How To Keep Track of Your Kids' Memories & Milestones

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When I was younger, I used to journal all. of. the. time. - but now that I’m older, I find it is much harder to stay on top of writing things down or tracking fun memories and moments of not only my life, but also for my kids. I love all of the fun ideas for keeping track of your kids’ memories and milestones, but I often find it hard to know when or how often to write something down, or even what exactly to write or say. I often draw a blank. I’m sure our life is exciting and fun and worth sharing, but where do I begin?

 
 

4 Easy Ways to Preserve Your Kids’ Memories

  1. SEND THEM EMAILS - I see this one suggested often, but I’m just not sure that I would follow-through very often! The idea is that you create an email account for them and send little letters and notes (emails) to them until they turn a certain age and you decide to give them the account information so they can login and read all of the notes and letters that you wrote to them.

  2. KEEP A RECORD ON YOUR COMPUTER - Whether you use your computer or phone (yay for the cloud!) you could keep it super simple with a text file or word document where you can jot down notes and store all important milestones for your kids.

  3. USE A JOURNAL OR SCRAPBOOK - Any journal will do! You can customize your notes, milestones, etc. however you want and get really creative with everything. I love journaling, but find that I often draw a blank at knowing what to write about or remember to actually open it up and write things down.

  4. USE AN APP - You can find lots of different milestone tracking apps out there for journaling and recording all of those special moments! But then you need to figure out how to get those memories and photos out of the app and into the “real world” to pass on to your children some day.

All of the ways that I listed above have some definite benefits to them, but then they also have some flaws for my lifestyle. One of the greatest hurdles that I find when it comes to recording my kids’ memories and milestones is knowing what exactly to write down. I definitely need help in that area! So when I came across the beautiful Promptly Journals, I knew I had a winner for recording all of my kids’ milestones and fun memories!

 
 

How I’m Keeping Track of My Kids’ Memories & Milestones with Promptly Journals

I learned about Promptly Journals well before I had any kids and actually got their Love Story Journal from my husband shortly after we got married. I really love how these journals are setup with prompts that I can fill in and share memories, stories, milestones, and more - and I don’t have to think about getting creative or coming up with those things on my own! The only downside is still one of my major flaws - actually remembering to take the time to pick up the journal and write something down.

This is where Promptly Journals has actually become a game changer for me… with their journal app*. They now have an app* for your phone that walks you through their different journals and gives you the same prompts, but you can easily type out your response, attach a photo or two directly from your phone, and choose to get it printed directly through their service when you are all done. No need to write things out by hand or remember to print out photos. It’s incredible!

*It appears that Promptly Journals has discounted this app without any notice - I don’t know if this app will ever be reintroduced.


Shop Promptly Journals for all Your Holiday Gifts!

As much as I am LOVING the app*, I still really love the nostalgia of being able to share my handwriting with my kids and leave them with that really personal touch. One of my personal favorite childhood memories was being able to look through my grandmother’s daily journals whenever I would visit their farm - it was so fascinating to be able to look back on daily life from when my dad was a kid and what was happening around the farm or funny quotes that my grandmother decided to write down. And I loved seeing things written out in her own handwriting.

So I actually plan to have the best of both worlds - I’m using the app* to keep track of everything and attach photos to those memories, but I want to take what I have written in the app and copy it down into the journals with my own handwriting and print out the attached photos and stick them into the book using a little portable photo printer.

*It appears that Promptly Journals has discounted this app without any notice - I don’t know if this app will ever be reintroduced.

The “awesomeness” of the Promptly Journal app takes it one step further and also has a notification feature so that you can be reminded to fill out a prompt at certain times of that day that work best for you. I love this little reminder feature to help me take the time to fill out one or two prompts early in the morning or late at night before I go to bed.

So far, I have my app* set up with 3 different journals - a Childhood History Journal for both Oliver & Ainsley and the Love Story Journal for myself and Eric. I already have a hard copy of the Childhood History Journal for Oliver and the Love Story Journal for me and Eric, but I still need to pick a color and snag a Childhood History Journal for Ainsley!

*It appears that Promptly Journals has discounted this app without any notice - I don’t know if this app will ever be reintroduced.

 

While the two journals that I have listed above are probably their most popular journals (or at least have been around the longest!), Promptly Journals has actually been putting out a wide variety of some really incredible journals! Here’s a list of the different types of journals that you can find from them:

  • MEMORY JOURNALS (Childhood History, Love Story, Autobiography, Travel, Adoption, Remembrance, Birthday Memories & Christmas Memories)

  • CONNECTION JOURNALS (Loom Couples Journal, Loom Parent-Child Journal & Loom Siblings Journal)

  • KIDS JOURNALS (Emotions, Loom Parent-Child Journal, Loom Siblings Journal, Blank Journal, Kids Travel)

  • SELF CARE JOURNALS (Gratitude, Self-Love, Postpartum)

  • HEALING JOURNALS (Remembrance & Grief, Fertility, Miscarriage)

  • BLANK JOURNALS (Blank Journals, Anything Notebook)

If you have been considering how to keep track of your kids’ memories and milestones and want a sweet balance between journaling and scrapbooking, I can’t recommend these Promptly Journals enough! And all of the additional styles of journals that they have make these an incredible gift for anyone on your list for birthdays, holidays, or baby showers!

Promptly Journals - Journaling Made Easy!

Do you have a favorite way for keeping track of your kids' memories & milestones?