Saturday, May 29, 2010

Making Memories: Web Meme Launch

Tell me about the time when.....

Growing up, I always loved hearing my mother tell stories of her adventures, and misadventures, when she was younger. She could tell stories about her brother, or stories that her mother told her as well. I loved hearing them and would ask for my favorites over and over. What a rich treasure these stories were.

Recently, I've noticed that my own children have been asking for stories of things I did when I was a girl, and, more encouragingly, stories of things they remember, or barely remember, from their own childhood.

We strive to do so many things as parents. We want to raise, to nurture, to love, to teach, to cherish our children. Yet I also want my children to grow up with stories, good stories, of their own. I want their childhood to be a rich tapestry of memories. Life can get so busy, so overscheduled and so hectic. I don't want their childhood to be completely lost in regimen and routine.

So last summer, and the summer before that one, we started a tradition of making a "summer bucket list". And since then, I've been mindful of trying to create memorable experiences in the midst of our ordinary, everyday lives. I've written about a few of them, like building fairy houses, before.

This summer, I want to invite others along the journey with me. I love reading the ideas and adventures other families have. Bloggers are such a creative and interesting group of people, and I would love to read some of unique ways other are Making Memories with their children.

Please consider being a blessing to myself and others by sharing some of your own stories. Be blessed by reading suggestions and activities that others share. Please join us in a twice monthly blog meme designed to share the many ways in which we are all Making Memories.

Making Memories Meme Guidelines

Why: Because the times we have to spend with the children we love goes by all too quickly. The days are fleeting, the hours are few, and too soon they are grown.

Who: Parents, grandparents, caregivers, aunts and uncles. Anyone who desires to spend some quality time with the special child(ren) in their lives.

What: An opportunity to get and share ideas for child-friendly fun, activities, projects, and adventures. What you share can be a quick project, tips for a vacation or a road-trip, or a way of making an ordinary outing fun and memorable. What you share can be just for fun or it can have some educational or other value. As long as it's something you think the kids you know will look back on and treasure. Please share your ideas with the purpose of enabling another family to repeat your success.

When: Twice a month in the summer. I'll launch the web meme on the 1st and 15th of June, July, and August. Through the school year, this will likely drop down to once a month.

How: On the first and fifteenth of the summer months, I'll post my own Making Memories idea. At the bottom of my post, I'll have a linky tool. If you have an idea to share, please post a link to your own blog. Please make sure the link goes directly to the relevent blog post, and not just to your blog in general, so that readers can easily find what you'd like to share. Also, in your own post, please include a link back to my making memories post, so that your readers can enjoy others' ideas as well.

What about you? For this first round of sharing, please tell us about how you are planning on spending some of the summer. Do you have a typical summer kick off? Or do you have special routines or a system to balance "screen time" with more enriching activites? Do you have any insights concerning how to balance keeping your children active with preserving the spirit of the vacation days of summer?

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