I like to call myself the Family Memory Keeper. I document with photography and writing. I am one of those moms who sure does take a lot of pictures. But I don’t feel bad about this. Not one bit. I hardly remember what I did yesterday let alone a year ago. You might suggest I be more present with my children. Yes, I’ve tried this and I still can’t remember the happiest moments I’ve had.
So I document these memories and I’ve figured out a system that is really working for us and I wanted to share it with you!
Step One: Take pictures and videos. I take most of my pictures with my iPhone and I also use Instagram.
Step Two: Upload onto your computer into a folder, three months at a time. Example: Q1 January-March I have one folder for photos and one for videos.
Step Three: Back it up. I do this about once a month or once every 6 weeks. I use Shutterfly and an external hard drive. I think doing both seems extreme but I do it anyways. Again, in Shutterfly I have years then folders for three months at a time in that folder. I upload our family videos to a private YouTube Channel. I am not sure what else to do with these since technology changes so much and some dvds I made just four years ago are scratched and no longer play. Boo hoo!
Step Four: I create a family yearbook on Shutterfly. The size is 8 1/2 x 11 and I organize it by month. There are about 4-8 pages per month. I add a page for birthdays too and an interview in the back of each child along with a blurb about what’s going on with my husband and I.
Step Five: Every January I wait for a coupon then I order the family yearbook. Then we look at it and worship it all year long!
Step Six: I keep a journal with my oldest daughter that we write back and forth in. Each of our kids also have emails and every so often, I send them an email about something special that has happened. Between this writing and a little bit of journaling in our yearbook, it’s manageable!
Birthday Videos: Each birthday I pull photos and videos to create a 5-6 minute video with music for each of our kids. I do this because I really enjoy getting my creative juices flowing with my apple video software program and the kids love to watch their special video.
Special Books: I’ve recently discovered Chat Books. They are reasonably priced and they pull photos right from your Instagram Account. They are square books and cost as low as $8 for 60 pictures inside!
Additional Resources:
Old Blog Post on Preserving Memories