How do you hold on to memories of your children growing up?

[arabella2]

I have never been so aware of time passing as since the birth of ds 18 months ago. I was wondering what people do to hold on to memories... video cameras, photos, books etc...

I've got stacks of photos, little video clips on the digital camera, videos of our holidays and the dreaded baby books. I have to confess to making up some things that have gone in these but no one will ever know! I stick lots of little momentos into the books too -swimming certificates etc. I also have casts of DS1 and 2s hands on my wall and also their first trainers in deep frames.

Loads and loads of photos and video clips taken with the digital camera. I store them on CDs as back-up too just in case. I generally put them into PowerPoint to make little album type things for easy viewing for grandparents..

We also have a baby book which I am amazed that I managed to keep up to date. I only have one page left to do - 2nd birthday when it arrives next year, and adding the odd weight/height measurement. I have put loads of photos in that too, and added other notes at the back for her to look at.

I also have a box flder of things like her birth band, birth notes, cards, first birthday cards, christening cards and guest book, and her first pair of soft bootie type shoes. I have saved some of her very frst outfits for her to use with her dollies when a little older.

Glad to hear I am not the only one to keep hold of lots of bits!

As well as the usual baby book, video clips and photos I keep the 'first' of everything. First babygrow, first dress, first booties, first trainers, first pyjamas, first hat.... you get the picture! Everything else has been given away.

Ditto everyone else. I also keep a journal. I stsarted it the day I found out I was pregant and have kept it going. I record all the little things she does for th first time. I've listed people she's met so far, people wjo came to her Baptism, stuff like that. in the book the first 30 pages anre one colour and the next 30 another and so on, so on the yellow pages i've got friends and family to write a message to her when they meet her, the lilac pages are her first year, etc etc.

Detailed baby book, loads of photos, a really good ongoing video that starts with dh and I leaving the house when my waters broke, and records every birthday, christmas, first walk, reciting poems etc etc, and perhaps best of all my diaries - have been keeping a daily diary for about 10 years and the entry on the day dd was born still makes me cry when I read it now. They are the best way of recording the downs as well as the ups and make great reading for the future.

same as everyone else really - I try and keep it to a minimum though otherwise the house would be overrun already and she's only 6 months!

I have a box for each child - containing key objects like reports and photos and letters that they send to me. Paintings and school work. However I feel that this only portrays one aspect of the the child ie : what they can do and what they look like.
I also keep a diary and have done since they were born. Doesn't include the mundane matters ( Today I went to Tesco !! ), but it does record things that they say, their struggles and acheivements, their traits and hopes and dreams and their personalities.
ALso records how well / badly I am coping with mother hood

eeek, this thread is inducing a severe bout of guilt...it was as much as I could manage to assemble a photo album from ds's first year, and frankly if I had the time there is a huge list of things I need to sort out for him in the here and now....buy sand and buckets and spade for sandpit, get a trike, fix up a garden gate, get down to the library to get more books, get some more jigsaws, and, errr, play with ds....I'm afraid I am just going to have to rely on my memory!!

I write a letter to ds on his birthday every year (well, I say every year - he's 2 atm so he's got 3 letters!) to say what the last year's been like, what he's like now and what I think the next year will be like. I then print it off with one of his birthday photos and put it in a folder that I'll give to him on his 21st. Even now they're fun to read back.

Love the idea of letters, diaries etc, wish I'd done that. I have a friend who wrote a piece every month in an album for her first child (dunno if she did it for the second too.)

Each of my children has a year or so of photos in their own album - after that they just go in the family ones. I have coming-home-from-hospital knitted caps for each of them, wristbands, cradle cards and first shoes, and some hair clippings. Draw the line at teeth though!

We have videos going back to when the eldest 3 were 6, 3 and 0 - used to hire a camera then, and just make about 1½ hours of whatever came up. When the third was 2 we got our own camcorder and we do have lots of miscellaneous daily bits which are lovely, also school plays etc. Can we get them turned into DVD does anybody know? (We also have some cine film of DD1 as a baby 21 years ago - no sound - I know that can be turned into VHS but feel that DVD would be safer.)

The other thing I have - not intended as memento but has become one - is family calendars going back 20 years with all the playdates, birthday parties, school activities, out-of-school activities etc.

(Plus all school reports and three huge boxes of artwork which I must sort out some time soon.)

elliott, bugger the here and now, don't rely on your memory, you won't remember and then you will be sorry! Write something down....

We use car journeys to tell the kids stories about funny/naughty/clever/loving/achieving etc things they have done we start lets tell the one about when ...... or sometimes they start off by asking us to tell the one about when I was found pulling all the pages out (for some reason they love the naughty ones best) It's a kind of oral tradition but it helps us remember things they have done from when they were tiny to present day.We also have the photo/video collection. We also stick in stories about us and our parents and grandparents. We can do a 300 mile trip quite successfully in this way and they have now started adding in their own stories which is lovley.

I've kept some stuff, birth congrats and 1st birthday cards, hair clippings, special clothes, first shoes, a pram and lots of photos. We don't have a video so no film of them. But I actually wonder why I keep it as none of my older three (age 16, 23 and 28yrs) are the least bit interested in it. We gave DS1 his birth certificate and he'd lost it within six weeks!!!! I was a little bit cross with him, I must admit....

Maybe they will be more interested if they have children of their own but I rather suspect that when DH and I are dead, our children will clear out our house and say to each other "Why on earth did Mum and Dad keep all this rubbish from our childhood?"

Georgina A what a lovely idea - I may start that up.

I kept a diary from being pregnant but with ds2 I dont seem to ahve time to fil it in so it is basically monthly but says about sleep and personlaity etc also what we are doing in our lives to help me remember what stage we were at as a family.

Sad moment yeaterday - i trod on a tile of ds1 hand and foot print from 10 weeks old - have glued it together but was completely gutted - irreplaceable! My fault for leaving it out to remind me to do ds2 - still haven't - A level GUILT - yet again!

Thomcat - i do a diary too which I thought I'd just do for the first year, but there's still so much new stuff I have to keep it up (19m). Just wondering if you'd thought about when to stop ? When they're old enough to keep their own ?