I am thinking about buying a domain and setting up a blog for a new baby in the family. Of course, this site would be very picture-focused, so any suggestions on free services or open-source blogging scripts that make it easy to set up a gallery of pictures and include them in a blog format?
You can try Plogger and install it on your host. Plogger also has a free hosting site where you can create your own photo blog.
Have you checked the free Picasa program from Google? It's a great photo organizer and editor and allows you to post to the web.
Do you want a gallery or a Photo Blog? They are both very different things with different aims. If you are just wanting to upload a heap of pictures every few weeks and have them available for family and friends to look at, then some sort of gallery program such as picassa might be fine - you can then sign up and post your gallery online. If you are looking to do a genuine photoblog where you post an image and maybe write a couple of words about it, then you should check out pixelpost - it is a great photoblog script - I have used it for the last year on my daily photoblog.