Staying Connected to Family
Hi friends!
I don’t know about you, but staying connected with family and friends got infinitely more important, and HARDER, once we had little lady. Everyone wants updates on the baby, and mom, and dad, and how things are going. Meanwhile, you just pushed out a human, you’re tired, and you have no idea how many days its been since you slept or showered. When I first had C, it was an emotional roller coaster. The last thing I could think about was sending frequent updates to all our friends and family. On top of that, we don’t live in the same state with any grandparents or relatives. So keeping in touch was going to be a challenge. Lucky for us, my friend had recommended a FANTASTIC app that has enabled us to stay connected with our friends and family near and far. Enter, Tiny Beans.
What is TinyBeans?
Tiny Beans literally changed the game in enabling us to share moments with those we love. Those we share our journal with love being included on little lady’s daily adventures. To be clear – I am in no way affiliated with this app, but would sing it’s praises from the rooftops if I could. I was referred to the app as a way to quickly create photo books but I haven’t actually used that feature. Based on my experience so far, I’m sure it’s great. However, we use the journal as a photo sharing app. The best part was that it is only available to the individuals we specifically invite to view it.
How it works
I post pictures and videos daily that go out to our group, and invitees can change the frequency of updates. For instance my mom likes to get updates the minute I post. But most of our friends and family get a daily digest email from the previous day. Anyone invited to the journal can then comment on each of the photos, a lot like social networking sites. There are a lot of cool features included for free. You can add milestones, edit photos, add filters, and captions, etc. They provide “cards” with helpful links to additional parenting advice. With the free version you can upload as many photos as you want, but are limited to 30 second videos.
This 30 second limit was fine at first, but once little lady started moving and talking I buckled and bought the paid version. They run sales frequently so I only paid $25 for a full year. That may sound like a lot but being able to share these moments easily with our family is priceless. So many of our relatives who have only met C briefly in person are able to feel a connection to her and can still watch her grow up day by day – and I don’t have to worry about her picture being out on every social media site on the planet.
What about visual interaction?
Now that C is a toddler we also try to FaceTime with grandparents at least once every week or so. It’s challenging since she goes to bed by 7 p.m. and we only have about an hour with her in the evenings, but we’ve been working on it. Luckily we’re all in driving distance as well, so we’ve been able to see the grandparents on average once a month.
Tiny Beans literally changed the game for us, and although I’m not as diligent about it now as I was during her first year, it’s amazing to see the changes in our little lady all in one place. Their “flashback” feature is one of my favorites. They’ll randomly choose a date and flashback to your posts that day in the cards section. It’s so much fun to see how much she’s grown in such a short amount of time. I’m guessing that when this subscription runs out, I’ll be purchasing another year 🙂
Let me know your favorite ways to stay connected with friends and family!
