Not-so-wordless Wednesday: A baby's first year

After losing a few months' worth of family photos, I've been thinking about just what it is I want to do with the pictures I take. So few of them get printed out, and again I'm falling behind on regular picture emails to far-off relatives. I post a handful of them here and there online, but the vast majority get uploaded to the computer and then just...stay there.

I had put together photo books as Christmas gifts for the grandparents when the boy was a baby, but my neglected second child had no such thing so far. Since the poor baby lost both his birth pictures and first birthday pictures when the hard drive died, I was feeling rather guilty about the whole thing. Wanting to make up for it in some small way, I created a photo book of his first year.

Thanks to the postal strike, it was a bit slow in coming, but yesterday it finally arrived! It was so much fun to look through and well worth the time I put into creating it. The boys grinned their way through it with me.

I tried a new photo printing company this time, Kwikpix.ca. It had a great interface and was very easy to use. I had to do some file transfers from my Mac to my laptop since they don't support the Mac operating system, but their website says they plan to offer a complete Mac site integration later this year. Excellent!

I love the full-page layout they offered. It's a fun change from the usual multi-picture layout. The full-page pictures were the boys' favourite pages.

I included his one and only first birthday picture that I managed to rescue. I had printed it out and sent it to a relative, so I was able to scan it and include it in the photo book.

What a difference a year makes! His first Christmas, at only a few days old...

...and one year later. Such big boys!

The boy loved the index in the back. "LOOK at all the pictures!!!" I love that it includes the page numbers; very handy!

I'm currently working on a family photo wall in our living room, uploading pictures to our digital picture frame, and looking for other ways to get those photos off of the computer and into more memorable formats.

What have you done with your family's pictures lately? Any suggestions or favourite photo projects?

Disclaimer: A portion of the photo book was sponsored by Kwikpix.ca in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.