My Baby Photos!

How Do You Do It? Fitting Scrapbooking into Your Life

Jessica Turner — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 04:44:20 +0000

People ask me all the time how I do it—how am I able to fit in scrapbooking my 5-month old son Elias when I work full-time, am a mommy and a wife, keep a blog, go to church, spend time with friends and just live life? Well, uh, for starters, I don’t do a lot of housework.
But it takes more than not dusting to scrapbook, doesn’t it? And for a lot of people (especially moms), it can be an intimidating hobby. But I promise, it doesn’t have to be.

Here are five tips for fitting scrapbooking into your busy life:

Keep it Simple: Your scrapbooks do not have to look like they are off the pages of the latest scrapbook magazine. You can effectively share the story of your baby’s firsts without spending hours on the latest techniques. (This layout only took 30 minutes.)
Stick to a Theme: The amount of scrapbook products available is overwhelming! Stick to one brand or theme. This will limit the amount of product that you have to use on a layout or album and will streamline the process. (This layout was created using all products from Making Memories Animal Crackers line)
Don’t Overbuy: Along with sticking to a theme, don’t overbuy! You don’t need every embellishment that Michaels carries. (Take this from a girl who has bought it all.) Start out with just the basics – paper, some journaling cards and maybe a few word stickers. You can always go back and get more. (This layout was created just using paper and stickers from Little Yellow Bicycle)
Only Scrap Your Favorite Photos: People today take more pictures than ever before thanks to digital cameras. You will NEVER be able to scrapbook all of your photos. Never. Ever. Just get it out of your head. Instead, just scrapbook a few of your favorites, or the ones that really capture a story you want to tell. (I took about 50 pictures when my Nana met Elias, but only scrapbooked the ones below.)
Find 15 Minutes a Day: Moms don’t have a lot of time. If you can carve out just 15 minutes a day to do something scrapbook related – upload your photos to a photo developing site like Snapfish or Shutterfly, journal, organize your supplies, or scrapbook – you will be amazed at what you get accomplished!

My mom always said, you make time for what is important to you. And so, while the laundry may be piled a little higher than I would like, I am making time for what matters to me – leaving a family legacy in photos and words for my son.

To learn more about Jessica, her family, scrapbooking endeavors and more, please visit her blog: The Life, Faith and Creativity of Jessica Turner.

Top 25 Child Photography Books

David Freibrun — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:30:36 +0000

We are all learning baby and child photography on My Baby Photos blog. With that in mind, I put together a library of the 25 best books I could find that focus on the subject. I wanted my library to be a modern one with books published in the last 10 years and rated at least 4 stars by reviews on Amazon. I also grouped the books into 3 price ranges (hey I’m sensitive to our readers needs in these economic times). Here is the list:

Books you can find new priced under $15

Capture Your Kids in Pictures by Jay Forman
Picture Taking for Moms and Dads by Ron Nichols
The KODAK Book of Scrapbooking Photos of Your Children: Easy & Fun Techniques for Beautiful Scrapbook Pages by Kerry Arquette, Andrea Zocchi
Baby Photography Now by David Nightingale
The Kid’s Guide to Digital Photography by Jenni Bidner

Books priced between $15 and $20 range:

Baby Love by Rachel Hale
The BetterPhoto Guide to Photographing Children by Jim Miotke
Photographing Children Photo Workshop: Develop Your Digital Photography Talent by Ginny Felch, Allison Tyler Jones (Contributor)
Digital Photography for Busy Women by Laura Oles
How to Photograph Your Baby by Nick Kelsh
Studio Portrait Photography of Children and Babies by Marilyn Sholin
How to Photograph Children by Lisa Jane (Photographer), Rick Staudt (Photographer)
The Art of Photographing Children: Techniques for Making Better Color, Black and White, Handcolored, and Digital Pictures by Cheryl Machat Dorskind
Photographing Children and Babies: How to Take Great Pictures by Michal Heron
Professional Secrets for Photographing Children by Douglas Allen Box

Books priced between $21 and $40 range:

The Sandy Puc’ Guide to Children’s Portrait Photography by Sandy Puc
The Art of Pregnancy Photography by Jennifer George
Children’s Portrait Photography Handbook by Bill Hurter
Creative Techniques for Photographing Children by Vik Orenstein
Photographing Children in Black & White by Helen T. Boursier
Master Posing Guide for Children’s Portrait Photography by Norman Phillips
The Art of Children’s Portrait Photography by Tamara Lackey
Professional Children’s Portrait Photography: Techniques and Images from Master Photographers by Lou Jacobs
Children’s Portrait Photography by Kevin Newsome
The Best of Family Portrait Photography: Professional Techniques and Images by Bill Hurter

Many of these books can be found used for significantly less from Amazon.com. I also like to take advantage of discounts on shipping when you purchase a minimum dollar amount of books. Shipping discounts don’t apply to used books typically.

A Lego Trip in Pictures with the Boys

Ruchel Freibrun — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 06:02:51 +0000

If you have young boys that are Lego fanatics, then you must check out the LEGO® Imagination Center at Downtown Disney in Anaheim, CA. Our boys, Gerald age 6 and Charles age 3, have a long wish list of LEGO® toys they want to buy. With that kind of enthusiasm, we had to take them to our local “Lego Heaven”. Lego Imagination Center is part of the larger Downtown Disney where you can explore many retailer mega stores and restaurants. Here are some highlights from the trip. Note in the last picture, Gerald is standing next to the largest LEGO® giraffe ever built. It is inside the store and stands at 23 feet tall. It was built by five master builders and took over 600 hours to build.

Gerald and Charles face-to-face with LEGO® R2D2

Gerald day dreams about having a life time supply of Indiana Jones LEGO®s

It Really is a Star Wars LEGO® Christmas

I'm not scared of Darth Vader.. He is made out of LEGO®s and has a Cool Cape!

Mom.. Dad.. Can I get this for my room?

Record Birth Weight for Newborn Baby Shocks Nurses

Ruchel Freibrun — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 06:52:42 +0000

I opened up the Sunday edition of the OC Register (our hometown newspaper) and read a baby was born at 14 pounds and 2 ounces. He’s believed to be the heaviest baby ever born in Orange County, CA. His name is Baby Richard and he is 21 1/2 ” long, already outgrowing his infant car seat.

We also recently had a baby in the hospital next door. Our Baby Spencer was born prematurely at 2 pounds and 11 ounces. Take a look at a picture of Baby Richard and compare him to our baby Spencer.. The contrast is astonishing! Baby Richard is more than 5 times the weight of Spencer.

Baby Richard, Heaviest Baby Ever Born in Orange County, CA

Baby Spencer, born at 2 lbs 12 ounces

Both babies are doing fine. Baby Spencer is now almost 6 pounds and will be coming home shortly. You can read more about Baby Richard in the OC Register Article Boy, what a baby

Getting One Baby to Smile is Challenging, Let Alone Three

Ruchel Freibrun — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:19:17 +0000

Big brother W, big sister A, and sweet little sister L

Getting one baby to smile “on cue” is nearly impossible in a formal studio setting. Now imagine, trying to get three of your children to smile “on cue”. I’m a strong believer in using documentary style photography to bring out the smiles naturally.

Jessica McDaniel, over at Boston Baby Photos, shows us just what can be done with a little creative shooting in your own home and on location. She has agreed to share black and white photos from her recent session called Three Years of Grins. These are inspiring ideas. Bring along the dog, get out the Radio Flyer wagon, hang out at your local playground. Natural settings that are sure to get your babies smiling.

Big sister A with a big grin

Sweet L all smiles and tongue

3 year old handsome W with his best friend in toe.

And I love how A is getting her lips ready for her kiss here.

I really enjoyed Jessica’s photoshoot and plan to use these ideas with my own 3 boys. The smiles are there despite what our recent holiday family photos look like (yea say “cheese”). Just put the kids in the right setting and watch the magic unfold!