High Maintenance Mom

Because I live so far away from my family, I try to keep my family up-to-date with cards and photobooks of my kids. My favorite program for creating cards, sending pictures, and digital scrapbooking is Shutterfly.com. There are lots of services out there but Shutterfly is one of the only ones that lets your friends view your images without having to register for an account and if anyone wants to purchase a picture, they can easily order prints...

Throughout the year, I try to send a few cards with the kids pictures and at the end of the year, I try to create a holiday book for our family with highlights of everything we did during the year. Last year it took almost six full days of work to put together - much longer than I had hoped to spend. I promised myself it would be easier this year because I was going to save my favorite pictures every month. Well, I haven't done it every month, but I have used iPhoto to tag my favorite images with five stars so I have a good start.

One of the reasons I'm thinking about photo books now is that our daycare requests images of our families for the younger kids. Both of my kids love their photo books and enjoy showing the pictures to their friends. The pictures also comfort them when they are sad. Last year I printed six images for Little Grab's Sassy "Who Loves Baby" book (it's the one infants can chew on without ruining) and I created an alphabet book for B. I can't say enough about the benefits of having a picture book or two with images your kids recognize. My kids love looking through pictures from our trips to the zoo or of them as babies.

A few ideas for photo books

• My family - images of family, house, pets, and room
• A book about me - images of favorite things to do, places to go, things, pets, and family
• ABC book - images of items for each letter of the alphabet (Q is for quiet time, etc.)
• My name - images for each letter of child's name (I think I'm doing this one next week)
• Counting - images of your child with different numbers of items (one brother, two pets, three wheels on the tricycle, etc.)
• Smiles - images of family members smiling
• My day - images throughout the day (waking up, using the potty, eating breakfast, brushing teeth, etc.)
• My friends - images of friends (can make this as a group and have everyone submit one picture so all the friends have the same book)
• A trip to the ... - images of a trip to the zoo, supermarket, doctor's office, airport, etc.

We like the 5X7 Snapbooks and the Softcover Photo books.