I am hooked

By:Janet R.

I am the fifth daughter out of five girls. By the time I arrived and was ANOTHER girl, the story goes that my Dad was told he had a baby girl and he said, "So what is new?". Anyway, I guess they got tired of taking pictures of babies or were just too busy (that is really the case) by then. Then my mother became ill and passed away when I was 3. The bottom line is that I don't have pictures, or letters or notes to tell about my milestones, my ballet recitals, my girl scout camping trips, my school years etc. So when my kids ask me about my own childhood, I rely on a story that someone may have told me in my family but I can't show them anything.

I have three children and they all have first year scrapbooks (except my youngest who is 10 months old so his book is still in progress). They may have taken me a few years to complete - OK so I was up the night before my cesarian section with my third child finishing the oldest childs book - but they each have one. They have special interest books ("why I want to be a fireman" and "ballet"), school scrapbooks, and our family has a vacation scrapbook. I even have one to commemorate my 40th birthday and all of the fun things we did that whole summer!

Scrapbooking is a labor of love for me to share some of myself with my kids now, and for them to share with their kids when they grow up. My older kids (6 and 10) now take disposable cameras with them on vacation and to sporting events to capture their own images, which often portray a very different story than my pictures do. Together we put them in books, and we love telling stories about "when we...". We are building our own book of family stories.

So scrapbooking for me is about love and family. That is why I am hooked on scrapbooking.

Tomorrow at dMarie Daily: Scrapbooking as Evidence, by Maria (aka Football Widow)