ornaments | the mini album

While your tree is up and decorated, remember to snap a few pics of your most favorite, treasured and oldest ornaments that make up the story of your family's keepsakes.

Once you've done that, you'll want to print out these free journaling card downloads. Trim them and then record your stories before slipping them into a 4x6 photo album for a simple way to always have those quirky recollections as to why "this" ornament is even in your family's collection.

On my agenda for the day...snapping a few more photos to add to our album. I'll probably get a little teary thinking about the stories that go along with ornaments I'm photographing. When we unpacked our ornaments to add to the tree this year, I remembered why I am so thankful that we take the time to make homemade ornaments with the kids each year.

Luckily, I have little notes I've written that are included in the baggies that I use to keep our handmade ornaments together which makes my job easier as I record details and dates. Some of the notes are even written in Zach's handwriting. Yep, I shed a tear. Or two. Maybe more. So, this year it's a must that the girls write notes about our ornament making sessions so that years from now I can tear up again.  Here's our ornament making session with Zach and Ruth while they were in town before Thanksgiving. He kinda, sorta made sure we made ornaments. Makes me think that maybe he actually liked the time we spent doing that. We used this salt dough ornament recipe, if you'd like to make some with your kiddos.

NOTE  |  I wanted to share this free download with you again. I noticed that there was a ridiculously large amount of traffic coming to the blog from Pinterest. One Pin alone has been re-Pinned over 1200 times. Yes, I said 1200 re-pins from just one Pin. Here's the original post from 2010.