Deborah van der LindeIt is astonishing just how fast life seems to speed by, especially when you have children. One moment, they are just babes in arms, and the next moment they are on their way to high school. As time passes and children grow, families experience many different sorts of transitions, from first steps to first teeth to the first (and last!) day of school.
Preserving those transitions and looking back on your family’s memories is terrific, but sometimes figuring out exactly how to do that can be challenging.
Add in frequent moves, and it becomes all the more challenging. So to make your life a wee bit simpler and ensure you capture your children’s and family’s firsts, we have the following suggestions, not only on how to mark those transitions but how to keep them organized, too.
There’s An App For That …
Unsurprisingly, there are apps designed to help families record and organize their memories. While some of them do cost, there are excellent free ones available.
Kid Capsule ($) – This is a keepsake journal for children of any age. You can store photos and videos, scrapbooks, journal directly in it, and more.
Tiny Beans Baby & Family Album (FREE) – A photo journaling app to help record photo memories from pregnancy to childhood. You can send daily updates to loved ones via email and add personal touches and notes to pictures.
Moment Garden (FREE) – Use this app to organize and share all those precious moments as your child grows. You can record information from your pregnancy or children’s milestones.
Day One – this is a journaling app that allows you to record your thoughts and feelings wherever you are without having to tote around an actual journal. All you need is your phone. You can add photos or audio, and it will bring up memories for you to enjoy.
Photobooks & Memory Books
Photobooks and memory books are both great ways of keeping track of memories over the years. They can be elaborate or simple, depending on what you want.
There are many companies that will take a selection of photos of your choice and print them in a lovely book format for you. The books can be small or up to coffee table size with large images and text. Of course, the price will vary according to what you choose. These books are a great way to preserve memories of all sorts of events and occasions, from family trips to birthday parties. Best part? They make great gifts, too.
Memory Books
Memory books are along with the same idea, and you can record more than just pictures, like the measurements and the hospital bracelet of a newborn baby in their baby memory book. You can make one from scratch using a regular journal or photo album if you are the crafty sort, or you can buy pre-designed ones if you are not.
Children’s Artwork
School artwork is always a difficult one. It is impossible to keep it all, but how do you choose what to get rid of? No child is ever happy discovering their art in the trash. One super-easy way of keeping a memory of that artwork without taking all the space is to take photos. Those photos can then be saved in a special folder on your computer or phone, or they can be printed out for an album or into a photo book.
Charts & Records
The internet is a beautiful thing, and, in this case, Pinterest is even better. With a simple search, you can find all sorts of charts and records to record your child’s milestones. For example, there are tooth fairy charts to record each time your child loses a tooth. In addition, you can find lovely printouts that feature questions you can answer about your child at a specific age and much more.
As a child, maybe your parents recorded your height on the door frame, but this method is a bit harder when you face regular postings. However, there are now excellent oversized rulers that you can get, and the best part is that they are easy to move.
Storing School Memories
For all those school memories, from pictures to report cards, one easy way of storing them is in a portable file folder. A file can be devoted to each year, labeled with the child’s age and grade, and have their school photo for that year attached.
Add any noteworthy bits and pieces that come home over the school year, and start a new folder for the following year. It is an easy way of preserving the memories and keeping them organized for that next move. Of course, you could do the same using a binder with pockets and separators.
