My Maternity Book

Disclaimer – This is a sponsored post by Canon. All opinions are 100% my own.

As many of you know….we are 99.9% sure that Ella will be our last bundle of Bower baby goodness.  We actually went into this pregnancy with the mindset that baby #5 would be the last hoorah….no matter if it was a girl, boy or alien.  My pregnancy with Max was very hard at the end and we anticipated that being even older (hello advanced maternal age!) and less fit (what do you specifically mean by the word exercise?)  would mean an even harder pregnancy….and we were right.  The entire pregnancy was very difficult on me physically and it took it’s toll emotionally on all of us.  Let’s just say….I’m not great at handling pregnancy.  Ha!  I might put on a brave face but I have some really weak moments despite being obsessed with having newborns.  This last time, if I was saying goodbye to an era of pregnancies and babies and newborn diapers and swollen ankles…..I wanted to do it right!

Repeatedly we said that we would treat it like our last and we tried our darndest.  We took lots of extra pictures.  We threw a gender reveal party (something we had never really done!).  We ate every craving at every slightest whim.  The extra effort was completely worth it…..afterall, this was our going away party to pregnancy!  Our grand finale is documenting it all in a very tangible way….with a photo book. P.S. Canon is giving Bower Power readers a 50% Discount! Details at the end of the post.

We create yearbooks each year of the main events – holidays, birthday parties, kids milestones, and even house pictures.  I wanted something similar to work into our collection but completely focused on this pregnancy….following our journey from day 1.  A maternity book if you will.  I used the Canon hdAlbum site to create my masterpiece.  Since this was my first time making a hdAlbum, I wanted it to be the same size as my yearbooks….and so I went with a Classic 11×8 and used the online editor to put it together.  I was tempted to upload their desktop designer but in the end, I wanted something super simple and fast….this was just the thing!  I simply popped all my photos into their pre made and easy to use templates and it was super fast to manipulate.  I’m fairly certain even my mother could do it and she still doesn’t know how to use the remote to turn on the search function (and yes, the button is clearly labeled SEARCH. ha!)

One of the best parts of making a maternity book is that all the weird stuff that I had taken photos of – like a pregnancy test, donuts (my biggest craving this time!), and even pictures of my swollen feet…those things probably wouldn’t be important enough to make it into my yearbooks but they definitely had a place in this book!

For the cover I chose a photo that was the first time I captured sweet Ella’s smile with my camera….it wasn’t completely in focus (I was in a rush!!!)….but I don’t care because it still looked great in the black and white wrapped cover.

I chose to not have text but what I plan on doing is having the boys sign their names in the section where they first got to hold their sister.

In addition to the pre-made layouts, I also made some of my own layouts to show off the growing belly.  I was able to drop in a bunch of my instagram shots and I varied side and front shots so that I could remember the weight of that growing babe!  (yes, Ella fell asleep as I was taking these and this is her first time sleeping on her belly and I took a million pictures and now I need to create a whole new book! ha!)

I decided to show the boys the book and I may have promised lots of treats if they didn’t rip up the pages and washed their hands and promised not to drool or spit or wipe any boogers on it….you always need to preface those kind of things with toddlers 🙂

They all were super interested because a lot of the pictures they had never seen….

When we got to the page with delivery photos, Will was very interested in the details of that day.  He always asks lots of questions about the needle in my back and why does it hurt to have a baby and why do I need medicine to make the baby come….it’s a full biology class 🙂  He was also very proud that his little sister was the heaviest baby of them all.  I think he just liked it that Weston finally was dethroned as “the biggest”  HA!  🙂

One of the other great things about the hdAlbum options is that you can turn a picture into a black & white option with one click.  It turns a whole bunch of mismatched pictures into an art gallery of coordinating photos.  And the print quality is so good.  In the past, I would upload phone photos and most of them were not printed well….but this book had amazing print quality.  The blacks were true black and the grays weren’t fuzzy.

Even the sweetie girl herself approves!  Look at that big smile and this time it wasn’t gas!  🙂  I know it sounds dumb….but I really can’t tell you how much documenting this whole journey and creating a tangible book has helped me too….saying hello to change is HARD for me….like I want ALL the babies….and this book gives that experience back to me.  It reminds me in a very sweet way that it wasn’t all roses….there were some very real struggles….like when I could barely walk one block because my feet were that swollen….or when my back hurt so bad that I couldn’t pick up or hold my other kids….and then childbirth!  The book does celebrate the good….but it doesn’t erase the struggles like my memory does.  And that is super helpful!  It encourages me to move forward into this next phase of life knowing that it is going to be just as sweet!

And Canon is offering 50% off all Hard Cover hdAlbum photo books using the CODE: BABYBOWER17 from now until November 19th. So CLICK HERE to get started!

CODE: BABYBOWER17

Offer – 50% off all Hard Cover hdAlbum photo books

Valid: 10/26 – 11/19