This weekend I went to visit my sister. While I was there my son Gavin went over to her book shelf and pulled out a little book that I had made him when my husband and I took our first extended trip away from him. Gavin brought me the book and said, “Mommy, I want to read this”. So we sat on the couch, snuggled up and read the book.
Page one read “Mommy and Daddy are going on a trip, they love and miss Gavin. Today they are going on an airplane, they will be home in 1,2,3,4,5,6 days. Can you count to 6?”. On the other side of the page was a picture of our little family by an airplane, and a map of where we were going. I continued reading the book, each page was a day from our itinerary. I had pulled images from Google of the places we were going and mixed it with family pictures from past travels. It was so fun to see Gavin so happy with his book so long after we had returned, and it was so fun for me to reminisce on each day from our fun getaway. As we finished the book I thought that this would be something other moms would enjoy making for their kiddos at home. Not only is it something to share with your kids, but it’s a pre-made keepsake from your vacation. (I’m sure we all know after you get back from vacation the time to sit down and make a scrapbook is hard to find!)
I’ve copied a little example from my book below which I made at shutterfly.com (for about $30.00). For me, I liked using repetition in the wording, and had each page start with the same phrase “Mommy and Daddy are going on a trip, they love and miss Gavin. Today they are going ___________, they will be home in ______ days. Can you count to __?” This made thinking of the wording easy, and it helped Gavin to understand the words on the page, it also made it a keepsake reminder of each day from my trip.
I hope you enjoy making your keepsake, and if you have any examples or other fun traveling tips, please feel free to comment and share.
…