A mini-book for my son's 8th Birthday...Edited 7-23-12

Hello,
Tonight I wanted to put together a mini-book for the stamp-a-faire event over at Nichole Heady's blog for Papertrey Ink: HERE

I watched all of the videos over the past two days and decided to go with something similar to Melissa Phillips book after re-watching her wonderful video a second time.   The album is for my son's 8th birthday.   I really wanted the birthday photos to take center stage so I kept the book fairly simple.  I have never made a mini album from scratch like this before and I enjoyed the process.  I also learned a lot of things that I would do differently next time but I still like my final product.  I still need to add some embellishments to the pages but I added my journaling while the memories from the party are still fresh in my mind.  I also think I need to stamp on the "happy" die cut (or color it with my copics) to help it stand out but I am out of time tonight so that will have to be done later too!

This was Tim's first birthday without his beloved Papa Stu and we both struggled with how to celebrate it.  Some of you know that my sweet Stuart passed away from brain cancer 5 months ago.  We are still trying to figure out how to celebrate special days without him - these are the times when his absence is the hardest for us.  Tim did not want to have a party with his friends this year - he asked that only his immediate family celebrate with him.  So I planned a very impromptu pizza and salad party for the evening of his birthday and invited the family to come.  I have 6 siblings so it was a full house and it ended up being a very nice evening which helped the sadness of Stuart's absence to be less overwhelming.  I wanted to make an album of this birthday especially as I know as Tim grows up he will wonder and have questions about what his life was like after his Papa went to heaven. 

Here are some pics of my mostly finished mini album:

 If you have any suggestions on how to make the "Happy" look better I woud love to hear them!

 My sweet boy at breakfast - we have a tradition that you get to choose something special for breakfast on your birthday each year!  We always light a candle and sing with just "us" on the morning of each other's birthdays.

 My sister Beth who lives out of state sent a Tim a special package with his favorite - Mad Libs!!!

 The back of the mini-album.  I used light weight cardboard sandwiched between two pieces of die cut cardstock and a sheet of patterned bittdy dot paper for the front and back covers to make them sturdier.

A side view so you can see the pages and the colors used.  I think I can make a much better product now that I have this one mostly under my belt so to speak!  Thanks to all the designers that made such great videos and tutorials.  I learned a lot and had fun with this project!  Thanks for taking a look.  Stamp-a-faire was such a fun event! I hope I can participate more fully next year!

New cover picture - see edit notes below:

7-23-12:  Edited to add an updated picture of the cover.  I received some wonderful suggestions on fixing my "happy" as I wasn't pleased with it.  I changed the color and I tried to move the  hat but I will have to re-do the whole cover if I want to do so.  For now I am happier with just the new color!  Yeah!  Thanks for the lovely suggestions in my comments area!  So appreciate it! :)
                                                                    : )   Jill