The proud parents run through roll after roll of film on the family vacation. They take 16 shots of their kids standing in front of Mount Rushmore, just in case someone has their eyes shut or something was flying behind their heads at an inappropriate time.

As soon as the family returned home, mom either rushed off to the photo developer to have the 13 rolls of film developed. (Or more likely, she stuffed the rolls in a drawer only to be discovered years later with no recollection of what was on the undeveloped rolls.)

What seems like a snail's pace now but was speedy at the time -- a week later -- the negatives and pictures were returned.

And then the following scene was recreated time after time right there at the photo developers: Everyone flipped through the photos, oohing and aahing over the pictures that happened to turn out and musing over all the photos that had someone's head cut off or the photos with the photographer's thumb over the lens.

Thanks to digital cameras, that final scene is becoming more and more of a rarity. Families don't have that element of surprise or awe anymore when they first open a packet of photos from the developer and the entire roll of film happens to produce great pictures.

In this digital age, you have likely seen the image on the camera numerous times by the time the actual prints are created.

You saw the image immediately after pressing the shutter and could tell right away if everyone had their eyes open or if anyone was making any inappropriate gestures. That guesswork was eliminated.

You saw the image later as you deleted a few images in order to make room for a couple more shots because you haven't downloaded the images in four.

It's the modern version of stuffing the undeveloped rolls into the drawer only.

You saw the image as you perused your memory card once again to decided which images needed to be printed or downloaded onto the computer and which images could forever be deleted into history.

By the time you have the prints in hand, you have seen the images approximately seven times and the true element of surprise is gone.

I must admit that I still take the envelope from the developer and can't make it out of the store without looking at the prints. I don't know if I'm expecting them to have changed or improved or turned into works of art between the time I downloaded them and when they were printed, but I still look at them immediately.

Of course, there are many benefits to digital pictures. Storing and accessing family photos is easier than ever. No more sorting through countless envelopes looking for a single negative with that print you've been wanting. A quick search on your computer or on a CD and the picture can pop up nearly instantly.

No more regretting if an event was lost because the film was lost or overexposed or everyone blinked at the same time. You will know instantly if something didn't turn out and can re-shoot the picture to make sure the scene is captured.

And the cost of film has been eliminated. You can shoot pictures with wild abandon as long as enough memory cards are available. Alas, this final "benefit" has created an entire new problem:

We are overrun with pictures. We have pictures of everything from potty-training to T-Ball practice. Selectivity has gone out the window. We no longer have to decide whether to waste film on the kids shucking corn or save it for the upcoming birthday party.

I admit I am a glutton when it comes to pictures -- preferring to flip through a photo album rather than staring at a computer screen -- and it didn't dawn on me until recently.

I was going through pictures of my mother, trying to narrow the 100 or so pictures down to a select 30 for a collage. Glancing at the shelf holding my family's photo albums, I realized my kids had several 100 pictures of each and every one of them -- and none of them have reached double digits in age yet.

At the rate I am going, my kids should be able to recount every week of their life when they move out of the house via their photo albums. And maybe, just maybe, they will find a few surprises hidden among those 1000s of pictures.

-- Ronda Graff's children ask to see their picture immediately after it's taken. She likes to remind them that long, long ago, people actually had to wait, hours even days, to see their pictures.