Your Family Blog

As our children have grown up and moved away from home, we want to keep connected with our children and our grandchildren. That can be difficult at times in the busy worlds that we live in. We mostly text or Facebook message.  But I was looking for a more substantial way to stay connected with that part of us who has grown up and moved away and that part of us who still live at home.  We love our children dearly, but it can become a struggle to keep those ties strong as everyone’s lives get so busy.   We are not perfect parents (far from it) but we love our kids and want to make important family connections as they head out into the world. One of the ways of keeping our connections strong is to create a family blog. The key is to keep it updated and to keep reminding my children that it is there.

A Great Way to Make Family Connections

It literally, takes less than 5 minutes to set up your own FREE family blog.  Just go to www.wordpress.com or www.blogspot.com to get started!  Choose a domain name (ours is literally baylesfamily and the theme you want and you are ready to go!  Then you can upload some pictures of your family and write a short welcome and you are done. Don’t make this hard, it shouldn’t take you any longer than 30 minutes to an hour at the very most.

Now for the hard part. YOU HAVE TO UPDATE IT FREQUENTLY!! That is my kryptonite.  But I have found that if I set a schedule such as post on the family blog once a week or even once a month that I am more likely to follow through.

What should even be on my family blog?

1. Birthdays/Calendar

List everyone’s birthday and anniversary. Make it easy for them to remember their niece or nephew’s birthday. Or let’s be honest, make it easier for them to remember your birthday. Don’t forget the ancestors. My mother-in-law’s birthday is on Valentine’s day and although she is gone, it is good for my children to remember that and maybe even talk to their children about their grandma on Valentine’s day. That’s is what we are trying to do is to keep family connections.

If nothing else, it is a great place for me to go and check when the next person in the families birthday is. I really love having this feature.

Use this for birthdays, anniversaries,  family parties, baptisms, etc. What a great way to keep everyone connected. Another great way to use this blog is as a means to plan family trips, parties, holidays, and reunions. Post ideas for the agenda, the location, what matching shirts to wear, and what food to eat.

2. Favorite Family Recipes

I don’t know about you, but we have some favorite family recipes. One of them is Snicker’s Pie.  We have a stupid tradition that entails searching for the Snicker’s pie recipe every Thanksgiving. I kid you not this goes on every year. And every year, I say “We need to keep that where we can find it!” But every year we are searching for it again. We usually have to Facebook one of my daughter’s ex-boyfriends for the recipe.  How weird is that?  Put those recipes here on your blog so everyone can access them whenever they need it.  I would have provided a link to the recipe here but you guessed it, i don’t know where it is right now. Note to self,  please put the Snicker’s pie on the family blog.

 3. Wisdom and Thoughts

Create a post about what is going on in your own life. I am surprised at how much changes in our own lives but we forget to tell those that we love. They want to know they just don’t know what to ask. I wrote an article last year that is an example of this. Go here to read it. This can be updates of what is happening in your life, ancestral stories, your thoughts and feelings on the political climate, your job, your cruise plans, etc. are. Don’t make this hard. These are your children. So just write up something from your heart and then move on.

4. Pictures and Matching Shirts

Document your time with your children and their children. Take pictures of all of the grandkids wearing the same shirts. Take pictures of you interacting with them. Just take pictures and then post them for everyone to enjoy. This picture is of me and my 7 cousins when I was about 4.  It is priceless. (I am the one on the far left, bottom row. Cute huh?) I have loved this picture for as long as I can remember.  These are the people that I grew up with. These people are my family. Do something like this for your grandchildren or children. Maybe even make it a tradition to take a picture of all of the grandkids wearing matching t-shirts together every year. You will never regret it.

Post pictures of their ancestors. Let them see what Great-Great-Uncle Harry looked like. Help them to become familiar with their family so that they can create family connections with them in their hearts. The best way to do that is through pictures and storytelling.  your thoughts and feelings on the political climate, your job, your cruise plans, etc. are.

Post pictures and stories about you and your spouse’s history. How awesome is that that your children have a place to go to learn more about you and your life. Just make it a goal to put up one picture or story about you or your spouse a month. It adds up quickly.

 5. Ask your children to guest post on the blog

No really! Ask them! They may say they are too busy are they may be excited to do it. I have 6 children and I figure that if they all posted just once a year, that our family blog would already be half way to my goal of one post a month.  And it gives the whole family ownership in this awesome project.  Ask them to post a story, a recipe, a family home evening lesson, or anything else that they desire. Heck, they could do it for a family home evening.

6. Remind your family you have a blog!

Every time that you create another post, tell your family! We are all busy and they are not going to check it regularly. So tell them. Put a link on Facebook, and Instagram. Email them. Don’t let your hard work go to waste. If you keep reminding them and updating your blog, they will come.  If you put it in your schedule that every 1st Monday, another blog post needs to be written, it will get done. Make it an appointment just like any other appointment and slowly but surely your amazing family blog will be born. Give it a try and then come back and tell us how it went. One post a month equals 12 posts in a year. That is amazing. You can do it. I know you can.  I am headed now to get my family blog up and running. The goal is to have 12 posts by the end of the year. If I can do it so can you.