(Editor's Note: When she's not blogging, Laura is a graphic designer with a passion for photography and preserving her family memories in creative ways. Pick her brain for ideas by asking a question at the bottom of the blog!)

As the holiday season comes to a close, you may find your camera is full of wonderful memories of all your get-togethers with family and friends. Don't be overwhelmed! There are many ways you can document memories these days. Here are some ways to use technology or tried-and-true favorite methods to preserve your family history – during the holidays and all year long.

Blog it baby!
When we were pregnant with our first child, I started a blog for our family. It was nice to always have access to it online and I enjoy looking back at the pictures at the click of a button. I kept up with it throughout my pregnancy, up until our son was about 3 months old. I miss it adding to it and wish I could have kept it up! 

I also just discovered that Shutterfly has special blogish-baby sites that connects to your Shutterfly photo account. It even has a special spot to list milestones! Also, Cozi.com has a family blog/journal option as well. (I haven’t used either of these though.)

Print it baby!
Then I switched to only doing printable photo books and used what little free time I had to create them online. There are lots of sites you can use. Call me old-fashion, but I like being able to hold the photo in my hand (which you can’t really do with a blog).

Did you know that there is also a company that will print your blog as a photo book? I can’t wait to do this with our family blog. Once it’s printed, maybe I will add to it for this pregnancy.

Go old-school
One of the best pieces of advice I received after returning to work was to start a journal for our son. It was a place to write down milestones and big moments, but also small things, like what kind of things would make him smile or giggle. And now that he’s two, I love writing about the funny things he does!

As a new mom, you think “but I’ll remember everything they do!” And then you soon realize that you can’t even remember the amazing thing they did 2 hours ago, let alone 20 years from now!

My problem is I think I need to write pages for each entry. When I’ve looked back through them after sometime, it’s actually easier to catch a glimpse of what was going on when the entries are short and sweet. I need to remember that!

The other nice thing about a paper journal is that it’s in your handwriting. Although it may not always be beautifully legible (like when I was writing while dosing off AND trying to breastfeed), there’s just something about reading memories in your mom’s handwriting. That’s what I love about traditional scrapbooking and I miss it with the printable photobooks.

This time around, I started Little Bean’s journal when I found out I was pregnant. Now I am writing in both kid’s journals, often times about the same event, like when our son announced our news that he was going to be a big brother and when he got to go to the doctor and hear Little Bean’s heartbeat. The hardest part now is remembering which child I am writing to!

So how do you record your family’s history?

No matter how you do it, remember to take pictures (don’t forget to actually print some), write things down and build memories!

~Laura Shumaker