As mothers, we’ve all felt it — the days are long but the months and years go by quickly.
Our children say or do something adorable, and we tell ourselves that we’ll remember this moment. Tragically, time slips away and we forget those special times.
I’m here today to challenge you to find a method to diligently keep the memories for your family. We mamas wear of course many different hats. We’ve got the essentials, like, “Nurturer”, “Teacher”, “Home Manager”, “Family Event Organizer”, etc., but I think sometimes the creative side of a mama gets lost in all the have-to’s of motherhood. We’re too tired or overstimulated to think about completing a project, especially if it’s not one that keeps a belly full or financially contributes to the home.
BUT.
Energy spent on creativity is never wasted. Hopefully, we all have special gifts we remember from our childhood. We remember that special baby blanket made for us, that scrapbook crafted with photos from our childhood, or specially-decorated birthday cakes every year growing up. Maybe it was something seemingly mundane, like a specific sweater you loved to (literal) pieces. We all know that the creativity of our mothers mattered to us as children: it’s what turned food into a meal, or a birthday cake into a celebration. Remember those special things from your childhood, those things that still give you warm butterflies to this day.
Again, mamas are tired, worn out, mentally-drained, and so-on. Not without heart, though! Motherhood is a high calling! But considering the physical and mental toll played on a mama, it can be hard for us to make time to do something creative or something to keep the family memories alive. So, if that’s you, reading this and wondering how on earth am I ever going to do one more thing? I get it. I’m here to give you ideas and ways that you can create a legacy of keeping the family memories going, even with long days and short years. Because again, the years are short. Our daily memories are too precious to lose to long days and short years. The things that are TRULY most important to us will get a check on the to-do list, regardless of how busy you are. We know our kids need fed, so no matter what, we get that task done with, by either fancy meals or drive-thru’s. So think of your memory-keeping as feeding your kids — it needs done, and it could be done either in a very specific, painstaking way… or you could keep your family memories in a way that’s more efficient and gets the job done. Wherever you personally lie on that spectrum, there’s a memory-keeping method out there that can work for you!
No. 1 – Journaling
Let’s start off with one of the most descriptive methods of memory-keeping: the written word!
This is something that is typically intimidating until you’re in the regular practice of it. It might feel like a lot to take on, but really, journaling is something that is very moldable to your desired type of journaling. You can journal once for the year, or more frequently like on a monthly basis. You can journal long, beautifully thought out entries… or your journal entries can simply be very factual, like a narration of your typical day. You can tailor your journaling to fit your interest in writing. Even if it seems very simple, your children will appreciate reading what you wrote about a day-in-the-life with them as young ones, especially they’re too young to remember those days themselves!
I journaled a few pages when I got married, but didn’t journal for years after that. I wish I did. But I hadn’t developed the skill or the practice of regularly journaling, at least, not until we were expecting with our first child. When I was pregnant with our daughter, I started a “Childhood History Journal” from Promptly Journals. I loooooove this journal. So beautiful on the outside, and it has perfectly thought-out prompts on the inside. This journal is perfect for anyone who wants to get into the habit of journaling but has no idea what to actually write. There’s areas in the journal you can place photos as your child grows, so it’s a beautiful keepsake of the written word, photos, and there’s also places for your child to draw in when they’re a bit older.
TIP: If you want to start a journal, but have no idea where to start, find a “prompted” journal you like.
Journal Idea: Childhood History Journaling
So, my first journaling idea for you: A journal for each of your children charting their growth, photos, and little moments as they grow, moments you don’t want to forget and you want to pass onto them when they’re older.
Journal Idea: Love Story/Marriage
I got this journal set on marriage from Promptly. I love it. Again, it’s a prompted journal, so if you’re new to journaling and have no idea what to write, then this is a great start! Like the childhood history journals, these have well-thought out prompts to get you writing, and areas for you to place photos as well.
Journal Idea: General Family Memories
Since I had a journal for my marriage, and journals for both of my kids, I wanted one that included all four of us — my family memories journal! For this journal, I literally just write in a beautiful journal with lined pages (but no prompts). I already got the hang of what to write by practicing my journaling skills with the childhood history journals and marriage journal, so I felt more confident in my ability to record our family’s memories in this book without prompts to get me going. Typically, for a journal entry, I’ll just date it at the top, and begin writing about what happened that day, or even just what small moment occurred.
If you still don’t know what to write in a journal, just go through your texts with your spouse, a friend, a loved one… and take a screenshot! Or if you’re a millennial like me and do most everything on your macbook instead of your phone, then go into your texts and copy and paste that text and you can add it to a Note or Google Doc to keep track of what you want to add to your journal. I found some texts from my husband about what the kids did while I was at work — I didn’t realize how much value there could be in a text! Especially since it was actually a thought written by my husband (and not me for once), so I found it special. I added that to my journal basically as an entry from his perspective.
No. 2 – Photo Albums
I like to use an online platform (Shutterfly) to make photo albums from the pictures I took each year. I add and arrange photos to the album at the start of each month (adding photos from the month before), that way by the end of the year, my photo album is complete and not as daunting of a task to complete a photo album with a full year’s worth of photos to select and arrange etc. Updating my photo album each month puts the project into bite-sized pieces that are much easier for me to attain. And, speaking of attainable, I go with creating my photo album online and ordering it rather than making a physical album. Personally, I’d love to make my own physical photo album with the stickers and pens and whatnot, but I know that doing it this way is the most attainable way for me to sustain my annual photo-album-making habit. My kids are three and two-years-old currently, but maybe one day I’ll switch to making handmade photo albums.
TIP: Add photos from your phone to your Shutterfly album after each month to keep up.
TIP: If using Shutterfly, wait until Shutterfly runs a 40% off sale with FREE ADDITIONAL PAGES to save the most on your Shutterfly albums. As of 2025, this sale of free additional pages runs about two times per year and I’ve found that it’s the biggest savings on their photo albums.
No. 3 – Family Films
I started creating our annual family film when our daughter was born. Since I had a method to display our memories via photos in a photo album, but had no method to use all my VIDEOS on my phone… I had to come up with a way to creatively put those videos together so they didn’t only live as un-viewed files on my Dropbox account.
I’m going to have to write a whole other blog post on how i make my family films (or home-videos, whatever you want to call it!) because this process is quite tedious, but for me, it’s exciting! I absolutely love the creative endeavor of pulling the footage off my devices and putting them together on iMovie with background music, and audio from special moments… again, I’m going to have to write a whole other blog post on how I do this, BUT, the message here is: take videos of special moments! And, pro-tip: If you’re considering putting your phone videos into a family film for your family to enjoy, then consider taking videos in landscape position, not vertical. It took me some getting used to at first, since I had previously taken videos on my phone in an upright position. But, when I started making my family films, I realized it was difficult to work with those tall, narrow videos…. especially since I wanted to create a video in a format that would look good on my television, which is a landscape layout!
No. 4 – Cookbooks
Collect special family recipes and put them into a cookbook! You could design and get one printed yourself, or add them in a photo album with slip-in pockets… or you could assemble them into the 90’s recipe card boxes… there’s many different ways you can go about this, but basically, collect those heart-warming, memory-holding, special recipes in your family and keep them all in one place!
No. 5 – Children’s Books
Since my kids’ names are not biblical names, I took the meaning of their names, and created a children’s book story based on the meaning of their names and applied it to a Bible story. So, for our daughter, I created a story on obedience and God’s fulfillment of promise. And for our son, I wrote a story about leadership based on the story of Moses leading the Hebrews out of Egypt. I illustrated the books with animals as the characters of the story and had such a fun time making these. These books won’t ever see the light of day in a publisher’s eyes, they’re made just for my kids!
Pick One… And Start!
As with any new habit, you must begin slowly for success and maintenance of that new habit. I didn’t do all of these things at one time. I began with photo albums, then introduced journaling when our first child was born (I wish I journaled through our first few years of marriage!), and then I created the children’s books, family films, and cookbooks. The more I was creative, the more creative I got! I thoroughly enjoy these memory-keeping projects for my family. Some days, I don’t feel like putting in the work. But when I read back on something that happened two years ago that I didn’t remember, I’m GLAD I put in the work as the memory keeper of my family. Lately this Bible verse has been sticking with me, and it’s about remembering the good times, because like we remember all the wonderful works God did in the Bible, we can also remember the good times in OUR lives for the times God’s showed up for us.