you can get them directly from your Facebook or Instagram if you choose to. Once you picked out all the photos you'll like to use and arranged them accordingly to how you'll like them display along with a book theme you'll be all set to go. I used Shutterfly's "modern white" and made it out to be focus on Luke's First Year with all his milestones and special occasions that our family had together as we have become a family of five. I also added a story tell to it by including a small part of his birth story to his book along with an update of month by month counting to his first birthday. 

I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my personal projects and how I want things to look a certain way so I was a bit nervous on how the book will look overall but had high hopes that I would be pleased by sticking with an all white modern look to my book. 

I waited patiently for my book and once it arrived I was more than pleased with it. The moment I began to go through it I was ready to cry, it was like going back to the morning Luke was born. I was stunned with the quality of the book. It was way bigger than I had imagined, so I was glad I went with am 11x14. All I can say is I am in L O V E with it. The book turned out to be more than I expected it to be. The page and picture quality is amazing and I have no words to thank Shutterfly for such a beautiful book and for making a book full of memories that we will treasure forever. If anything it provided a story my kids look forward to reading to their baby brother. I know for a fact that I will continue to add more photo books to our home and start a collection that my family will cherish forever.