How to organize my albums

Hi all, I'm new to this forum & all you creative minds can help me out here. Ok so I have 2 kids, 4 and 7 year old. I started a "first year album" for my son and then started a 2nd album for him that includes more than just one year's worth of memories. When my daughter came along I also created a "first year album" for her....I'm thinking of only making one album per year that includes both children in the album because they are usually always around each other when I take photos and thought it would be the easiest on me...I've heard some parents give out the scrapbooks when the kids leave...what do you suggest? Should I continue to make separate albums or just keep it as one album per year with both kids included? Any suggestions? I'm feeling a little overwhelmed at this point on how to seamlessly put my "combined" album together.

I have three boys, if I did an album for each of them all the time, it would drive me CRAZY!!! I have done smaller albums for my older boys, but they were for them....done in star wars books, just some pictures of them with their friends or doing their favorite stuff. Everything else goes into the main albums. I scrap trips together. Each boy does have their own baby album though.

in my opinion, doing one a year, per kid, that's double everything -- and can get pricey overtime... i think combining works just fine. plus, it'd be very hard to keep things seperated - or find yourself possibly putting duplicate photos in - one in her album, one in his, etc.. plus just seeing by the photo you have used for your icon, you take great photos and i think keeping it as a yearly one album is great! defiantely do not overwhelm yourself to do that much per year either way! it will make you start to depise it as a hobby, and start seeing it as a job! also, the whole giving out the books once they move out, -- one, thats a long ways away for you! also, most times they may not want them, nor would you want to give them out.. but that's years and years away!

I did their own books for each child. My youngest already has his and my oldest will get his when I see him next. They presented me with my first grandchild today (its a girl) and I want my son to have his albums.

When there were pictures with both of my kids, those pictures are in both books. I had planned to give them their books for wedding gifts but ended up giving my youngest son his when he moved into his house and my oldest will get his in November when I see him.

I have already started working on my granddaughters first book. As we have more grandkids, there will be books for each one that they will get one day. However, when I'm on pictures overload I will cheat and use the sleeve pages already set up for photos!

My mother has my stuff all jumbled with my brothers. It will never get sorted out!

I had some years with my kids where there were loads of activities and things to do, other years there don't seem to be enough pictures for more than a few pages. So I just ran each book until it was full and then started the next book. Did that with both of them. Didn't try to divide them by years.

another thing to consider: Do you think each kid will want to take 18 scrapbooks with them when they move out?

This is how I did mine: Each of my three kids has their own "baby through school age" album. I know 18 years in one book sounds crazy but everyone has the same page "theme", for example, page one is the parent page, then the baby shower/ultra sound page, then 1st birthday page, then a page about their nicknames etc. Each of their pages is designed different. I put any additional pages I did in our family album. I have seperate albums for our family, our extended family,our friends and I have an all about me album. Also each of the kids has a photo album that I keep letters that I write to each of them. Mind you, I did this all backwards (I redid their original baby books). My kids are grown up and I'm not a big picture person so I didn't have tons of photos. I think this works for me because I didn't want 18 albums or more hanging around. I am starting this new thing of making 4x6 mini albums to place in photo albums so that I can create a lot of minis but not use up so much space. sorry if this sounds confusing. Congrats on starting early cause I really wish I had been more organized when my kids were younger.

I'm a chronological scrapper so I did one scrapbook per year and it includes all of our family stuff -- not just the kids' stuff. However, when they started school, I made each of them their own school books. They each have an elementary school one, a middle school one, and a high school one. Although my oldes dd just graduated hs this year and she ended up with a 9th - 11th grade one and then a senior year one b/c we had way tooooo much stuff to fit in all one book. Now I'll be starting her college scrapbook -- those pictures should be, ahhh, "interesting"!

I figured that I started making the albums for us as a family and when I'm gone, they can share the albums, take whatever pages they want from them, or stick them all in a box and never look at them. But for the time being, I make them and enjoy them!

Wow, thanks for all of your responses. I do LOVE photography so I really want to scrap as much as possible but didn't want to end up with too many albums or a disorganized mess :)...even my supplies and materials are taking over my dining table. Thank you again all!

I don't have kids, but I think a first year book is great, then combine the kids into one album. If they each want an album when their older you could consider scanning or photgraphing the pages to make mini albums and keep the original for yourself.
V

My albums that I made for my son & daughter are going to stay with me till I die. I am only making one copy of everything (family, vacations, holidays etc) because by the time they will get them they will be able to copy them cheaply so each can have family pages they want. My son is almost 30 & he adores his albums & pages I make. I know he will be happy to get them My daughter too.