simple, personal scrapbooks

My mom lives far from her five grandchildren. My brother lives in Seattle, my sister in Kalispell, Montana and Mom and Dad live in Minnesota. But they do lots of traveling to stay in their lives and for every trip she takes to Seattle or Montana and for every time the grandkids come to Minnesota, she makes an individual special book to give to each grandchild.

Mom will go through all of her pictures and make each grandchild a simple scrapbook filled with pictures from their time together. It's a commitment to pick the pictures and to get them all developed. But the whole concept is simple...and because she's been so consistent, every grandchild has dozens and dozens of these personal books on their bookshelves, filled with pictures of themselves having special moments with the cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents who they don't get to see super often.

For me, this is memory keeping at its best. The kids adore these special books, and all the while our long distance family is frequently reinforced as they see the pictures of all of us loving each other well.

So the scrapbooking lesson: keep it simple and keep it consistent. Well done, Mom.

And now...be sure to check out Mom's blog today and see her AMAZING flower on Annika's Frenchy Bag. So stinkin cute.