With all the talk of baby showers and christenings and birthday parties for the kiddos, things around Big Dot of Happiness tend to be pretty mama-centric. But coming up very soon, all eyes will be on the daddies as we celebrate Father’s Day. In honor of all those devoted Dads and their special day, I’d like to share with you a very simple, very meaningful gift idea. You and your kids will be able to pull this together in an afternoon, but Dad will treasure it forever!

I am a sentimental person, so I sometimes struggle to find gift ideas that seem heartfelt enough—especially for my family members. When it came time to celebrate my husband’s first Father’s Day, I knew I wanted to do something really special to capture the enormity of what an amazing experience his first year of parenting had been. However, I also fall into the “you’re not MY father” camp, and I wanted to be sure his gift somehow “came from” our daughter…who was not even a year old at the time. A challenge – for sure!

One day, as I was sorting through some papers, I came across a few extra handprints we’d made in the hospital when our daughter was born. I sat looking at those tiny prints for quite a while, marveling at how much she’d grown in one short year…and it struck me that a yearly handprint would be a wonderful collection to begin. And, since Father’s Day was only a few days away, I took my idea a step further and decided my daughter’s yearly handprint would be even better accompanied by a yearly message to her daddy.

I constructed a small, simple book (a blank journal would work great for this), and I attached one of the tiny hospital handprints to the front of it. Then I carefully traced my daughter’s hand (a print made with paint or ink would also be beautiful) on the first page of the book. I noted the year and her age, and then I wrote a short passage about all the special little things she and her daddy liked to do together at that point in her life. I included small details about our days that we would be apt to forget over time, and I made note of a special song my husband used to sing to my daughter each day. Needless to say, the book was a hit with my husband!

Each year, during the week before Father’s Day, we get out the book once again. As my daughter has gotten older, I’ve encouraged her to add her own embellishments to the pages. I usually ask her a few questions about what she loves about her daddy and what she likes to do with him, and I record her answers for him to read. She’ll add a small picture, drawn just for him, and we always trace her hand and mark it with the year and her age. Then we wrap the book up and present it to him on Father’s Day morning.

My husband’s Father’s Day Books (plural–we have two kiddos now!) have become a cherished part of Father’s Day for all of us. We all love looking back through the pages each year, reliving the memories and comparing hand sizes. This year, our daughter is almost five, and she’ll be able to write her own note to her daddy…a milestone I’ve been looking forward to for a long while. I can’t wait to see what things she deems worthy of recording in her daddy’s special book!

Posted by Shannon, a Dot-arilla Blogger