I’m excited about documenting each month’s memories this year, and I’m happy to have January “in the books”! It was a good month for us, with lots of grandbaby snuggles and a week-long stay at our cabin. I’ve also made a lot of progress with healing after my December ankle surgery.

I'm starting my 18th (eighteen!) year of doing monthly roundups! This is something that I started back on my very first blog back in 2006, and I have kept going strong with the practice ever since then. Creating a quick recap of the month as it ends has been my most helpful memory-keeping tool and something that has made a huge difference (for the better) in how I view my everyday life.

One of the best ways to get motivated for a new year of memory keeping is to look back at the past year. I’m really proud of myself for doing 12 months of roundups and turning those into meaningful memory layouts

I started worrying that I wouldn't finish my December roundup before January ended! I knew I would be late in completing it because of my surgery recovery, so I've been patient with myself about the whole thing. Still, it feels really good to have it done!

Do you pick a word for the year? Ali Edwards has inspired me to choose One Little Word every year since 2008. It’s become a really special tradition and every member of our family chooses their own word as well.

The end of the month is here, so it’s time to do a month-in-review roundup. I love to take a memory inventory at the end of the month and document it all to add to our family albums.

I share several prompt images each month on the last day of the month. I’m also including a link to my video walkthrough of how to document your life month by month and a demonstration of how I do my own roundups.

I love using the end-of-year news recaps in our memory albums. The headline recaps and top trend lists make journaling super easy and give my pages historical and cultural references to keep them interesting. Be sure to grab some screenshots at this time of year and pair them with your own memories to create a meaningful record of the year.

December is ending in eight days, so even though Christmas isn’t over, I wanted to plant a little roundup reminder in your mind.

When I injured my ankle in June of 2021, I never expected to be still dealing with it eighteen months later. But, unfortunately, I've reinjured it so often (and apparently broke it somewhere along the way) that now I can't walk on it at all. You can read more about the whole story and the surgery in this post.