Your Baby’s First Year

Babies First Year

Babies First Year

Are you expecting your first baby?  Are you a new mom, experiencing the whirlwind of new and exciting activities that a new baby brings into your life?  Maybe you relate with this commercial?

 

Along with the title of mom come many titles, as this blog points out, with 52 titles for mom. But one title it does not include is family historian.  However from the moment you first found out you were going to be a mom, you held in your memories the story of your child.

There are many ways a mom has to share  their children’s stories. In the past mom’s may of kept a Journal, a scrapbook or a baby book telling all the exciting events, stories and new things their baby did. They saved keepsakes like birth announcements, baby’s hair, or their baby’s hospital bracelet to put in these scrapbooks or baby books.

Another way parents save their stories is with pictures and movies. Mom or dad’s take pictures and video of special events in their child’s life. In the past all the pictures were printed before you saw them, so placing them in a scrapbook or photo album was part of the picture experience.

What about today? Some mom’s may still be doing the traditional baby books. But life is busy! Days, weeks or months may go by with not entering information in a book. Here are some other ways mom’s and dads have shared their baby stories.

Pictures with the phones: about 80% of pictures and video are taken with our cell phone. It makes sense since we always have our phones with us. Many parents capture their baby stories with their phone. They videotape clips of their baby saying their first word or taking their first step by grabbing the phone and capturing the experience. They then may share it online through social media sites, or by sending a text to friends. Notice how one father captured the first year of his baby on video and created this short video on you tube.

 

We share our lives on social media, as the recent app on Facebook showed. It created an instant video of your personal history on Facebook. Many were touched by these videos. Social media has become the standard way for families to share their stories as they happen.

With the use of social media and digital cameras people have become more creative with how they share their baby pictures too. Notice these pictures that were created to announce to friends that they are pregnant. Here is another example of how mom and dads have recorded their baby’s first year progress in pictures.

Although social media can be good for instant sharing, creating a tangible product for your baby to keep their stories is important. With social media your stories could be gone tomorrow if your social media account went down. Keeping your pictures and video on your phone or computer is not much better. Digital files need to be organized and stored for your child to enjoy their stories as they grow up. Helping parents create and save their stories is the reason why Tears of Joy Video created their Babies First Year Packages.

With our special package you get a video, book and poster of all your pictures and video clips you have taken from the time you first found out your were pregnant till your babies first birthday. Your stories and details can be added in the book and video to tell the special events that happened in your baby’s life. You can even use the updates you share on Facebook to place in the video or book. Notice how we did this for one mom on video and another in a book. See our website for our special Babies First Year Package with pricing. What type of pictures, video and stories should you include in you video? Notice this detailed list with instructions on creating your video.

If you are pregnant now, notice our package that allows you to create as you go. This is created for busy moms. With this package you upload your pictures, video clips and stories each month and we create a video and/or book for you. Each month you can watch the progress of your project on a private web link as we create it for you. At the end of your baby’s first year we send you the video on DVD and/or printed book.

Tears of Joy Video has just made is easier for you to fulfill your job as family historian. Your baby memories will be saved of your baby’s first year with this video and book, a keepsake that will be enjoyed forever.

Our website has a new look

htto://tearsofjoyvideo.com

htto://tearsofjoyvideo.com

Today our website http://tearsofjoyvideo.com got a new look.  It has been the same look for a number of years, and it was in need of updating.  For one thing, many of the videos posted could not be played on Iphone and Ipads and since many people these days are using these means to search the web, we thought it was important to have at least the main pages compatible for these means.

Since we were already making these changes, we decided to completely revamp it.  Here is a list of the things that has changed.

1) The pictures and video.  As already stated, the videos have changed to be able to play on all devices.  We also have added a few new videos to our site.  We have changed out the pictures.  Now all pictures on our site are personally created by us.

2) Packages.  We have new packages and with that new pricing.  We have also streamlined the site to make organizing and ordering your product  a lot easier.  Prices are basically the same, but now you are not pigeon holed into a number of pictures.  You can choose the one that suits your needs and then add as many or as few pictures, songs, titles and video clips you want to create your video.

3) Photo book creation pricing has also changed and has been streamlined for easy ordering.

4) We added a new product called Digital greeting card montage.  This allows you to have us create small video message to a digital video download that you can either send by email or load on to personal devices to send a greeting for a special occasion, or just to say hi or I love you.

5) Some items that were hidden on the site before are now easily accessible, like our scanning, and transfer services and our slide art. We have also added a products section, which in the coming months will list products we are creating from our own video and pictures for sale to the public.

6) Photography-We still offer photography in our area, but we are only doing portraits, no event photography.

7) Biography videos.  We have created a simple, low cost way to turn your video montage into a biography video, either by you filming it yourself with our instruction or in the San Diego and surrounding areas, we can come out and film your interviews.

8) We have highlighted our celebration of life/memorial packages into their own private section.

Take a look at the site and for those who have been on our site before, give us your input as to what you think.  If you have any suggestions on other ways we can improve, or anything that is unclear in what you read, please give us feed back here.

If you live in the USA and know someone who would like to have a video created, we would appreciate you letting them know about our site.  Our videos make excellent gifts for family and friends.

San Diego Zoo Photographs-Bears

Pictures done by Tears of Joy Video and Photography

http://tearsofjoyvideo.com/Photography.html

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright TearsofJoyVideo.com

Copyright TearsofJoyVideo.com

Copyright tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Copyright Tearsofjoyvideo.com

Videos that help you reconnect with your family

family

A while back I had a client call me to tell me her mothers reaction to one of our videos. Her story gave me chills. I had created a video for her father’s memorial. They decided to play it at her brother’s house afterwards. They played it in his family room and kept it playing over and over again for hours.

During all that time, her mother sat on the couch and watched the video over and over again. For a number of years her mother has had Alzheimer’s and hasn’t even recognized her own children. But her daughter told me as she watched this her face started to light up. She used music that was all her fathers’ favorites and her mother started moving to the music.

After a while she started recognizing her husband and her children on the screen. By the end of the evening she was telling people, this is my daughter. She was recognizing all her kids. Her daughter said it was amazing how she reacted to the video. It was just for a while, but for them this experience was amazing.

She called me to talk to me about creating her mothers story now. She wants to do this while her mother can still respond to it.

Even now this story is getting me emotional. To know that something I created allowed these kids to have connection with their mother again. That is priceless!

If you would like to reconnect with your family, give us a call (877) 887-8658 or go to our website for more information http://tearsofjoyvideo.com

If you have had a parent with Alzheimer’s, what ways have you used to reconnect with them?

A business that touches the heart

Our Story of how Tears of Joy Video got started

Dad with girls

Two sisters, Juli and Cathie Dodd, who were trying to make their father happy started “Tears of Joy Video”. These two sisters had been involved with photography and video for many years. Juli had purchased a full editing suite and they had made some amazing video’s that impressed all their friends. Their father was their biggest fan.

Their father became ill and had to undergo an operation. One evening after the operation, Cathie was sitting with him and watching a TV program. It was a biography about Lucille Ball and Dezi Arnez, with home movies and stories of their life. He asked his daughter if they could make a video of his life like that. She said, it would take a lot of work, but it could be done. A few days later he was suffering from complications from problems after the surgery, and his daughters were worried he wouldn’t make it. Juli asked what could she do to help him get better. He said he would like a video made of his life. She said if he got better, she would make a video of his life, and then they would have a big party with all his friends and watch it. Just saying that seemed to brighten his spirits, it gave him something to look forward to. Within the next few days his health improved, and he was able to recover. But he didn’t let his daughters forget their promise.

Cathie began the project by collecting all the pictures and slides and scanning them to the computer. Then she transferred their old home movies to video. Then she created a list of questions and in a number of video sessions, she sat down with her dad and interviewed him on camera about his life. After that Juli and Cathie made a list of their dad’s best friends, called them and made appointments to interview them on camera with funny stories about their dad’s life. During this whole time Juli was collecting a list of songs that meant something to her dad and to the family over the years. Now with all the data in place, came the project of putting the whole thing together.

As the girls worked on this project, they realized they were not just doing it for their dad; they were creating a piece of family history that they could keep forever. Through the pictures, movies, and interviews they were recreating their life, their memories. They had lost their mother years earlier, but part of her came back in the video, and now with this video, they had a part of their dad they could keep with them forever. They rented a restaurant and had over 100 of his friends and relatives. The film was met with rave reviews. But that moment was a memory they will never forget. They realized that instead of waiting till he was dead to remember him for all he did, they got a special chance to celebrate his life while he could still celebrate it with them. They also got a chance to show him how much they loved and respected him, and that was not only shown to him, but all his friends who attended that night. In fact he was in a room filled with love.

From that video came many more requests from friends for videos. A friend of the sisters, another Julie, who attended that night, was also involved with video montages. Together they discussed starting a business. That is how Tears of Joy Video was born. http://tearsofjoyvideo.com

Here is a portion of that video:

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/565638/jack_dodd_his_own_story_part_1/

Let us know what you think of the video below.