At three months of age your baby is able to hold her head up and she may even smile at you. She might not even mind tummy time. Lay out her special blanket, place her on her tummy, get down in front of her, and snap away. Trying different angles and perspectives will add character to this type of portrait and a digital camera will afford you the ability to shoot over and over again until you get the best shot.

At six months of age your little baby boy can sit up or “tripod” on his own or  he may have started to learn how to crawl. This is a great time to document his developmental milestones. Sitting up and playing with his toys or lunging forward while trying to crawl or concentrating on stacking his plush block; it’s all so exciting and well worth pulling out your trusty digital camera.  Sometimes it’s the little things that mark development that we forget. A picture can help you relive these short lived times.

At nine months of age your daughter is standing and possibly cruising the furniture. She’s eating all kinds of new foods and might even be feeding herself while in her highchair.  Playtime includes peek-a-boo, looking at big picture books, and maybe a push walker toy that helps stimulate the next phase.  These are all prime times to mark with a picture or two!

The months fly by and suddenly your baby boy is a one year old.  This is an extra special time because the possibilities are endless. He’s walking, talking, and learning something new everyday. Making sure to record these marvels will ensure that the busy days of growing up aren’t forgotten or lost. You can look back on this time and be amazed that your little boy has met all these wonderful milestones, and then some.

Photographing all the various developmental phases allows us as parents to look back and cherish those special times. Those special times that are all too fleeting, but oh-so spectacular when you reflect upon them. And with all the photo print deals going on these days, be sure to snap as many as you can!

One of the most rewarding ways to use your outdoor living space is to gather your family members for a reunion. Perhaps it’s a small group that gets together annually, or a large one whose far-flung members attend every two or five or even 10 years. Whether large or small, a reunion is a wonderful opportunity to knit families closer together through shared stories.

In the much-underrated 1990 film Avalon, a Russian immigrant to 1940s America relates the disintegration of his family ties. In his young manhood, his children gathered at the feet of older relatives during family gatherings and listened to tales of their heritage and history. As television took hold of society in the late ’50s, children and adults alike opted for the entertainment of television personalities, instead of the stories of their roots.

But just as the art of listening to stories has gone by the wayside, so has the art of telling them. Here’s how to re-start a tradition of storytelling at your family reunion.

Advise all who will be attending that there will be an opportunity to tell some stories about the family, and let them know you’d love to hear them share something. Especially encourage older ones to think about their children when they were young, their own childhood, or even stories they may remember from their parents. With only a little effort, you can be hearing about things that happened over a century ago.

Have some questions prepared to start the ball rolling. “Where did your family go on vacation when your children were small?” “How did you and Grandpa meet?” “What’s the funniest thing one of your children ever did?” “How did you manage through tough times?”

Encourage storytellers to use descriptions that will engage all of the senses. Was the thunder rolling in the distance just before the downpour when Grandma and Grandpa bumped into each other running for cover? Did the scent of the lilacs in Aunt Ellen’s garden waft in through her kitchen window? Was there a cool breeze on the beach near the family vacation campsite? Did the sun sparkle off the snow on the mid-winter drive to Uncle Max’s? Was the strawberry jam your mom made the sweetest you ever tasted? Use touch, smell and taste as well as sight and sound to bring the scene to life for listeners.

The best stories have a point. “That’s when I first learned how important it is to be on time.” “If it hadn’t rained that day, we might never have met, and most of you would never have been born!” It doesn’t have to be profound, but be prepared to help your tellers wrap up their stories with a short statement of its significance.

Get the younger ones involved too — perhaps you can encourage them to be official family historians who will record the stories. If there’s a group, give them papers and drawing materials and ask them to make pictures of the scenes they will hear unfold. You can have the older ones label the drawings and then gather them together with ribbon. Each family can take home their personal family album.

If there are old photographs that support an account, or a time period, mount these in archive quality materials and display them in a shady spot or pass them around while the story is being told. Use other mementos as well. Your great-grandfather’s railroad watch that he wore to work every day for 45 years, or a playbill from your first date will help bring life to the accounts of those special times. So gather your loved ones on your porch or patio and make some memories while you start a storytelling tradition

About The Author
Debbie Rodgers, the haven maven, owns and operates Paradise Porch, and is dedicated to helping people create outdoor living spaces that nurture and enrich them. Her latest how-to guide “Attracting Butterflies to Your Home and Garden” is now available on her web site. Visit her at www.paradiseporch.com and get a free report on “Eight easy ways to create privacy in your outdoor space”.

Photography
Family traditions can also involve capturing important moments in film. Keeping a scrapbook, or lining pictures along the wall of your child for every age so that you can see how they have grown or by taking out the photo albums every birthday in order to reminisce.

One family went so far as to religiously photograph themselves every year on the same date, in order to see how they progressed and aged. This started in 1976 with mom and dad, and included pictures of their children from the year they were born through 2006. The results of this family tradition are astounding as it is a chance for them to stop time and see how they changed over time. It is also a great idea for all families who want to start a tradition of chronicling their lives with film.

Some parents will take yearly Christmas pictures of their children, leaving the most recent one on the wall for the entire year. Every year, the new picture would go in the frame on top of the previous year’s picture, giving parents a collection of holiday portraits of their children. Some might do collages of their child in a big frame from birth through the first year, a picture from every month, showing how their baby had changed and grown throughout the first year alone. Photography is a great way to involve tradition in your family.

Holidays
Family traditions can be something little or big and take place as various times of the year. Holidays are a popular time that people abide by family traditions whether it is Easter, Thanksgiving or Christmas.

As a kid, Christmas was a holiday that held a lot of tradition in my family. Every year my mom and I would go to my aunt and uncles house on Christmas Eve to spend the night. Dinner would be something light and easy, normally sandwiches and chips. In the evening my mom, aunt, uncle, cousins and myself would play games like Pictionary and Charades for hours. Before bed we would go outside and look for a flashing red light in the sky, which my uncle swore to us kids was Rudolph’s nose.

On Christmas day all the kids would wait at the top of the stairs for the adults to call us down so that we could see what Santa brought. My uncle the chef always made the turkey, and I always made the gravy. My aunt would have the “Gray Family Applesauce Bread” for all to take home, and lots of fudge lying around for a treat. We always HAD to have my grandmothers chocolate pecan pie, so much so that we had to call her for the recipe when she became too ill to make the trip.

Easter in your family might have consisted of re-hiding the Easter eggs a dozen times so that the children can search them out repeatedly every year. In the fall some families hold traditional pumpkin carving contests, letting a friend or neighbor judge. Traditions make people happy, they make people feel comfortable and help them leave their problems at the door for one day, or at least for a few hours.

Vacations
Some families have the tradition of a yearly holiday away from it all just for them. They use this time to reconnect and get to know each other again. This time may be a vacation to a family amusement park, Hawaii, or to grandma’s house. They may even include a yearly, quick trip over spring break to a nearby beach or mountain resort that the family likes to go back to every year. These family traditions are what the kids will remember as they grow up, go off to college and begin families of their own.

Family traditions are an important part of any family. Whether the traditions are small, like the chocolate pecan pie, or grand like the trips to the beach, they are a great way for a family to bond, and pass down the importance of relationships and togetherness. It is never too late to start a family tradition of your own.

The digital camera has many benefits. Not only can you shoot a picture and then delete it if you don’t like it, giving you more room to retake the picture, but you can upload the pictures from your camera onto your computer in order to crop them, edit out blemishes and red eyes, or just make a little tweak to the coloring or contrast in your picture. You can then upload your pictures to a site like Clark Photos, where you can order copies of the pictures you want, in the sizes you want them, or gifts for friends and family members. How do you go about taking the BEST pictures of your baby however?

Posing
Don’t always worry about posing your baby. Sometimes the best pictures are the accidental ones, taken on the fly or spur of the moment. Catching that sideways glance or the tummy time moment might prove to be magical. There are times when posing your baby may be called for. If you want to get a good shot for Christmas cards you can try sitting your baby up, or leaning him against a background or object, and hoping he will smile for you…just so you get that perfect shot. All pictures don’t always have to be posed and planned out.

Background
Think about your background. Take your baby to the woods or to a field of flowers to get some great shots of him. If staying at home consider what your baby is going to be wearing and use a sheet or blanket in a complimentary color. If your baby has bright blue eyes, taking pictures on a blue back ground might really help bring them out. If you have a bright outfit that you want to put your baby in for pictures, try using a black or white blanket as the background, so that your baby stands out more. Pick colors that will draw out your baby’s best features and highlight the mood of your baby.

Props
Props are nice to throw in with pictures done at home in order to change things around some. In the spring get some fresh flowers and let your baby play with them while you snap away. Or take your baby outside and put him in an old wagon taking pictures of the scenery. Pets can often bring out the best smiles and laughs in a baby, so using a pet as a prop during your baby’s photo shoot may get you some great shots. Pictures taken of your baby while he is playing with his favorite toys can be fun and more true to life, as they would rarely be posed and more than likely be “fun” pictures that you will look back on and laugh about. Keep changing your props around so that the pictures always look new, fresh and exciting.

Coloring
Not only can the coloring of your background change a picture and make it exciting, but the coloring of your picture itself can give it a completely different feel. With digital cameras and/or photo enhancing software you can buy for your computer you can easily change any color picture to a black and white or sepia theme. With many cameras you can actually take the picture in black and white. Since most pictures are done in color, these colorless pictures often add a different feeling to your picture, whether it is an old fashioned or vintage. Certain props may go better with different coloring as well, for instance picture of your baby girl wearing an oversized flower rimmed hat would look great as an old-fashioned picture in the sepia coloring.

Other Family Members
Adding other family members to pictures with your baby can make them not only unique, but sweet. Posing dad and your baby, or having dad take a picture of you and your baby will be cherished and loved for years to come. If you have more than one child, taking pictures of the siblings playing and laughing together will give you a lot of picture choices for albums, gifts and to hang on your wall.

Never be afraid to try something new with your baby when it comes to taking pictures. It may work, it may not work. In reality, 20 years from now you probably won’t remember why many of the pictures that didn’t work, turned out the way they did. They will still be pictures that captured a split second of your child’s “babyhood” that you will never get back. So take your camera and take lots of pictures! Have fun with it! Soon your baby won’t sit still long enough to allow you to get good pictures, or he will get to a point where he doesn’t want pictures taken of him and the easy days of picture taking will come to an end.