My cousin called me one day last August to "come get whatever you want out of your mother's storage building, because the rent's up at the end of the month." My brothers, their wives, & my cousin had already been through it: My mother's sister (my cousin's mother) hadn't been up to sifting through stuff at the time: she was in her mid-seventies, she was recovering from a virus, it was August in Texas, & the storage building was a metal structure on a concrete slab. So I went down & started going through things. About an hour into my explorations, I called my cousin & asked him to get his mother to meet me at the building. The things that were left were *mostly* trash & junk, but I knew there was some reason that some of that stuff had been kept all these years. I had a box for myself, a box to take to my mother's church for their kitchen, & a box for trash. When my aunt arrived, I showed her the books I'd started tossing into the trash. She was aghast: "This is Mama's geometry book!" Her mother, my grandmother, was a pioneer: She had graduated from high school in an era when most girls dropped out in about the 8th grade & helped out at home until they married. Back then, you had to pay for your own schoolbooks. This book had her name in the front, & her pencilled notes in the margins. and there were a couple of more of her books in there, too. So those books had been passed down & passed around for about 70 years, & my brothers, my brothers' wives, & my cousin, not knowing that they were, had left them for me to probably throw in the trash. Thank goodness I called my aunt! She kept the schoolbooks. When she, as she puts it, "can no longer enjoy them", my cousin is to be sure that they go to her brother or to one of us cousins or another descendant. Since my brother now has a grandson, the books could one day belong to the original owner's great-great-grandchild.

Oooh! Thanks for the link, justlinda. No, I don't know the author, but the combination of San Francisco and U of C settings within the book fit the backgrounds of several insightful people I know. The blurb compares it to "A Man Called Ove". In "Ove", only the main character feels entirely authentic to me. In "Henry", all three main characters feel fully whole and authentic.

Maybe you can work backwards. Start with current pics of the kids going back a few years, the next book picks up at that point and fills in a few years, closing with their beginnings as babies. Most people appreciate their baby books much more after they've grown up anyway, more than they do when they are teens. i may consider this idea for my kids, but not for this Christmas, that's for sure. Have fun!

I am so glad, Sue, I know everyone will enjoy it! Funny you mention the cost. When I first embarked on this, I was thinking it will be a big impact present where the gift is our time not the cost. Yikes, even with the 50% off, each book was $200 OMG. I didn't really expect that, but after all the work putting it together, I wasn't going to go back and trim. I may regret making them so large, 11x14, but I know i usually like photos to be bigger. I also fell for that very pricey for that "lay flat" upgrade that allow you to do those "centerfold" shots. Heck, i actually fell for every type of upgrade they offered, including a storage box. And then I have the engraved USBs and those boxes. But oh they will be so pretty. I actually went with this one because I liked the idea of putting a photo with it. They also have them in navy, grey, and Tiffany blue. I was upset that I had to switch my product to Shutterfly, but I have to give them a big shout out. They have added so many features to their books, and so many options for designing them. Plus, they still had my photos on there from 2005, though I had not done business w them in years. In some cases, they were photos i did not find anywhere else in my files. Whew. One of the best parts of making the book was doing the captions, and adding in things like scans of their footprints, their baby announcements, etc. I also commissioned DH to write a letter to each of them talking about the day they were born and their first few years. He did a wonderful job, brought tears to my eyes and made me laugh, too. We finished yesterday. Finally. Annie - love that tree! we do have a few photo ornaments, but a whole tree! Fab Running - Even from book 1 to book 3 i got better at it and fancier. There are soooooo many options and embellishments and features. And if you have the right dates on your photos, the autofill feature is a great start. Enjoy!