This One’s For You Babe
We had a sad thought the other day: Clara probably won’t remember this house very much. Even though it has meant the world to Sherry and me, her six-month old brain might not log much of her life here into the ol’ memory bank. So we made her a video. Sure we’ve documented the heck outta this house over the last three years, so it’s not like we’d have trouble digging up pics for her, but we figured Clara deserved her own personal tour of the first place she ever called “home” with some details about what she loved and where she hung out. So we’re hoping this little Clara-centric tour of the house will jog her memory when she sees it a few years down the road. Originally we weren’t going to post it for all to see, but we figured what the heck. Why stop oversharing now? Watch it below on Vimeo or here on YouTube.
Have you guys ever done something like this to help your kids (or even yourself) remember a house? Or do you have any other suggestions when it comes to bringing the memory of a house with you to your next place? We’re definitely planning to hang the sketch of our current house’s lot, the framed key of course, and a few other “artifacts” from our life here.
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Very cute! Did you shoot this with the flip?
Yup, we love our Flip HD.
xo,
s
That is such a great idea! I love it, and I know she will when she gets older!
It’s great that you have so many photographs of Clara’s first home. I lived in my first home as a baby for a year and a half and, of course, have no memory of it at all.
I also wish I had photos of my grandparents’ homes I visited as a child, but people just didn’t take photos of the interiors of their homes except where family get-togethers took place. No photos of the bedrooms or kitchen or upstairs.
We kept a photo album of all the major projects we did in our first house. We tried our best to remember to take before during and after pictures of the major renovations we did. We displayed it when our house was on the market, now it is our little keepsake of all the work we did. We did do a video of some of the nursery and house for our daughter just before she was born. I am so happy we have those pictures and movies to help us remember our first home.
Thank you for sharing, that was very sweet! She will love it when she is older. :)
Very sweet… are you going to recreate Clara’s room, with the same color scheme, in your new house?
The same furniture will definitely end up in there, but we might change the wall color (and maybe even some small accessories like pillows/art/crib sheet/etc). You know us, we love a makeover. But we also love the original room so it’s going to be interesting to see how much we change…
xo,
s
This is such a sweet and sentimental video! Clara will love and appreciate it when she’s older! You guys are so creative with your weekly baby photos & videos. I’ll definitely be documenting with photos & videos when my hubby and I decide to have children. Good luck with the new place!
Teary-eyed! The apartment where I had spent my early childhood (3-11 years old) still appears in my dreams…
Ugh, another cute video for me to copy! I mean, ‘be inspired by.’ Can I also just say that I check your blog like 5 times a day while I’m at work and I’m always like ‘arrgghh’ when there isn’t a new post up. I’m so mean, but I love you guys! :)
My husband is active duty military and plans to go career, so we have a couple of moves behind us and a TON ahead of us. One tradition we’ve started is to commission a local artist to paint our house for us (we’ve only done it for houses we’ve purchased, so we have two so far). That way, we have a piece of original art when we move and a great memory of each place we”ve owned.
My family moved out of our first house when I was about 9-10 years old, and while I have some faint memories, I don’t have much vivid detail about how it looked. It would be nice now to have some documentation of that original house.
And John, it’s not like you guys haven’t shared almost all of your life with us crazy stalkers….ERRR….loyal fans. A few more minutes of video won’t matter…..
RIGHT?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!
;-)
Aww… When do you move into your next house? Just think of all the fun memories you’ll create for Clara there!!
Hey Katie,
If all goes well we’ll be moving in mid December- which is right around the corner! Ahh! So excited.
xo,
s
Very cute!! I regret I didn’t do that with our first apt. when we left, especially since we brought our son home there. Alas, there are photos.
I did a video tour of our current house after we got settled in. I was planning on doing another before we move out (it’s a rental) to see any changes that we made but it probably won’t be many.
Oooh so cute! I love it!
What a cute idea?! It’s so sweet & I’m sure she will love it when she’s old enough to appreciate it. It will be really neat for her kids to watch it someday too.
Just wanted to say that you guys are amazing parents! This video made me cry…she will love it someday that you put so much thought in to it for HER. :)
I love this video! What a great idea! We have contemplated putting our house up for sale next year and it just breaks my heart that this is where we brought our first baby home to and that we would be leaving it all behind :(
I love the baby in the mirror game! :) This is such a great idea, Clara will love watching this when she’s older.
What do you use for editing with the Flip?
Hey Meghan,
We use iMovie (version 9) which came free with our MacBook.
xo,
s
Great video! I wish I would have made something similar for my oldest son. He is four years old and loves hearing stories and seeing pictures of himself as baby Everett.
Too cute. How clever of you to make this video for Clara!
We drove 6 hours this past summer to visit our first house (where our older son lived until he was 2.5yrs old) and old friends. He’s now 5 and it was so fun to see him remembering things…a tree, the neighbors, the park across the street, etc. Of course, we were only able to see the exterior. He was disappointed we weren’t going in.
Maybe the homeowners of your first house will let Clara come visit later in life?!
We keep thinking that maybe the house will go up for sale in ten years and we can take her to the open house!
xo,
s
So sweet. Yall are such a gorgeous family!
awwwwwwwwwwwww so so SO cute! Now she’ll always remember her first house =)
xoXOxo
That is the sweetest thing ever! You two are doing an awesome parenting job!
This is such a cute idea! She will surely cherish it when she’s older.
My parents and I moved 5 times before I was 4, so capturing photos of the apartments and houses never really happened (though one of them is my grandma’s home, so I know what that looks like obviously). Oddly enough, I have very vivid memories of the house we lived in when I was 3, but mostly I remember how awful the house was. The living room, I kid you not, had complete floor-to-ceiling mirrored walls with a mirrored ceiling and a large window, so you were essentially burned alive/blinded when the sun came shining through. The kitchen was so tiny that you had to push the dinette table out of the way to open the fridge and push it back to get to the stove/oven (there wasn’t a dining room). There was a window in the shower/tub, and not one of those opaque block type windows, but a straight up clear window that looked out into the backyard and the 4 car garage. The garage was bigger than the whole house.
This is lovely!
Awesome idea. Also: I’m pretty sure I sing the same “Baby in the Mirror” song to my little guy :)
Such a great idea! Burger’s expression on the back of the couch is priceless. Clara will love the video for sure!
I know you’ve mentioned it before, (and I looked around before asking because it drives me nuts when people ask a question you’ve already answered) but can you give me the full info on your video camera? I know nothing about cameras and I’m thinking I might ask Santa to bring me one since we have a little guy on the way. Thank you!
Hey Larissa,
We have a Flip HD camera (it plugs right into the computer for easy uploading). Love it!
xo,
s
That’s such a beautiful idea! She is sure to treasure this video when she’s older. Make sure you have it backed up safely somewhere. :)
Ah, that much adorable baby on video is dangerous. Makes me want one too!
Love the dramatic ending..2010-2010. :)
I love this, especially the 2010-2010 at the end, lol!
Awwww… Clara is going to love this video one day!!
You guys made me cry!! Clara is a lucky girl to have such amazing parents!
So cute. You had me shedding tears. :)
Ahh, this nearly made me cry because my baby is just 14 weeks now and our house is officially on the market because we have to move courtesy of the Army… I now want to do the same thing for her now!
Very cute idea! Have you heard Miranda Lambert’s song “The House that Built Me”? Check it out, you’d like it. Can’t wait to see what you do with your new place; sure it’ll be amazing.
We’ll have to check that out! Thanks for the suggestion.
xo,
s
munch…munch…munch…Clara is sooo precious, you could just eat her all up! :)
(BTW, love the (dead) asparagus fern still hanging out on the toilet. Will you be having a “service”, or transplanting it during the big move :)
Hahah, totally still in there. Probably won’t take him with us, but we do have a special place in our hearts for it- even though he’s obviously not coming back to life.
xo,
s
So sweet you guys, thanks for sharing! I wish I had done something like this for my boys when we moved. I found myself smiling like Clara at the baby in the mirror song ;-)
Someday it will be nice for Clara to see where she lived in her first months of her life. While in California for our niece’s wedding in October, my twin sister and I visited/drove by 4 of the homes our late mother lived in (in L.A) into young adulthood. We stood out in front of each home and took photos to compare to how the houses used to look. Believe it or not, each of the 4 homes looked much the same as they did back when Mom was growing up from the mid-1920′s into the 1940′s. Just recently, we got a response from one of the current homeowners to a letter my sister sent them with old photos from when the house was under construction and when our Mother lived there. The people were thrilled to find out about the home they had been living in for the past 10 years!
Hey YHL:
I couldn’t find it, but where did you buy the fan in Clara’s room? I remember you explaining about it in a post, but can’t find it! Thanks!
Hey Misty,
We found it on amazon.com, but have seen similar ones on target.com. It’s called a Deco Breeze fan (in sky blue) if that helps. Good luck!
xo,
s
you two (three) are so cute. No kiddies yet, but I know my husband and I will be just as sentimental with our first house as you guys – thanks for “oversharing” :)
We did something similar after my grandma passed away. My cousins and I spent tons of weekends at my grandma’s house growing up. When she passed away we had to sell the house. One of my cousins went through a took pictures of every room. She put them in a book so we could all remember the house. We’re so glad she did that!
What software do you use for editing your flip videos?
Sarah – we just use iMovie ’09 to edit our video.
Laura J – We just bought our new Flip Ultra HD (after upgrading from our regular Flip Mino). I’m not sure which generation it is, but it has a 2 hour record time. We have no complaints. I’m sure the video and sound quality could be better but you really can’t beat the size, price and ease of use!
-John
This was too cute! And I love the “baby in the mirror” song! haha…
makes me want to have a baby! (except maybe not for another couple of years…)
What a great idea! I just love “Baby in the Mirror”!!! It’s funny how we’ll do anything to make them laugh…..
I know that you used your Flip HD for this and other videos and they look GREAT! What generation of FLIP do you use? I’ve been thinking about purchasing one for an upcoming trip to Europe. Also, do you have a 1 or 2 hour record time? Any complaints with the Flip? Thanks!!!
i always write my name on the inside of my closet, way down in the corner. i guess that’s not really about me remembering the house, it’s more about the house “remembering” me.
This is so sweet! I’m sure this video will mean so much to Clara when she’s older.
On a side note, considering I have watched every video you all have put on the blog, your opening horn(?) sound makes me jump every time! haha! You’d think I’d be prepared for it now!
That’s beyond adorable!