SO so so behind

[infomama]

Photo books....how am I ever going to catch up? With dd1 it was a no brainer, take photo, upload photo, build book and order. Once a year, no problems. I have three books for her and she is now 6. Ugh, three years behind and to add onto that the fact that zero books for dd2..she will be 3 this year. I SUCK. These books are important to me and I can't seem to find the time. Between building my budget with YNAB (which I have yet to start), life in general and these baby books I'm ready to pull my hair out.

[Neatfreak]

I'm also in the same boat, and the only way that I ever make progress is to make the photo book the only thing that I do in my "me time" ...

[Minnifer]

If it makes you feel any better I SERIOUSLY suck. DD is turning 2 and I have never had a single one of her pictures printed out and have certainly never done a photo book although I had every intention of it... she's also had some professional photos taken and I've never ordered prints... oh, and did I mention that I didn't do more than a few pages of her baby book?

Seriously, I think about all of this a few times a week and practically cry I feel so terrible about it. But there's Just. No. Time. :cry:

[s7714]

I hear you. I used to make them every year for my Mom's Mother's day present. It's been a couple years since she's gotten one, and I don't know if she'll be getting one this year either... :innocent: Heck, I haven't even been uploading pictures to share with people in over a year, so I've really been dropping the ball!

[MamaMolly]

Photo book? What is this....photo book...? ;)

My Step-mom is a HUGE scrapbooker. HUGE. She sets up the weekends where she gets together with other scrapbookers to do their thing. I think it is called a Crop? Anyway, she asked what she could give DD1 as a baby gift. I said I'd love it if she'd put together a scrapbook for me. I gave her all the stuff to do it (including things like the hospital bracelet, you know, the irreplaceable stuff) and here we are 3.5 years later and NO BOOK.

I knew it was going to end badly when my dad called and asked for another birth announcement because he'd set his coffee cup on the other one and ruined it.

So now I just blame her. :) No guilt for me!!! :yay:

[sariana]

My DH does the photo albums. If it were up to me, we would have none. At best I would be like the commercial where the kid is perpetually doing a cannonball into the pool because no one ever downloaded the pix to be printed. More likely no pictures would get taken in the first place.:bag

[WatchingThemGrow]

Right there with you!!! My DD asked for a baby book for her 4th birthday that's coming up. She has a newborn picture and a newborn family picture. That's it. We need an action plan. What's the best way to get this done?

OP, you actually got 3 done at some point. How did that happen? I'm getting desperate.

[KrisM]

This is definitely the big downside of digital cameras. We all take way more photos than our parents did. And it takes a lot more work to get actual prints than just taking the roll in and then slapping them in albums. Sometimes, I wish it was still like that.

DS1 has a scrapbook from birth through about 2.5 years old. DD has 2 pages. I haven't even bought a book for DS2.

My plan is to keep the stuff together (and I do) and once I get some time, probably in 2013 when DS2 goes to kindergarten, I'll start. I'll start with current time and try not to get further behind while trying to fill in and catch up. So, if I were starting again now, I'd soon be working on DS's 6th birthday photos and then DD's 4th, and DS2's 2nd. If I had extra time, I'd do Christmas 2009, first day of school, etc.

I find that for photos, it often just takes me sitting down for an hour at night to do it. Push everything else off and just spend some time. No, none of us have "free" time, but log off BBB and you'll have something :).

[happymomma]

I used to be so good about making the photobooks. Now that I've started work, it's been much harder. Your post has inspired me to go back to doing my photobooks. I'm exactly one year 4 months behind. So I'm working on 2009 photobooks.

[hillview]

Oh boy. We need a bbb photo book weekend! DS1 has his baby book. DS2 does not. He will be THREE in a few months. I SUCK.
/hillary

[WatchingThemGrow]

Can one of you guys help us start a photobook support thread? Seriously, please? I need to get on it, and I am really bad at getting started.

[infomama]

OK..I have a few days off coming up and I am setting a goal......
Get the pictures for Dd2's 1st photo book chosen and placed into MyPublisher. We will see how I do.

[AshleyAnn]

I got the brilliant idea to create DD a fancy scrapbook and while I love it and the pages I have finished look great its a s-l-o-w process. I've spent HUNDREDS of dollars on the supplies and even more on all the photographs but making them mesh takes so long I just cant keep up. Like someone said I have to use my me time to make them and I generally only get one or two pages done a day. I still need to finish DH and my wedding (it became a 4 part series - book 1 and 2 are done 3 is halfway and book 4 is not started) and I'm doing one for DH's military career (which is at least on track and up to date except his current mobilization)

[larig]

I'm totally in if you start a photobook support thread. I need to get going on year 2. I have been pretty good so far. I like to add text to mine, and last year I just used Blurb's software to suck my blogger text in, and added the photos from iphoto. It was easy, but time consuming with all those first-year pictures that you take and trying to pick the the best shot out of the 40 shots of the SAME thing. This year I have NOTHING written, because I've been bad about blogging. That sucks and means I have to write it later. I'm totally over writing write now, because I'm also trying to finish editing my dissertation--more writing. ugh. Anyway, I'm allowing myself until Thanksgiving to finish June 09-June 10--in time to give them to the grandparents for xmas.

Here is one thing that worked for me in the past (I had to stop, because all time is now either kid time or dissertation time), for those of you who do the motivated moms or something like that--I made my own motivated moms-esque list and one of the repeating jobs I put on my check list was time to take care of pictures that I had taken that month. That meant I went through them and marked the ones that I thought were five-star pictures (how iphoto lets you rate them) [ETA: and back them up.] When it's one of your jobs you HAVE to do it, right? I just decided to consider it a home maintenance job just like doing the dishes really.

[doberbrat]

I did a lovely book for dd1's first year. I got it done when she was 3 but it got done. and thats where it ended. sigh.

I think I have 2 yes TWO pics of dd2 where dd1 isnt also in the pic.

I doubt there'll be the fancy book for her either.

I feel your pain.