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I’m really sort of annoying sappy and sentimental as far as summer is concerned. Not about the heat and humidity, OH MY WORD NO. But the other stuff? The uninterrupted family time? The swimming? The time at the beach? The trips to see family and friends? The wide open days with nothing but fun on the horizon?
I could write a Deeply Moving Ballad just thinking about that stuff. I love it all so much.
And as much as I’d love to be able to pick one moment of our summer and say, THIS, THIS ONE WAS THE MOST SPECIAL – I just can’t. There was too much goodness. There were some sad times and some hard times, of course, but by and large it was chock-full-o-sweetness. I’m so grateful for the days I got to spend with a little guy who starts off every single day with a big smile, a head full of hair that sticks straight up, and an ongoing insistence that cereal should be eaten without milk, LIKE THAT EVEN MAKES SENSE.
There’s just nothing better than doing life with that little fella.
And because I am a gigantor sap of epic proportions, I made a slideshow to document some of our favorite summer memories. Because remember when you were little and one of your relatives made you sit on the floor while he or she showed 400-600 slides of their vacations from the 1960s?
This is pretty much the 21st century version of that. Only hopefully you’ll be spared the bee-hive hairdos and horn-rimmed glasses.
“Loving You Is Easy” – by Ben Rector
The summer really was so good.
So what about you? How do you like to document memorable times with your family? Scrapbooking? Blogging? Making videos? Leave a comment with your answer, and you’ll be entered to win a $100 Visa gift card (and come back next week to enter again – because these giveaways will continue for the next 7 weeks).
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The hightlight of my summer was kayaking among the migrating shorebirds in Cape Breton. They didn’t mind my presence at all. I was able to sit quietly among them when my boat beached on their sandbar and get lots of beautiful photographs. ~karen
Summer was very busy, with camps and weddings and short trips. How do I document? Pictures & more pictures!
I just started a blog and hope to turn it into yearly books for my family :)
I had 2 things that were memorable this summer. My daughter participated in her first triathalon and I went with her. It was a wonderful weekend in Traverse City with my oh so grown up (22yo) daughter. The second thing was a few days away with my hubby in the heart of Amish country (Berlin Ohio) just the 2 of us. Great giveaway!
mamaspark@gmail.com
I take lots of pictures with the hope of putting them in album when I have time.
I would love to be a scrapbooker. I started scrapbook my family’s story one time. I think I’m up to the birth of the second child (she’s 23 now). I blog now. It’s the only thing I can marginally keep up with.
We are trying to keep up with our busy twin girls with our blog
http://www.dykematwentyfingerstwentytoes.blogspot.com
I journal some, and I blog, so I guess those are two ways I try to remember fun family times. I am terrible about scrapbooking or anything crafty, so that’s out. And I have about a hundred packets of pictures sitting in a box somewhere. I’m a mess!
I just try to take lots and lots of pictures. Right now, the majority of our recent ones are still on my computer. I’ve been bad lately about getting prints.
I take a lot of pictures but I struggle with doing anything with them. One thing that is fun and comforting for us as a family is that when we do something once and we really enjoy it, we try to do it again at least once a year so it establishes a lot of little traditions. Even without pictures or scrapbooks we can go somewhere and say, “Remember when we did _________ last year? ___________ was going on and now we are doing _________.” I don’t know. It just keeps the conversation going!
i blog…that is about all i can handle. my husband likes to make little photo collage videos after special family events.
I take pictures. That’s it, nothing exciting LOL. I put them up on Facebook to share, too.
We make videos of our antics and post them on you tube for family members
tbarrettno1 at gmail dot com
Favorite moments this year was we learned some new boardgames and tried to play them every week. It was great quality family time together. Plus stepdaughter learned some new things from it
giveawaymommy at yahoo.com
I like to take oodles of pics but remembering to do anything with them is something I’m still working on.
I LOVE taking pictures and videos of my sweet family. I also blog when I get a chance. With 3 yr old quadruplets–life moves so fast, it’s nice to be able to look back at where we came from:)
I made a Shutterfly photobook from pictures my siblings and I took at our family reunion this summer. An easy way to put all of memories together in a way the kids and adults can enjoy together.
Right now we have simply downloaded the pictures to my external hard drive, but one day, when I have the time, (that is when I am retired and the kids have grown), I will scrapbook!
Taking tons of pics and then making a photo book at the end of each year – which makes a fabulous Christmas present for all of the grandmas.
Photos and journals, but no prefab scrapbooking stuff.
I am terrible about taking pictures. But lately I have decided to make a conscious effort to take them. The second step is to turn them into hard copies. I think I have enough good ones to send in a batch to have printed out (with Doubles for the relatives of course)
I do not document. I am a bad mother. Lol
I used to sell Creative Memories and was ALL ABOUT the scrapbooking. But, the time for that magically disappeared when I actually had children to scrapbook about. Now, I blog about our fun (and, not so fun) times. Would love to have my blog published into a book someday so that we can sit down together and flip through the pages. Somehow, sitting in front of a computer screen just isn’t the same.
So far I have made a video for each year for my daughter and I LOVE them. Before she was born I made scrapbooks and I still continue that. Though I am probably going to do digital photobooks for her too so she has something to take with her someday and I can keep my scrapbooks! :)
pictures and not great ones at that! :)
My favorite memory was hiking with my boyfriend and our two dogs through the Gambrill State Park here in Maryland – fresh air, gorgeous scenery, and quiet time with my favorite beings – doesn’t get any better than that!
I stink at scrapbooking, so I blog to remember all the family events. I hope to print them out by year (some day).
I am often made fun of by my teen kids…they love to call me the Mamarazzi! I’m usually chasing them around taking pictures of EVERYTHING they do.
I can’t help it! They’re 16, 17 & 20! Dangit! I’m capturing every precious moment! :)
We like to capture the candid moments in video snippets… our 2-year-old very proudly watering the plants with daddy, or the kitty stealing his waffle while he’s not looking. It’s life, and we love every little minute of it.
I mostly take still camera shots of the kids. I should video more.
I take a ton of pics! Now to have someone make me a nice album!
I am awful at chronicalling my “fun” special moments so pictures is about as far as I usually get. Maybe one day, I can branch out to scrapbooking…or even just putting together those old fashioned photo albums (sigh)…
We take lots of pictures and videos and also make scrapbooks!
I go crazy with my Canon camera.. take a million pictures, then spend hours editing and deleting bad ones… then I organize em all in file on my computer. :-) I think my pictures file alone is over 5GB. Not good… not good at all…
Oh, I’m terrible at documenting…it’s gotten worse with age! Part of it is that my daughters are 19 and 17 and they take a zillion pictures of family stuff as well as their own activities so I guess in the back of my mind I feel like it’s “documented.” I never could get into scrapbooking – too overwhelming. I so wish blogs had been around when my girls were growing up. I think that is a fabulous way to document and show pics!
I’m horrible about documenting things. I long to be a digital scrapbooker, but I haven’t gotten that far. I probably blog more than anything. Unless you count a zillion Facebook posts.
But thanks for the reminder to get the camera into the hospital bag for baby delivery!
I take lots of photos and eventually get them into albums!
Scrapbooking! I love remembering good times as I’m making the pages.
I think my fave summer moment was our very spontaneous trip to the beach. Great memories!
I like to scrapbook and once in awhile we take video.
I loved taking my baby on walks. Also, hiking and camping, basically just being outside and enjoying the nice weather.
alli38@juno.com
We scrapbook!! Some of the best memories I have of this summer were days when my daughter and I spent time together scrapbooking and talking about life!
bleatham*at*gmail.com
i take pictures and videos. i want to try scrapbooking too.
songyueyu at gmail
I blog!
My summer was spent working, followed by a few weeks in Greece. I took 600+ pictures, am completely out of money, but it was the best trip of my life. Now if I could just find the time to print all the pictures out and put them in albums…..
With 3 under 3, this summer was mostly spent trying to survive with some sort of sanity intact! hopefully next summer can come with more documentation!
Mostly just pictures and some videos, though I was pretty bad about it this summer
We take lots of pictures to remember all the good times
I am a huge scrapbooker! I do way too many pages of our vacations and other events!
kmassman gmail
I’m low tech and not crafty. I take pictures, get them printed and put the best ones in albums! I wish I could scrapbook, but I’ve got no talent in that area.
I like to document our family memories by taking lots of pictures and putting them in albums.
I am a picture taker! In fact, we got a new camera last year just to document this summer was we just adopted our daughter from China! Now I just need to do something with those pictures!
I love to blog about my events.
livelovelaughwithleslieblog at gmail dot com
Most memorable time was just telling family stories with my cousins.
I take a bazillion photos (just ask my grandson!). I scrapbook, I blog, and at the end of each year I pring my blog in book form. I’d like to say I’m all caught up with those projects, but….
someluckydog at gmail dot com
Took pictures to capture our memories. bearabledeals@gmail.com
Since I bought a nice-ish camera, I’ve been designated official photographer whenever my family gets together. That’s fine with me!
By taking lots of pictures!!!
i am terrible at scrapbooking so i love photobooks. that’s how i do it!!
hancoci_s at msn dot com
We take some pictures of the grandkids, but mostly my husband and I just talk about the special times we have had with them
I have to admit that I’m not into documenting our fun…we just like to use our memories to remember all the good times!
Memorable times for us are most frequently documented through photos. I love taking the pictures and I love creating photo books to preserve them.
We loved camping by the lake. We also loved swimming! It was so fun!
leahforlove(at)aol(dot)com
My favorite summer memories are BBQ with my family and friends! So much fun! I love planning the menu and making special treatsxahead of time. Then sitting outside until it gets dark and chatting. That’s my favorite!
I recently discovered Picaboo and started making photo books. I figure the price of a book is way cheaper than all the scrapbooking supplies I have bought and never used over the years!
We took a week-long family trip to the mountains of TN. It was lovely!!
We love taking videos, and photos! We took a lot of both during our big summer camping trip and during our oldest girl’s birthday in August!
I take tons of pictures for my scrapbooking.
We mostly document the fun times with digital pictures and some videos. I post a lot of the pictures on Face Book for friends/family to see.
digicat {AT} sbcglobal {DOT} net
We did take pictures at different times throughout the summer!
sazzyfrazz at gmail dot com
Well…I used to scrapbook. Now I am doing good if the pictures make it off of the computer. We do take tons of pics though.
I would love to Blog everything, just need more time at home! To much work.
gmissycat@yahoo.com
I enjoy scrapbooking, and have caught up except for the past 6 months! :-)
~eunice b
tigergal01 @gmail .com
I used to be into scrapbooking back in the day, but very quickly ran out of time to really stick with that. I have tons and tons of photos on my computer that have never even been printed. My method of documenting memories now is to post albums to Facebook with commentary, which inspires everyone else’s commentary as well. It’s a lot of fun. Someday, I’d like to convert all that to printed books. I’ve used Blurb to do a book before and it is amazing to see your memories in a professional coffee-table type book. Someday….
We take lots of photos to share.
I took a lot of pictures of our adventures this Summer.
Going to Sixflags was the best part of my summer!
evil_eva12 at hotmail dot com
Watching the sun set, going to the park, and sleeping in!
ohsowendyful at hotmail dot com
I LOVE TAKING PICTURES THEN ORGANIZING THEM IN PHOTO BOOKS, IT’S KINDA A HOBBY kytah00@yahoo.com
I like to scrapbook!
My family loves taking videos. We’ve still got some old 8mm films around somewhere! It’s a lot of fun to get together and watch them and remember.
http://twitter.com/tnshadylady/status/24259282525
I wish I did document in some way, but honestly I haven’t in years – my 35mm fab camera broke and I hate digital cameras because of certain vision problems. I do wish I had photos!
I used to take photos and have made a nice scrapbook, but I haven’t done any picture taking in a few years
I love to scrapbook all our family memories! I have 6 full albums already and cherish them! : )
I document special moments by taking videos. Yep, I’m that annoying guy who always has a video camera.
I love to take pics of memorable family times and then put them into scrap books for my family members.
Our favorite memories are all kept in journals we did all summer! We have illustrations and a few words of what we did! It is so neat to look back over it all (zoo, park, moving to a new state, vacation, etc) It made it so easy to bring all those fun summer memories back!
kclements2001 (at) hotmail (dot) com
Our favorite memories are all kept in journals we did all summer! We have illustrations and a few words of what we did! It is so neat to look back over it all!
kclements2001 (at) hotmail (dot) com
We take a lot of photos and upload them to Photobucket and then share them on Facebook or email. I really need to get a video camera, though…it would be great to sit down and watch our summer memories.
I like to make videos! I received a flip last year at my Christmas gift so it’s been fun throwing clips together :)
I love blogging about the fun times with my family!
mattschmunk at gmail dot com
we took a few digital pictures, until the camera broke!
I usually document our memorable moments with pictures. I have a little digital camera and my husband has a really nice one. We take LOTS of pictures and usually save them on discs after sharing them with friends and family online.
Thanks!
jamesmadison1974@gmail.com
or
jamesmadison1974 at gmail dot com
I love taking pictures!
We made lots of crafts over the summer many of which I have saved in their art portfolios.
my husband makes videos…
I take as many pictures as I can, and then at Christmas every year we make each of the kids a photo book of the special moments throughout the year.
boy, you’ve hit a sensitive spot here with me! From the time my first child was born (28 years ago), I never kept up with a baby book. My two youngest (12 & 15) are told to keep their memories in a book their grandmother made for them.
My husband photographs or videotapes most events and does most of the “scrap-booking” Of course, I’m critical of how things look in the end–but, until I’m ready to do it myself, I’m not in a position to complain.
The reason all of this is a problem for me now: I am a new, first-time, grandmother. My three daughters all have the ability to send & receive pictures on their phones. I do not. Thus, I miss out on photos of the baby. Orion is 5-months-old now, and I told my husband that when we upgrade our cell phones, he needs to get me a phone that I can use to send/receive photos of the baby (and also to text–seems like that is the preferred method of communication for my girls) so I don’t miss out!
Going camping was fun!