Confessions: Photography Obsession

I have been known to obsessively carry my cameras (yes, plural) around, taking photos of everything. I can't help it.  My grandparents were photographers, as was my dad for a time.  It's in my genes!   I've taken workshop after workshop, scoured the internet, and read everything I can get my hands on.  I LOVE taking pictures!  I love the creativity of it, but I also want to document the memories of our family.  My kids are growing too fast!  So I take pictures in an effort to freeze the moments for us all to look back on some day.  There is so much joy in our lives that is too easy to forget and I am so, so thankful that I photograph. 

Not only do I take pictures, but you know that I scrapbook, too.  How else am I going to preserve all of these amazing memories, I ask you?!  But I have had an amazing revelation over the past couple of years.  I would have to be a crazy person to try to scrapbook our vacations.  Seriously.  I would never, ever be able to do that, and scrapbook our day to day lives.  That's when I discovered Shutterfly books.  I made my first book after our trip to Disney 3 years ago.  I make books for every vacation.  They are great quality, affordable, and the whole family loves to look at them!

Along those same lines, I started making calendars for our family every year to give as Christmas gifts.  It started about 15 years ago, before marriage, kids, etc., and before scrapbooking.  Then, I would literally cut and paste pictures onto pages, then make color copies and put together my own calendars.  CRAZY!  It took forever!  But, the laughing and smiles of my family members were worth it.  This year, I'm in the middle of making our family calendar again--only I'm doing it online through Shutterfly!  They make it so easy!  It's amazing!  It's like they read my mind!

And don't even get me started on the Christmas cards!  I am so excited to get my cards this year, so that I can share all my favorite memories of our year with every single person I know!  Aren't you lucky!  I was checking out a few options for cards this year and here are a few of my favorites:

I love this one because I can really emphasize a beautiful family photograph.

 I love this one because I can include several pictures, and tell people all about our year!

I love this one because there's room for several pictures, and I could even print our yearly update inside!  Because, hey--if I can save a little time during this busy season, I'd rather be making Christmas cookies with my kids!

And this one is just plain adorable!

And--we are definitely working on manners at our house!  I'm really trying to instill good habits in our children and I think that Thank You notes are so important! You can be sure that I am definitely ordering Thank you notes this year along with our Christmas cards! 

Thanks for humoring me and my photographic obsessions!  Can you guess what's on my Christmas list?  That's right!  Photography equipment! 

I really do love Shutterfly.  I received free products from Shutterfly in exchange for this blog post, but I promise, all opinions are true and my very own!  Otherwise, I wouldn't be posting this, friends! 

Now run out and check your mail and see if you've gotten my Christmas card yet!  I can't wait to see what you think!