2011 Rumbarger Family Year in Review

In our house we take photos like it’s goin’ out of style, so it only seems fitting that we have loads of pictures displayed around the house and even more saved on our computers. I share a lot of them right here on this blog for my family so that they can not only see what we're up to (since we live halfway across the country) but they can also save them and print them out for their own use. But that left me with lots of cute electronic pictures, not hard copies. I ran across MyPublisher and knew that their hard cover photo books would be the answer to my dilemma.

So I spent a few evenings compiling most of our photos and creating our photo book, but by the time I finished I realized I missed the deadline of the “free pages” sale which allowed customers to create a 100 page book without paying for the extra pages. Without the deal, one book with 100 pages would’ve cost a little over $100. So I decided to wait until I received another discount code in my inbox and when I finally did I pounced on the offer. Five days later this bad boy arrived in the mail:

Boom-shock-uh-lock-uh! As my Brother-in-Law would say.

It’s a gajillion pictures of our entire 2011, packaged in a nice, purdy, ½ inch thick book.

I put the photos in chronological order so that when you flip through the book you see them in the order the events happened.

So we started out with Owen's birthday even though it was technically in December rather than the start of the New Year.

There were all sorts of layouts so you can change the arrangement of the photos based on the orientation of the photos.

Of course Bear and Jersey made an appearance or two...

as did the amazing Florida sunsets we are so blessed to see every evening.

Everyday fun...

and summer camping trips...

Vacations...

and trips to Nana and Poppa.

We included big milestones...

and everyday life.

And since this book is dedicated to our brood, it only seemed fitting that we put lyrics from Rascal Flatts' "My Wish" on the back cover. 

The program is super easy to use - I'd recommend it to anyone who is plum full of photos like me. They have the large book, which is what I chose to go with, but they also have little mini books which would be cute as gifts for kids. I guess some people would cringe at the $40ish price tag but it's a small price to pay for a nice hardback book that we can flip through and reminisce on the past year. I loved our book so much that I plan to do it at the end of every year from now on. And I'm determined to go back and find/organize photos from the years past as well to make those photos into a nice little book also. If photos make you happy and your totally into family traditions you should check out MyPublisher and start your own yearly book. Or maybe even create a book for a special occasion such as an entire book dedicated to your kiddo's first birthday. 


Oh, and wait for discounts (they'll send it to you in the form of an email), they seem to always have some sort of sale whether it's buy one get one free, or "free pages" or 20% off.  
Trust me, it's worth the wait, need proof?

I bought two books (one for my parents as a gift) so my total was $86, but had I just bought one book it would've been $43 and that's including shipping! And do you see that I saved $157.90?! Can I get a SHAZAM?! No? Okay, I guess a 'very nice' will suffice.


Lor