How has it been a year already??  Camryn grew so fast right before our eyes!

When I set out to take monthly photos of Camryn, I thought I would be taking 12 sets of photos.  As it turns out, I had to be extra all year and do letter boards for every holiday and milestone in addition to the monthly photos.  I ended up taking 36 sets of photos!  WHAAT??

Am I glad I took all these photos?  Absolutely!  Was it difficult and time consuming?  Oh, yeah!  Am I relieved that I’m finally finished?  You bet!

Each letter board had song lyrics.  Some were based on popular songs and some not-so-popular.  I had to do a lot of research to find the perfect song lyrics and manipulate them to make them baby-related.  There were a few subtle things I did with each set of pictures.  Tell me if you noticed any of them!

MONTHLY PHOTOS

Camryn wore my heirloom dresses for all her monthly photos.  I used the same blush pink baby blanket each month.  When I took her photos each month, I took three types of photos.  One with the letter board, one close up for the frame in her room, and one with a number balloon.  Fun fact: my original plan was to just do the number balloons each month to be consistent with the balloon announcements throughout my pregnancy.  However, I had a ton of cute lyrics to share and decided to use the letter board instead.  I already had the balloons, so I created more work for myself by doing these three sets of photos for every month.  It was exhausting to say the least.  Oh, and the best part is that Camryn quickly outgrew the blanket I used for the background, which meant I had to edit every single photo to extend the blanket. My OCD had a field day with this!

MILESTONE PHOTOS

In each milestone photo, Camryn wore outfits with either her initial or monogram.  I used a grey bed sheet for the background.  Sometimes the sheet was on the floor and sometimes it was draped over a tension rod.  The milestone photos were a bit easier since I only took a letter board photo and a close-up photo.  Except when I decided it would be cool to make a GIF of her rolling over and another one of her crawling haha.  For the last two, we ditched the sheet because it was too complicated to get those photos.

Not every letter board session was successful, which you can clearly see in the next two sets haha.

HOLIDAY PHOTOS

Since I had not planned on doing holiday photos in the beginning, I did not plan a consistent theme for the holiday outfits.  Camryn wore my baby dedication outfit, her Halloween costume, her own smocked dresses, embroidered outfits, and some plain outfits.  I used a white baby blanket for this set of photos.  I also took a letter board photo and close up photo (or family photo) for each holiday to be consistent with the other photo sets.

For Easter, I wanted to do one letterboard that focused on the real reason for Easter.  I also wanted to do one bunny-related because the bunny outfit was one of mine from when I was a baby.  We had to incorporate it somehow!

And of course we had to do a tax day photo since Weston is a CPA 😉

Well, it has been a long year of being extra!  I’m thrilled to complete this project and move on to other ways of being extra as a girl mom.  Fingers crossed for less time-consuming photo projects in the future!

What did you think?  Which letter board was your favorite?