Yesterday, I shared my approach to organizing our digital photos, which includes creating two photo books for Dashiell's first year. Here's a look at Dashiell's first photo book!

I was becoming overwhelmed at the number of photos I take of Dash on a daily basis and couldn't imagine going through all those photos at the end of the year. So, I decided to split Dashiell's first year across two photo books and I'm so happy that I did; already I flip through the pages and feel nostalgia for life with teeny, new Dashiell.

{be still my heart}

To create the photo books I'm using Blurb, which I found easy to use and reasonably priced. I especially love the full bleed layout option (where the photo extends to the very edge of the page) and that the photos from our phones look great. My only frustration has been that a random handful of photos won't load into the online program – arg! But I pressed on in the name of digital organization!

The photo book is roughly in chronological order and for some pages I grouped like photos – such as several photos of Chris or several of me wearing Dashiell. But if I found myself getting too caught up in any one page I forced myself to step back, quickly make the best of it, and move on. I didn't want to become stressed out with making the book "perfect".

{the photo on the very far left is me!}

I completed Dashiell's birth to six month photo book using the cute 7 inch x 7 inch book size and used 78 pages. I had it printed and shipped for a total of $40.78 (I found an online coupon for 25% off using retailmenot.com!). One last thing that I might do is write on some of the pages using a Sharpie pen to jot down some notes and memories.

The whole process of making the book probably took about six hours over a few evenings. It could have gone faster but it was so easy to get caught up just staring at photos and remembering. As pleased as I am with the first photo album there's not too much time to revel in its completeness – it's already time to start making the next one!