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A New Sibling Book

August 5, 2013 / 6 Comments

I loved k.’s comment a month or so ago about making a small photo album for her child to take to school after the birth of a sibling. Matt and I have talked so much about the new baby for the past nine months and have tried to be really intentional about building Henry’s understanding and his enthusiasm. I’d like to keep that enthusiasm going for as long as possible.

 
My first idea was to buy a really inexpensive, small photo album from the dollar store and slide photos into it. Easy peasy!
 
But then I thought that it could be a really sweet keepsake, and it would be nice to have something to read to Henry. I thought about making him another board book, since we had such a great experience with the first one. Although I liked the idea, I didn’t like a) the price tag and b) the fact that it would take a while to get the book back. I knew that Henry would be eager to bring it to school soon after the birth.
 
That’s when I settled on the idea of buying a slightly nicer photo album and making it into a book by printing text on cardstock, cutting it down to 4 x 6″ and sliding it into the album alongside the photos.
 
I wanted to frontload the work as much as possible, so I bought the album and wrote the text before Tate’s arrival. Here’s what I came up with:
  • I have a new baby brother named Tate.
  • We’ve been eagerly awaiting his arrival.
  • My mom was pregnant with him for nine months.
  • Then Tate joined our family.
  • He was born on XXX and weighed X pounds, X ounces.
  • We celebrated his birthday with cake, and I gave him a present.
  • Mimi and Uncle Dustin came from Florida to visit us.
  • He is very tiny and cute.
  • He has small feet and hands.
  • I like to hold him.
  • I like to talk to my brother Tate.
  • I like to show my brother how to do things.
  • I like to share with my brother.
  • I am very gentle with my little brother.
  • I help my parents take care of him.
  • Tate will grow quickly and we will have fun together.
  • We have many adventures ahead of us as brothers and friends.
  • We are very lucky to have a new family member.
  • I love Tate, and Tate loves me.
I created a single column table in Word and set the dimensions to 4 x 6 for each cell. I used Century Gothic as the font because I find it to be the easiest to read. After printing the pages on cardstock, I used a paper cutter to cut them down to size. I used some of Henry’s artwork for the cover. We ended up purchasing a very inexpensive plastic album from Target, but it is already ripping.
 
It ended up being a very simple project!

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