Let’s discuss five ways to participate in family history. You will not regret reading this for ideas. She is wittier than anyone I know. She is the glue that has been helping to keep our family together. She is the one always there when you just need a hug or someone to listen to you. She is 87 years old. She is full of stories. She is incredibly encouraging. She still acts like she is in her 50’s. She  is determined. She is a bundle of memories. She is my grandmother.

Grandma is someone who you can count on for anything. I love her so much. I am sure you have that someone special in your life too. So how do you keep her young forever? How do we make sure we never forget her influence on our lives. She has led a legacy life, especially living through the depression era.

With places like ancestry.com and other online ways of connecting with our history, or tracking our heritage, there is no reason at all for us to not find ways to share our family stories. Family history is so much more than the typical boring things you learn about in history class, like dates, names, and records.

 1. Family Reunion

The next time you are at your family reunion you could pull out the old photos that have been stored in boxes for several years. While everyone is there, tell the stories shown in the photos. If you have extra photos that are of someone else there, and you do not want them give them to that person who may find meaning in that photo you too, of them. You could even play a game of name that person. Some people change a lot over time. So when you see a very old photo of someone, see if you that person and what event they were at or what they were doing.

2. History Class Project

For the kid who does not like history, make it fun with a different homework project. You could even use several websites online to help write an essay about your family name and it’s meaning. Where did your ancestors come from? With help from historians online, you may even find out your great grandfather, 5 generations ago, was a famous person or had a major influence in the world. When we can attach  a more meaningful purpose to our history, it helps our history classes come alive. Who knows, your child may even be more excite about going to history class after this project.

3. Create a Family Blog

With the world flying by sometimes, it can be hard to keep up. My mother’s side of the family lives in Texas and I am in Indiana, so it can be difficult to keep up with their lives and who they are. Thankfully, we all now have social media which helps, but what else do they do during the day? What are their life struggles or moments of joy throughout their day? Set up a family blog for each of you to have access to so you can write what is going on in your daily lives. This will be a forever place your kids, grandchildren, and children of future generations in your family can go to and read about what life was like when you were alive.

4. Create a Scrapbook Together

If you are the crafty type, you could make a scrapbook or digital scrapbook to preserve your memories and photos. Creating a scrapbook is a great way to bring everyone’s own personality on the pages with extra stickers or other adhesives, designer pages, or other embellishments.

5. Create a Family Time Capsule

Where do you keep all your tangible heirlooms? Don’t wait until everyone is sitting at the family reunion table and asking, “what ever happened to grandpa’s baseball?” Be creative as a family and put together a family time capsule. Pass it around in your family, so everyone has an opportunity to put something of significance in the time capsule. Take the time to interview your family members, especially your great grandparents who may not be around in 10, 20, or 50 years when you decide to open the time capsule as a family. If you want ideas of how to interview your family members, check out this blog.

Use your own family photos to print and put on the outside of this blank “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsule. Decorate it as if you would decorate a scrapbook page, creating your own Family Time Capsule. Then, on the inside of the time capsule, put your “Message to the Future” letters from yourselves to your future children or grandchildren. Describe what the world is like now. What is currently trending. What do you predict will happen to cars or other things 20 years from now? Most importantly, save your mementos and memorabilia in the time capsule. Get your own “Any Occasion” DIY Time Capsule today and get started bonding with your family now. Get it at www.timecapsule.com.

So what would you put in your own Family Time Capsule? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

– Marcie

The post 5 Fun Ways to Participate in Family History appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

My new niece, Arden.

“Yes, you are officially a new parent Matt.” This is what I said to my brother this past Thanksgiving weekend as we all gathered together as a family. Now we are a bigger family, because he and his wife recently had their first baby. “You are taking more pictures now, than you ever have in the past.” “You are using Facebook more than ever, posting the new baby photos about every week.” That is the sign of new parent syndrome. It is a great sickness to have.

We love to hear and see stories in action, of parents or couples doing whatever it takes to preserve memories. That is what keeps family stories and traditions going. What fun memories did you make with your family this past Thanksgiving? It is never too late, because Christmas is coming up, then we start all over again with a new year filled with special days and events to make new memories.

How to Preserve Memories

Kwote App

Kids say the darndest things. It usually happens on the spur of a moment, so how do you capture that? If you are like me, I do not constantly have a pad of paper I am carrying around with me. Also, if I do not write it down that moment, and wait till later I get so busy that I forget to write it down. There are so many apps out there nowadays. Check out one called “Kwote.” It is completely free to use. Get your Kwote app here. Save your child’s quotes on a colorful background, then put them throughout your photo album or scrapbook pages. It is so cool and easy to use.

Save Grandparent Voices

Have a grandparent, baby sitter, family member, or friend, read your child’s favorite book out loud and record it. A great keepsake and from those you love and a comforting voice to listen to years later. You really do not know what you have until it is gone many times.

Holiday Memories

Thanksgiving is a perfect time to gather together around the table and take advantage of the time and get people to tell some of the stories of their life. Get the whole family involved. Make a game out of it. Go around the table and tell about something funny that happened in school. The key is not to wait. There are so many different ways to document these great stories for your kids and grandkids. Collect these memory makers, like old photographs, handwritten letters, newspaper articles, and family recipes while you are eating that delicious traditional pumpkin or apple pie on Thanksgiving day. A new recipe you create today, can become an old tradition years later when passed down from generation to generation.

 Photo from: http://www.oysmem.com/why-you-need-to-preserve-memories/

Create a Digital Scrapbook

There are so many options to use and digital scrapbooks you can find on Google. It is an option to dump all those photos collecting on your phone, in a creative keepsake fashion.

What are you doing to preserve your protective photos, slides, audio and video tapes. These are priceless, because they help us bridge gaps of generations in our family. If you are like me or most people, you are storing them in boxes and containers under the bed, or in closets or basement shelves. Preserve family stories and traditions, giving your children an answer to their future questions of where their family came from. Some memories may still be stored in your grandmother’s memory waiting to come out. Where ever they are, they are slipping away and deteriorating waiting to be preserved.

Get started now in preserving your memories and other tangible heirloom objects with a decorative Baby or Wedding Time Capsule from http://www.timecapsule.com.

What is your most valuable heirloom you would want saved in a time capsule? Comment below.

Making Milestone Moments Count,

–  Marcie

www.timecapsule.com

The post 4 Ways to Preserve Keepsake Memories and Heirloom Objects appeared first on Time Capsule | Personalized Gifts.

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]A time capsule is a fun and simple way to celebrate an important milestone moment in your family or personal life. It is a great way to involve your family and friends. It is a way to reflect on a past year. History is important so we can learn from it, so why not pass it on to the future generation. Where would we be if we did not have any historical information written down or recorded? Traditions are a way to unite all generations.

Traditions

A time capsule is a great way to keep traditions alive. Preserve your keepsakes in a time capsule. As Christmas approaches, I look forward to going to my parent’s house. There is something about reminiscing and starting the holiday season with a ritual you look forward to each year. The smell of Christmas cookies to heirloom recipes lingering in the air is so sweet. Many families like to pick out the Christmas tree together. How special would it be to cut off one piece of the bark of your first Christmas tree when you are born or married starting your new family with your signatures on it. My family loves to gather around the table playing board games, watching classic movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Decorating the Christmas tree while listening to Christmas music and the crackling fireplace, brings back so many sentimental feelings. This is always a time for my family members to get the warm fuzzies inside us, as we all share laughs, tears, and stories about the ‘good old days.’

So what…

Traditions help us pass on values and culture to the next generation. A time capsule helps provide a sense of family history, identity, belonging, togetherness, and help increase family bonds. To express how important traditions are, just try and get a fake Christmas tree one year, if you are a family who has always bought a real tree. It makes you feel uncomfortable, and some family members may even revolt. They did in our family. That again, is what a time capsule is for…to help keep traditions and memories that matter, alive for generations to come.

Save your precious Christmas memory ornaments.

http://www.mountainemeadows.com/catalog/piece/yesterday/

Everyone lives in this fast, instant, hectic world and we all many times let these important traditions fade. Instead, let’s take life by the hand and pass it on to our future children in our family through the use of traditions written down, with photos, recordings, recipes, or other meaningful items to put in a time capsule. Bring comfort and joy to your family this year by making a time capsule together. What a bonding, milestone moment that will be.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_single_image image=”2561″ img_link_target=”_self”][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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