Hellobee

Nowadays the idea of a photo album with actual printed photos seems so archaic. It is strange to think our parents had to be selective in the pictures they took because they were limited by the number of exposures on a roll of film. Digital photography has removed this limitation and allowed us to easily amass gigabytes of photos, but that comes with its own set of challenges. With the volume of photos we take with our iPhones, our “good” camera, and receive from friends and family, it is difficult to keep them organized in a way that is easy to find the best photos and document Max’s milestones.

Early on, we knew we wanted our digital baby album to be several things: something we could realistically keep up with so it wouldn’t feel like a chore, thorough to the point of including major milestones without too much fluff, and easy to share with our family and friends. Here is what we ended up with, which has worked well for us.

1) What’s up with Max Website – We use tumblr to post photos and video clips of Max. The layout is elegant and clean without the clutter of ads on sites like Facebook. Tumblr makes it easy to post from any device. And our friends and family love that they can view and comment on pictures whenever they want. We struggled with whether to make the site private (require password access), but in the end decided against it. Since we are the only ones posting pictures, we have complete control over what pictures are uploaded.

2. Instagram #maxatsix – I definitely don’t need another social media platform to distract me, but I’ve gotten into Instagram. When Max was about 4 months old, I started posting a daily picture of him at 6pm with the tag #maxatsix. We thought it would be a fun way to look back at what he was doing at a specific time every day. These pictures serve as a snapshot into Max’s daily life. Then we setup a Chatbook series so that every 60 days a new #maxatsix book is automatically printed and mailed to our parents. Each book is $8 and our parents LOVE receiving them in the mail!

Daily picture of Max on Instagram with the tag #maxatsix.

3. Monthly update – Each month we write a short summary about the past few weeks and include milestones, growth stats and memorable moments. We include a picture of Max with the monthly sticker, but we also post side by side baby pictures of Mr. Ice Cream and I at the same age. That extra detail has been a fun way for our families to try and decipher who Max is starting to look like. Now that Max is over 12 months, we are going to scale the updates down to every couple of months.

Example of Max’s monthly post with mom and dad at the same age.

4. DayOne 2 – For all the little memories we want to remember privately, we use the Day One 2 app to quickly jot them down. Day One 2 is a simple journal for iPhone, iPad and Mac. All entries are encrypted for security and easily sync across all your devices. We’ve used it to document funny moments, like the time Max was 3 weeks old and projectile pooped all over the wall, and big milestones, like the time he took his first steps.

5. Dropbox – We use Dropbox to store all of our photos. Mr. Ice Cream and I have a shared folder setup so all of our iPhone, iPad and camera pictures get uploaded to a single location that we can both access. This system has worked pretty well for us but I’m always interested in hearing how other people handle photo storage.

I’d love to hear how you organize and document your baby’s photos and milestones.