don’t hesitate to unexpectedly drop in on or check up on your children. it provides an additional incentive for them to make good choices, and it shows that you care.

one time, when i went to schenker’s school to send him his swimming trunk (i forgot to put it in his bag), i saw how his face lit up when he saw me coming in! it’s priceless.

scheduled play dates are a great way for parents and young children to ensure time for having fun. tomorrow is samantha’s playgroup again. last wednesday, they didn’t meet because of the school holdays. tomorrow they are back to normal schedule. it is another time of fun and learning and socializing for samantha!

I have blogged about how to create a family keepsake. It’s because it is important to preserve those memories you have with children. We always think that we won’t forget the things we did and how and why and what happened on that day but in reality, we won’t. There are just too many happenings that some of them we will forget… unless we capture every moment of it. Like what I have said, having a camera or digital camera can be useful in capturing the moments. I talked about digital scrapbooking and a few more. And of course, we need a place to post them, right? So what do we need? It’s either we:

1. create a blog. Not only can you post your videos, photos or digital scrap, you can also write what happened at the moment. Some blogs are for free. But when you want your own custom domain, you need to pay. But it’s not much. You can have a custom domain from wordpress at 15$ per year and at Blogger for 10$ per year. Both have different features. So it’s up to you to decide which one you want to use.
2. if you can afford it, have your own website.

Then if you want to share your moments with family and friends, you can just give them the link. There’s nothing like preserving memories. Memories that last. Memories that would bring the family back together again.

When the kids are young, there are a lot of things they do that they forget when they grow older. Sometimes, they would forget all the places you have gone to and the things you did together. The memories sometimes just fade away. To preserve these memories, you could create a family keepsake.

1. scrapbook – this is a classic way to create family keepsakes. if you’re into high technology you could use digital scrapbooking. Not only you can show it to your kids when they grow up, you can also show it to your friends online. you just need a digital camera and scrapbooking software.
2. upload photos – a lot of websites offer applications where you can upload photos and make slideshows. This I have. Everytime I open a slideshow and see all the photos of my kids I took, it always bring a smile on my face.
3. videos – take videos, especially the “first things” that your kids did. It would make a difference when they grow up and see when they did what.
4. print photos – and put them in an album. It would make a great entertainment when guests come to your house and see all the family photos. You just need to invest in a very good printer. Printers are available and are cheap nowadays. So it’s better to invest in a good printer. or,
5. you can just save all your photos and videos in a laptop. Just make sure you make a copy of them in dvd or cd’s. HP laptops are good laptops so you can save them if you have one.

There’s nothing like preserving memories and there are just so many ways I could only think of a few.

by: janet