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• Adoption Scrapbook Albums That Are Fast and Easy
• Life books for the Adopted Child When You Have Little Information

• How to Scrapbook Your Child's Adoption
• Positve Adoption Language
• Tired of annoying questions?

When you are waiting to adopt a child, especially your first, it can seem to take forever, regardless of how long or short the wait actually is. One way to pass the time is to start your adoption scrapbook album now. As you begin to record some of your thoughts at the time you'll see why it's so important to still take the time after your child arrives.

Don't feel overwhelming with the task of creating an adoption scrapbook album. One of the easiest and most natural places to start is with an extensive list of topics about the adoption experience. This can help get you brain focusing on events you may otherwise overlook. These lists can be found on a variety of web sites including my own which has over 150 topics.

Consider if you'd like to do an album on your own, purchase a pre-made adoption book from your favorite bookstore, or even hire a freelance scrapbooker. They will do a pre-designed book for you. One of the best options is the Adoption Scrapbook Album. It's twenty pages of transparency overlays, and you get to choose five that specifically fits your child's experience. They make scrapbooking stylish and fast.

Go visit your local craft store or scrapbook store to get some stickers and other embellishments. I rarely find more than a couple that specifically mention adoption, but buy some that have sayings about family, baby happenings, love, and other life events. You can use these in your book when you have a little spot to fill. It adds some style.

Have some fun with your digital camera and take a bunch of photos of the day-to-day stuff. Spilled Cheerios all over the living room floor and the huge pile of laundry will give you interesting journaling topics. The more creative photographs you take, the more you'll enjoy journaling. And years later you'll be glad you wrote about and photographed the uneventful stuff as well as the vacations. Your child will have a great time reading about it too.

Be creative, but not obsessively so. You don't have to go to "cropping parties." Invest in a nice paper cutter, don't bother cutting photos into circles, matte them using solid-color card stock and buy patterned paper in bulk.

Write it down. While it's nice to finish your adoption album soon so your child can enjoy it even as he or she is a toddler, at least start writing notes as you go to use for journaling later. You may use some in places other than the adoption album, but you'll have lots to choose from. Purchase a small notepad to put in the diaper bag so you can easily write things down as you think of them

My son turns five-years-old this month. I remember the first year of his life when I got so tired of strangers approaching me to say, "It goes so fast." But now I am one of those people, smiling at little babies and telling new moms, "Cherish this time. It goes so fast." Adoption is such an incredible experience. It's easy to believe that you will remember every emotion you beheld when you looked into your sweet one's eyes. But let's get real! Our brains can only hold so much. And our children do grow up so quickly. Record those treasured memories now before you forget.

Life books for the Adopted Child When You Have Little Information
by Lisa Copen

Designing a life book for your adoptive child or foster child may seem overwhelming, especially when you don't have a lot of information about your child's life before he or she became a part of your family. One of the biggest stumbling blocks is getting past the feeling over being overwhelmed.

Adoptive families vary in the extent of information they may have about birthmother of their child. While some families actually have the birth mother over to baby sit the child occasionally, others meet at a park for a few hours each year. Other families have no relationship with the birth family, perhaps even nothing more than a name on paper if that.

Many families have two or more adopted children and the relationships of the different birthmoms with the family vary. One birthmom may be very involved, while others have no contact at all. When this happens, oftentimes a birthmom of one child will go out of her way send notes or small gifts to the sibling of the child to make sure each child feels included and loved.

If you have a good relationship with a birth mom you may be able to get any information you wish for your child's adoption album. She may even be eager to assist to help dig up information or answer questions to help your child have an amazing book.

If you don't have very much information about your child's birth or birth family-if any at all-don't worry. You can still design an incredible book that helps your child understand his or her history.

For example, though one of the most important parts of the life book is about the biological mother, you may not even have a photo. You may want to include a poem about how a birth mom feels or write something like, "Did you know that your birth mom and birth father passed along a lot of physical traits you to in their DNA. I bet you got your pretty blond curls from your birth mom!"

It seems hard to imagine for many people, but adopted parents may not even know the actual birthdate of their child or where he or she was born. Rather than making a big deal out of this in the life book, write something like, "We think you were probably born sometime during the winter of 2005. The director of the orphanage said that you weighed the same as the other children born around that time."

Don't forget that it's not the amount of information that will make your album complete, but the love and effort that you put into the adoption book that your child will notice most. As your child grows older and asks more questions about his place of origin, you can do research together to help answer his questions. But don't put off creating an adoption life book because you don't have all the information you wish you had. Children love reading about themselves and they even enjoy making up their own stories to fill in some of the blanks.

The Adoption Scrapbook Album is a quick, easy way to create a personalized lifebook. Use transparency overlays and friends will admire--even if you aren't crafty. Free poems and quotes from Lisa Copen at Scrapbook My Adoption

Scrapbooking an adoption story is a fun way to put your child's story down on paper for him or her to be able to look at photos and read in years to come. Too often, however, our best of intentions end up being a huge box of memorabilia in the closet, waiting until a chunk of time comes when we can do all the keepsakes justice by putting together the perfect album.

Don't postpone your child's adoption scrapbook any longer. It's important that they get to flip through this book and share in the photos long before they go off to the university.

Here are a few ideas to guide you in scrapbooking your child's adoption keepsake book (or a "lifebook" as some call it):

[1] Write everything down. As a new parent it's easy to believe you will remember every special moment, but in no time you'll be making loads of memories and some of your favorites will fade.

[2] Share what you know that is appropriate for little ears. Maybe you were able to spend time with your child's birth mother, or maybe you don't have any information about her at all. Share what you know, but make sure that it is some something you will feel reading to your 5-year-old. If your child's birth mom has 6 children and kept the rest of them, or your child was the result of an abusive environment, don't write this down!

[3] Arrange the photos you want to use in your album. You don't want to use every phot you own, but rather just choose the ones that are the most precious for this particular album. Make sure everything is in order if you are you arranging the book chronologically

[4] Consider what size of album to you'd prefer. They are typically 8" x 8", 12" x 12" or 8.5" x 11". The 8" x 8" albums are a good size for little hands to hold and flip through.

[5] Try to find whatever supplies you'd like to use. I had a hard time being able to find anything other than a couple of stickers that mentioned adoption. Frustrated with this, I designed my own 8" x 8" overlay transparencies. Overlays are great because they make your book look like it was done by a professional, they is no glue or tape needed and anyone can use them (no skill required)

[6] Keep it easy. Don't try to put every thought you have in the book. You want to be able to share it with your child so consider her attention span too. You can always add more pages later and your child may ask questions while reading it that you want to answer in the book. You may also think of other things that could be represented. For example, if you adopted your child from a foreign country, you may see the value in adding a page about that country.

[7] Use poems or quotes to fill in pages. If you lack information or are just feeling overwhelmed by writing your thoughts down, use a few adoption quotes. Just be sure to not rely on them completely. Poetry is nice, but your own thoughts will mean the most to your child.

[8] Use child-friendly language. For example, don't ever write, "Your birth mom loved you so much that she gave you away." This could scare your child into believing that pretty soon you will love him too much and give you away too. Keep the wording simple: "Miss Clara wanted you to have both a mommy and a daddy and she knew that we were really excited to be your parents."

Too often we get caught up in creating a masterpiece of a baby album that will include every bath, haircut, smile and tear. Instead, focus on just the adoption story for this small book and put a lot of the baby or family pages in other books. The sooner it's ready for your child, the more time of their childhood they will reflect on it.

The Adoption Scrapbook Album is a quick, easy way to create a personalized lifebook. Use transparency overlays and friends will admire--even if you aren't crafty. Free poems and quotes from Lisa Copen at Scrapbook My Adoption

The words we choose say a lot about what we think. When we use positive adoption language, we say that adoption is a way to build a family just as birth is a way to build a family. Both are important, but one is not more important than the other. Try using the positive words when you are talking about adoption.

* Reprinted from Adoption Club House

Tired of annoying questions from people about your family or your adoption? Visit Adoption Club House for some great tips!