When Maddie was born 13 years ago, we had a fancy digital camera. And by fancy, I mean that it was like 1 pixel and the zoom was horrible.  I don’t even think I knew that spatial resolution was a thing. I was filling up the memory card every day BEFORE Darren would get home from work and the poor guy would have to load everything to the computer the second he walked in the door. I had jpegs coming out of my whozits.

It was so great; I was going to make scrapbooks and document everything and be the most amazing mom in the history of ever.

Pfft – that’s funny.

I took a couple pictures when Emily was born and I don’t think I could even find a camera or my phone that first year after Jack-Jack was born.

The good news is that all 3 of them were identical when they were babies. When they ask who is in a picture, I always tell them it’s them (what?  Come on, don’t judge.  Next you’re gonna tell me the smoke detectors in every room aren’t really Santa cams…Dude, you’re mean)

Fast forward a couple years of zero documenting & zero scrapbooking. That (air quote) Most-Amazing-Mom thing isn’t working out so well. I know, I’m shocked too.

Then came Shutterfly and the angels sang down to me.

I was introduced to the world of Shutterfly on our vacation to California a few years back. We received a coupon for a free photo book with our tickets to LegoLand.  When we got home I sat down and checked it out.

Yahtzee.

It was amazing. I imported all of our pictures from our trip and they walked me through all the steps, and within a few hours I was done.  Yes, it’s true – it does take a couple hours to format a 20 page book.  But for a girl that hadn’t documented a single moment in the last 15 years…it was totally worth it.

I was hooked. I would send something from Shutterfly to my dad for every Birthday, Father’s Day and Christmas.  He thought it was so fancy, wondering where I got wrapping paper with the kids pictures on it. He would be so furious that I spent a fortune on a photo book for him, “Anything for you, Dad.’ *wink-wink*   I still make sure to fill Darren’s parents home with photo books and decks of cards every chance I get.  Heck, I just made up some luggage tags for our vacation next month.

The plan was that I was going to sit down and put together a book for every year, starting with 2001. So smart, right?  Then all I would have to do was press the print button every time a free book coupon came out.  Genius. I’d be caught up in no time!

Double pfft.

I barely have enough time for a shower. Sitting down and making 15 years of photo books has not happened, thank goodness showering has – you’re welcome. But, I do make one for every vacation and I have made one for a ‘year in review’ the last few years.  I also made one of the old house so the kiddos can flip through it when they need to reminisce.  Maybe someday I’ll be able to make one for 2001, but I’ve pushed that to the bottom of my to-do list.

I received a free book coupon on Friday morning that was expiring on Tuesday. I was pretty upset with myself when Tuesday came and went without carving out some time to make a book.  But, when Shutterfly emailed me yesterday morning, letting me know the free book deal was extended through today, I blocked out a chunk of my evening last night to make a book.

Oh and did I mention you can stack their coupon codes? I’ve never been able to get the free book code to stack – so I do have to pay the 8 bucks for shipping…but I’ve never had an issue with the 40% stacked with the free shipping.  And as my mom used to say, that’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.

The free book is only for the rest of today. What do you say, have some time today to make a photo book? And heck, if you don’t have time today, if you’ve never used Shutterfly before, feel free to give it a try with this free referral code.

Happy Photobooking ♥