What a year!  Collin changed so much in his first year of life. Just look at his hair! It was so dark when he was born and you can see it get lighter and lighter each month.

When Collin was born, I was determined to document his first year the same way I documented Camryn’s first year. I knew at the time that it meant taking 36 sets of photos – again. To say it was challenging is an understatement, but I am so proud to have made it to the finish line! Thankfully, Collin actually loved taking pictures and the entire process was much quicker than it was with Camryn.

Here are some notes about the letter boards! 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, but I also used some that I had come up with when doing Camryn’s monthly photos.  There were a few subtle things I did with each set of pictures.  Tell me if you noticed any of them!

MONTHLY PHOTOS

Collin wore Weston’s heirloom outfits for all his monthly photos.  I used the same blue baby blanket each month – a larger one than I used with Camryn, which saved me a TON of editing time!  When I took his photos each month, I took three types of photos.  One with the letter board, one close up for the milestone frame, and one with a number balloon. 

MILESTONE PHOTOS

In each milestone photo, Collin wore outfits with either his initial or monogram (except for two because I couldn’t get any monogrammed outfits quickly enough).  I used the walls of our house as the background for the majority of the photos. Some of the photos were the floor or our Christmas tree as the background. This was SO much easier than the setup for Camryn’s milestone photos.

HOLIDAY PHOTOS

Since Camryn was in some of the holiday photos too, I wanted to make sure they matched (and now I want ALL the matching sibling outfits). I used a white sheet for this set of photos.  I 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 Weston’s baby outfits!

We had to do a Tax Day photo since Weston is a CPA. This is the same onesie Camryn wore for her photo!

Well, it has been a long year being extra with our second child! What did you think?  Which letter board was your favorite?

P.S. Check out Camryn’s First Year here!