Shortly after your baby is born you realize how incredibly precious all of these small moments are and you want to capture it, so you can always remember. The cliché is so true – it all goes by way too fast. That first year of life is going to whiz past faster than you realize. Our babies grow up, but we can capture as much of that first year of life as possible by taking a lot of photos. However, if you already have a baby, you already know this, but there is not as much time as you think you should have in order to get that scrapbook of baby’s first year going while baby is actually going through it. Instead, take as many pictures as you can and eventually, know you will get to it. There is one problem to putting it all together. You can forget when certain photos were taken. There is a solution to this dilemma. If you have a digital camera and a photo storage container – the Iris greeting card Keeper works perfect for this- you can get organized for a baby’s first year scrapbook. Here is what you need to do.

Step one: In baby’s newborn month, take as many photos as you can. This won’t be hard to do, because you are falling in love with your baby and every coo and gurgle seems like a photo worthy moment. After all, he is just unbelievably cute, right? File all of your 1st month photos (yes, print them out from your digital camera either through an online service or from your home computer) under the first divider tab and label it “First Month” or “11/06” – whatever makes sense to you. In the end, you are going to need two greeting card containers. These containers are roomier than you would initially think.

Step two: Repeat the above process every single month, filing only a single month’s photos behind each divider tab until you have her first year done. Make sure that in addition to filing the photos every month, you jot a few notes or comments on the back of the photo to help jog your memory about what was going on either in the photo or during that time of your baby’s life. It may seem like it is impossible to forget these things, but it can happen. You don’t want that to happen.

Step three: File with the photos other mementos you want to keep that would work well in a scrapbook. For example, measurements of baby’s weight and height from the doctor’s office, cards for the baby or anything else you think would be cute for his album.

Step four: Start looking for just the right scrapbook. Have an eye out for cute paper, cut outs, stamps and pads, stencils – anything else that you think would be cute to incorporate and use to put your scrapbook together. Don’t forget to take some photos of you with your baby also.

After the year is over, start slowly building pages, going one month at a time. There are a few ways to do this. You can build as many pages as you want for each month. If your scrapbook won’t hold all of the pages, just start a new one where you left off. Another way is to select just the best photos and items from each month. Build one page for each month of the baby’s life. It doesn’t mean you are going to get rid of the other photos, but those photos might be best used in a photo album or you can frame the photos.

A year in photos of your baby’s first life is something you are going to treasure always.

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