Family Yearbooks

One of the best ideas that I have ripped off is to make a Family Yearbook. I got the idea after a visit with my brother and sister-in-law and looked through a few of their Yearbooks. We have a Mac computer that has a user friendly program to plug in all your pictures from the year, add captions, and then send it off to those Apple guys to print and assemble. I am not a scrap booker, a blank page is overwhelming to me. I need structure to be creative. Our 2009 year book ended up being two books because of all we crammed in that year, plus we had a new baby to take thousands of pictures of. (Mostly the same picture again and again, but she moved slightly so we had to take and remember that small arm or ear movement!) This is no small project, but is well worth the effort. It is nice to have the book to show to people, instead of walking them to the computer to show all our great pictures. I am in the midst of creating The Coltman Family 2010 yearbook and am hoping that I will be able to edit our pictures to fit into only one book this year. 

This week we purchased a new little point and shoot camera! It is a Sony Cybershot and so far I am really pleased with it. It is extremely user friendly, which is necessary for me, the photoly challenged! A little while back I read a post called Ten on Ten on the blog Mama Manifesto about capturing everyday moments. You are to take ten photos for ten hours in a row to document a day of your life. I like the idea of finding the beauty in the everyday, and capturing something special in the ordinary. Since I was equipped with my new toy, I decided to document family day this weekend. It can feel a little awkward to bust out a camera at breakfast and not look like a tourist that doesn't belong, but the memories will be fun to add to our 2011 Yearbook. 

At Rose's Donuts in Corona Del Mar! Lainey excited about her
strawberry sprinkle donut.

Katie relaxing in her car seat playing with Mr. Elephant 

Chad updating his Facebook Check-In before diving into his
breakfast burrito!

You know those family stories that you tell over and over again?
When Chad was young he replaced the letter "C" with the letter "T"
"Nana, let's get in the tar and go to toto's and get some torn on the tob."

Chad was a bit over being photographed but obliged me none the less.

At the Corona Dell Mar Farmers Market. Yes, I did try
another and LOVED this one. Lainey is reaching for an
orange that looked delicious.

Rainbow popcorn! Lainey was very excited about it!

Joy of having kids, blame your excitement for things like
rainbow popcorn on them. Which I am currently eating as I write!

Chad and I are known for our self portraits. 

So much so that My family bought us the xshot 2.0
It was not used in the picture above, but I will test it out soon!

This picture was to show my Mother in Law because I want her help in
duplicating something similar, but smaller, for our patio!

After our morning out Lainey played "hair" with Daddy. 

She has my hard hand

I have such an appreciation for great photographers that are able to capture the perfect moment. Those moments that you are going to cherish forever. I'm especially impressed when they can capture those moments with children. After documenting our family day out, I felt inspired to try to get some Valentine photos of our girls for cards for the family.

I will just let you guess how well today's photo shoot went!