How this busy creative homeschool mom...likes to remember.

Before I had kids I saw an idea that really struck me...the idea was to set up an email for your kids and email them things to remember and give them the password when they become an appropriate age. I put a modern day technological twist on it...

First off, I started by creating an email that is unique to them. My firstborn has something to do with the Marine Corps because her Daddy joined the military when I was pregnant with her. I will, like the article I read suggested, keep the password from her until she's old enough to use it.

Then, I set up Facebook accounts for each of my children around the time of their birth and again, I will keep those passwords until they are old enough to access them. But when they do, they will have an instant timeline of their life and for the most part, they will see what happened on exactly the day that it happened.

Because you see, now I can tag them in statuses, pictures and whatever else that Facebook comes up with in the next several years. They have also been added to a secret family group that only our immediate family and a select group of very close friends, that we call family, are in.

This busy momma likes to fondly remember all the adventures we've had together and I hope this helps you too!

Changing my name...

I just recently decided to change the name of my blog because my husband is no longer in the Marine Corps. It's kind of sad and I miss it, but we are no longer a traveling military family. We are settled in and have three beautiful girls living smack in the middle of Texas.

My new blog name is a nod to a very courageous and spirited lady who is an author and a speaker to Christian families. Her name is Heidi St. John and you might know her as the Busy Mom or the Busy Homeschool Mom. Check out her website and her podcast!

How this busy creative homeschool mom scrapbooks...in just minutes a day!

To all the busy moms out there...shout out to you making it through another day of "momming"!! But at the end of all the long days, short years, and even shorter nights, you will want memories to hold on to. I've developed a system for scrapbooking in the mom years...in just minutes a day.

I've tried it all...the expensive scrapbooking companies where you buy all your acid free, lignin free papers and stickers...the fancy scrapbooking software that uses newer terms like "backgrounds" and "embellishments". But I have found for me, a simpler approach works much better and is something I can keep up with! And believe it or not, involves Facebook. My scrapbooking approach kills two birds with one stone as well. I'm posting to my social media almost every day, which let me tell you, the grandparents love AND I'm doing a bit of scrapping/journaling every time I post!

Let me describe it here...

Step One: Come up with a unique hashtag you can use on all your social media accounts. I'll list ones I've used before.

2018: #storyoftoday2018
2019: #mydayinpics2019

I normally come up with my hashtag on the first day of the new year and I plan to use that one for a whole year. You could do something different like a hashtag for a school year or some other event you want to record your memories of. My 2018 hashtag did not appear to be used by anyone else, so type it in to Facebook and you can see some of my posts!

Step 2: Create your post using your favorite social media accounts. I prefer to use Facebook...although I have tried using Instagram that would cross post to Facebook, but that doesn't always work and my parents aren't all on Instagram so I stick to Facebook. Make sure you are journaling what happened on that day in the post you create...it can be a funny anecdote or just something simple that today reminded you of. And don't forget your newly created hashtag to go with it! I normally use my year round hashtag and two other funny little hashtags I think of to accurately describe the photo I used or maybe just be silly!

Step 3: When I have a few extra minutes...baby is napping, girls are playing together nicely, homeschool is getting done...whatever! I sit down at my computer and catch up on my scrapbooking by copying and pasting my previous work into an online scrapbook such as Shutterfly. It looks like this step by step...

1) Search Facebook for my hashtag...it will pull that hashtag anytime I've used it (or if someone else has but normally you can narrow it down just to the places you've used it...bonus points if you can come up with a hashtag that no one else has used for an entire year...I did that with my 2018 hashtag!). Yes, it will even pull the hashtag up if you've used it in groups like a secret family group, which we have, for more personal things that I don't want blasted all over my social media.

2) Download whatever picture I used for my post and also make a note of the date. This is probably my favorite reason for using social media...it saves the original date of the post so I don't have to physically remember what date we went to the park for the 27th time. I also like that Facebook reminds me what I did that day in previous years...it's so much fun to look back! I like to use Facebook as my own personal timeline of adventures!

3) Copy the status I used (this is why journaling the whole story is important) plus all the cute hashtags that I came up with.

4) Upload the picture and paste the status I used to whatever online scrapbook company I choose to use. (I mentioned Shutterfly before and my reasoning for that is below...)

I use Shutterfly because their online program is very user friendly and they almost always are running some sort of sale so whenever I finish my album I can get a great deal like 50% off, free pages, free shipping or whatever they are running at the time. Have I ever quickly finished an album to take advantage of a coupon? You better believe it! I also love the templates they offer...I literally only have to upload my pictures and place them along with my copied and pasted status and my pages are done almost instantly!

I don't know what busy mom could use this easy strategy but even if it helps only one person to make memories of the little years, it will have accomplished my goal!