Memory Album has been started

I finally started working on book for Madelyn to document her history before we came to China and her country and our trip there. It's currently at about 45 pages. I started putting it together last week and have now become obsessed with working on it. However; I'm getting really frustrated with it. I could call it quits now and be done BUT I want it perfect. I want it to be something she would be proud of.

I started scrapping a book for her a while back after I spent a lot of money on printing all of our pictures from China. I never finished. I think I got four pages done and that's it. It's been sitting on a shelf since. Scrapbooking takes lots of time, lots of space, and I don't have either. I need more room and a place I don't have to put all the supplies up and out of toddler reach at all times. Working on an online album was the next best thing.

There's lots of info on digital scrapbooking. There's lots of cool stuff out there with China Lifebooks. Unfortunately all of this also cost more money. I've decided to keep doing what I'm doing and not use all the niftly, crafty little digital scrapbooking do-dad's but instead make my own album.

I'm trying to document as much as possible which means I'm having to pull out items I kept from our trip, papers, all of my notebooks from paperwork and doing some searching in the yahoo groups and databases and lots of asking questions and searching google. I've assigned Tony a few pages too. He's giving me the words and I create the page.

This is more work than I planned but at the same time it's less mess than if I was pulling out scrapbooking paper, stickers, punches, beads and buttons, glue sticks and dots, etc. I scrapped many of Logan's baby pictures but that quit when he was about two and we were trying for another baby. I think I may just give up scrapbooking for now unless it's all digital/online albums.

While I was in the wait for referral, I was on a scrapbooking mailing list so I have lots of stuff. I've thought about saving all the stickers for Madelyn and making two copies of the book I'm working on now. As a young child, I can give her one of the books and she can decorate the pages with all these stickers I have to give it her own special touch. I'll still have the other copy for later.

Since some of this book is personal, I will not be sharing it on the blog. It's not too detailed that Madelyn would be embarrassed to show her friends but it's also not a book I'll share with the public. I also asked members of our travel group for photos of their daughters and I do not want to post pictures of others without their permission. I try not to post photos to this blog of anyone else but my own family but the book does have some photos of other people in it.

I don't know when I'm going to finish it but I'm determined to make it right. It may not be perfect as far as a Lifebook guideline goes but it's what I want Madelyn to have and know about her story as a baby and becoming our daughter. This will help her understand her adoption hopefully and later one when she has more advanced questions, we'll answer those personally to her only and leave it to her whether or not she wants to share.

When I get my book in order, I'll post an outline in case anyone is interested on how I went about making this book. Right now I'm switching pages all around but I do wish I had thought this through first and made my own outline like I learned back in my school days and went from there.