Starting to scrapbook

Ever since the Little Guy was born, I've wanted to scrapbook.  I wanted to capture all of his cuteness and special moments in one solid tome for the ages.  However, I quickly learned that scrapbooking can be a huge task, and it's easy to get overwhelmed.  After all, I have two kids and I'm armed with a digital camera...I take anywhere from 100 to 250 photos a month.  What memories do you capture?  What moments are important to document? 

While I've been collecting scrapbooking materials for over three years now, up until a few days ago I had yet to do a single page.  In the spirit of getting myself organized, and motivating others to do the same, I wanted to dive in and get started. Those memories and photos weren't going to organize and scrapbook themselves! 

But where to start?  After careful consideration, I decided to keep things simple.  For the Little Guy and BabyGirl's scrapbooks, I'm focusing on professional pictures with only a few candids thrown in as necessary.

Once that decision was made, getting started was much easier.  First, I choose what pictures would go on each page.  Then, I combed through all of my scrapbook paper and choose backgrounds for the pictures.  And while I had purchased some embellishments, I don't plan on using them.  The simpler, the better! 

So far, I have two pages done:

Now that I've gotten started, and each page is simply waiting to be assembled, I hope this process goes smoothly and quickly.  After all, it took me three years to get started...I don't want to drag this out for another three years! 

I do have a separate album for all of those wonderful day-to-day living photos that I take.  I use small albums where the photos just slip into pockets and I can write down the details in the side margin:

This way, each child will have a more informal record of early life and events in addition to their fancy scrapbook.  The two-track system may seem like a lot, but for me it makes a lot of sense.  Professional pictures go in the scrapbooks, so I don't have to make any decisions about which events to include and leave out.  Everything can be included in the small photo albums, and since assembly is so easy I am saving a lot of time putting those albums together. 

I wonder if this means I can call myself a "scrapbooker" now.  Or is it "scrapper"?  Whatever the lingo is, I'm glad I've finally tackled this project!