[siskitkat]

Sarah Batdorf designed the Heart in Hand Collection, which is the adoption themed collection in the boutique. Erica Hite might have some useful input also, since she just designed the two Plan on It Layout Templates.
If we can't have a chat soon, could we at least do a challenge/exchange to introduce our kids to each other. We could all do layouts about our kids as a way of introducing them to each other. One of the biggest revelations that our oldest had, was that others besides HIM were adopted. All of our kids are very visual. It would helpful for them to see other kids who have been adopted.

[Zaz]

I don't think it will take long to get a chat going. This has the potential to help our kids in more than one way. Cool! My DS knows he's adopted and that his family looks different. He only has one other friend who is adopted, but he actually looks like his family so it doesn't quite compute yet.

I'll let you know when I get everything put together. Does anyone have a time and date suggestion? Or times that DON'T work? We could vary it now and then so everyone gets a chance to get in. Let me know.

~Zaz

[BethLang]

I agree with GinaMO, Zaz. You should share those ideas with a designer and see what can come from them! As far as the proposal for a chat, i would like an assignment to get my tushy in gear. But also, I could be happy with just the chat, to act as the springboard into an assignment. My choice topic would be lifebooks, and how/what to put in one for certain ages. I did not know myself how many of us SGirls have been touched by adoption, and am pleased I found such a caring community as this!

[BethLang]

galinjapan, on Jan 29 2008, 08:12 AM, said:

hi Beth..

I am also working on my DS adoption book (Agust 28, 2007)... I was lucky to have found a very helpful adoption book that the adoption association of my country published... however it is very shabby looking... printed on regular paper... but the content is amazing...

besides the obvious like talk about mom and dad and things you find in regular baby books... it contains things like:

PS...my book is in French so this is my translation...

** Mommy, Daddy, tell me how you felt when you contacted the adoption agency for the first time?

** Why did you decide to adopt from ??? (country)?

** Mommy and Daddy had to prepare soooo many papers for my adoption...
(list the documents)

And the one that still makes me cry everytime I read it... It is quite long... so I hope my translation will do it justice....

** Bye Bye Sadness... Welcome Happy Days ...
'It's unbelieveable... Imaginable... We are parents... Our little angel has entered our lives.... We are now living emotions almost indescribiable (???) of all of our existance... On (date) the telephone rang and....

Zaz did a dance in her kitchen... I yelled so loud that I scared the crap out of the visitors at my house...

It includes a whole lot of things like arrival home... first X-mas... 1st family vacation...

The book is about 50 pages... the stuff the author came up with is amazing... (author is an adoptive mother... so she knew what people wanted out of this book)

If you need ideas... let me know... to list the total content will take too long... but if many of you are interested in the content... I might be game enough to translate it a little at a time... I don't know about copyright though... but since it will be used only for personal purposes... I don't think it will be a problem... The book is about 50 pages... and lists all the steps from adoptive parents' decision to adopt and the first of everything...

P.S. sorry for potential mistakes... I'm past my bedtime...



Josee

I love these ideas, Josee! Thank you!
This is what I need..good prompts.
What age range did the book say these prompts were used with?
I am struggling with a Toddler version of a lifebook, and fear I have to make a whole new one for her when she is 4 or 5, and then five years from that, etc.
I really am interested in your book, but I don't know french!
Beth

[Monica D.]

I got involved in digi-scrapbooking to make a Lifebook for my little sister. She was 2.5 years old when we got her. She's special needs and was in foster care through an American-run foundation called China Care. She was in 2-3 foster homes, in 2 different group homes (for lack of a better term), and only in the orphanage for the first 2 months or so of her life and the last week or so before she was adopted. We have over 200 pictures of her before we got her from the foundation, but we just recently got a copy of her finding ad (not really a copy, a photograph of it, with negatives), which we think may have been taken the day she was found. We have copies of her medical files from China (referral paperwork) and updates that we got the foundation to send to us when they sent them out to her sponsors. She also has a real baby book in China that we are trying to choreograph someone into getting for us. We're scrounging up all the parts of her life before us that we can. She wasn't left with a note, so we know nothing except what we believe.

I'm planning on writing it from a 'you' point of view (what I write), like 'you were placed in our arms kicking and screaming' and 'you liked candy so much, they gave you to us with a sack of it'. It will probably run up until her first Gotcha Day anniversary (this May) and then after that I'll add more as I find it, if I can, and do a new little something for each Gotcha Day anniversary after that. I'll write it in more mature language, but Mom and Dad will most likely read it to her 'til she's older, so they can improv. Dad's good at that (ever listened to a guy read 'I Love You Like Crazy Cakes'? LOL).

Monica

[BethLang]

Monica-
I love your idea about doing something each year for Gotcha Day. We will be celebrating our DD's gotcha day, and with your idea I think it would be neat to scrap a page on gotcha day every year with her. Well, she is only 14 months right now, but she can help in some way! I ended up doing a traditional scrapbook (7x7) as a toddler version, and am digi scrapping an older child version. I think with that one I might use pocket pages for personal or private information so we can have DD take the book to school with only the school appropriate information. I am stuck on what size to make my digi pages for this purpose, though, and what to put them in when I get them printed. I too have over 200 pics, but not as an involved story as your little sister! Wow! How old is she now? I am glad you wrote on this forum, Monica! Have a great day!

[dlayden]

Hey - It looks as though this thread may be a little old - but I am still getting my feet wet around this place-

I started digi-scrapping so that I could make a Lifebook for Li Li and then decided that Beth O'Malley is just one way to go about it and that wasn't necessarily my way. My daughter spent the first 20 months of life in her birth country - two Chinese Orphanages and the last four months were in foster care. She is a thriving three year-old. I am adopted domestically and so I may have a very different approach that others.
BTW - China Digital Scrapbooks is a wonderful support network and I see many familiar face here They are done a lot of research and thrive on doing Lifebooks.

Monica - HI! Love the recent images of Reese She looks AWESOME!

[lvscrapper]

greetings all!

I realize this thread is old, but maybe we can revitalize it. Beth told me about the thread at the convention, so I had to come on and check it out. I am a bad one and haven't even THOUGHT about Ethan's lifebook and certainly Lucas' has not crossed my mind really either. I had better get in gear!

I guess there are quite a few of us that have adoption experiences to share. My boys are both adopted or being adopted through foster care. My oldest little sister was adopted from Vietnam and my other three sisters were adopted through foster care. I guess adoption just runs in our family?

[siskitkat]

What happened to the idea of a chat? What about some challenges? I do need to do some work on this. We got our kids in Jan '07 and we finalized Nov 16, 08.

[StephanieB]

I am adopted (closed domestic) and my sons are also adopted (foster adoption). I have made lifebooks for both of them and I also made mine a few years ago. Let me see if I have all the pages scanned and I will upload it to my gallery this afternoon.

I have taught 2 classes on making lifebooks so when you get a chat scheduled I would love to be there in case any of you have questions or need some input.

Steph

[dlayden]

Ni Hao Ya'll
I have bee muddling through the Lifebook thing too and somedays I am hot and other - cold. I would love to finish my little Princesses too and a Chat is a great idea Did anyone volunteer to host it? I just hosted a Sketch Chat and I wouldn't mind getting this going -

[BethLang]

Hey Deb- I would love that too. I am ready to finish, thanks to Steph's inspiration, my DD's lifebook. But I want a chat so I can hear how other people use the lifebook, or plan to use it. I have so many copies of partially done baby books, adoption story books, etc... for Annabelle, and I just need a forum to talk out loud in so I can coordinate all these things into meaningful documents for her.

Let me know when a chat gets going. I'm right at that point where I really could use one...

[metam]

My husband and I adopted two children, a girl from Cambodia (now 7 years old) and a boy from China (now 5 years old). There are several groups active on the internet about lifebook creating. The group I belong to that combines digital scrapping and having adopted from Asia is http://www.chinadigitalscrapbooks.com . This is a wonderful closed group (you have to apply to become a member). We have created several lifebook kits (quickpages) with this group from the Journey of the Heart adoption kit, for sale here http://www.digital-scrapbook-kits.com/stor...and-Family.aspx
I have finished my children's lifebooks within a year after starting with digital scrapping (never heard of it before, but I was skilled in graphical software). I followed the guidelines published in this group http://groups.yahoo..../ChinaLifebooks made by Kay Graap about the subjects. This group is great about the writing, there are many messages with samples of how you could write a specific page.

Greetings from the Netherlands,
Meta Meulenbelt
ps, I uploaded two of the pages from my children's lifebooks, the birthparents pages.

[dlayden]

Hey Metam,
Are you new at SG? I am a member at CDS too and you will find several CDS members on the boards! I post form time to time at CDS under the name Yes Minster -

BTW - I Love your LO'S

[metam]

dlayden, on Oct 28 2008, 01:20 AM, said:

Hey Metam,
Are you new at SG? I am a member at CDS too and you will find several CDS members on the boards! I post form time to time at CDS under the name Yes Minster -

BTW - I Love your LO'S

Hi Debbie! I didn't recognize a name in this thread so I thought to tell a bit about CDS. No, I'm not new here, but I rarely post outside of CDS. I was just surfing the board here tonight and read about others that are interested in creating a lifebook. That's great!
But it's rather late now (1 AM) so I'm going to bed.

Greetings,
Meta

[BethLang]

Oh how wonderful, Meta!
Now I want to approach this lifebook differently and do it all over again. Sigh...will I ever get it done? Thanks for the info on the sites. Will check them out this week.
Thanks!