Before my son was born, I had so many ideas on what I would do to capture those precious moments and milestones of his life…taking lots of pictures and videos, writing in my journal to record special moments, sending monthly updates to family and so on. Now that he’s almost 17 months, it’s hard to believe that I got a lot of those memories – his first year in particular – pretty well recorded. Here are a few things that I did/am still doing that you could do too:

1) “First Year” album – if you have a digital camera, it will be easy to organize your child’s pictures (from birth to present) by month so that you can pick and choose which ones you want to print for your album. And if you use a scrapbook album like I did – the one where all you have to do is add the pictures (believe me, by the time you get to putting the album together, your kid won’t let you do the real scrapbooking with all those embellishments!) – this project will be a cinch! Every now and then, I’ll flip through the album and be amazed how small my son was…and now that he’s older, he can actually recognize himself!

2) Birthday letter – one thing my husband and I started doing and that we hope to continue doing is writing our son a letter each year for his birthday. It’s a great way to tell him what he means to us and maybe even highlight those extra special moments of that year. We’ve only written one so far, but when I do get to reading it again (I included it in his “First Year” album), it takes me back and gets me all emotional! When he’s older, we’ll read it to him and when he’s a lot older, we’ll give him all those letters for posterity.

3) “First Year” movie montage – if you have time on your hands, this is definitely something you should consider doing. I’ll admit I spent countless hours making a 4-minute montage of of my son’s first year, using one of my favorite songs (‘My Eyes’) from one of my favorite bands (Travis) as the soundtrack. Having so much family back home in Texas who don’t get to see him often, I really wanted a special way to capture his first year for all to share.

4) Christmas ornaments – we bought our son his first Christmas ornament last year. It was a cute little angel. We paired that with a snow globe. In a couple of months, we’ll be looking for his next ornament and will hang it with last year’s. It’s a cute little thing to do as your child grows…and each ornament will change based on your child’s interests.

5) Growth chart – my idea for making growth charts actually came from a gift idea for my aunt’s child who is my son’s age. It was so cute that I had to make him a boy version (hence the Isaac and Sophie growth charts!). He’s been extra curious about the chart lately, especially when I added his new height markers. I’m glad I re-designed them b/c now he can’t pick them off! Anyway, it’s a great way to track your child’s height progression and something to add to the next idea!

6) Keepsake chest – after listing items 1-5, I decided that I need to create a keepsake chest for my son! I know there will be a ton of things that I’ll want to keep and hold on to, like his first real art piece, school projects, trophies and awards (no pressure kiddo!). And when he’s an adult, it will be something I’ll give to him to go through and reminisce. That won’t be for a long time so no need to feel sad yet!

7) Family Web site – I use Shutterfly create our own personal Web site to post pictures, videos and write updates to send to family. It’s a good way to keep everyone in the loop.

Anyway, this should give you a good start to building and recording memories for your kids. I just hope that I can do the same thing for my next child!!