It’s that time again, Mother’s Day. What can you possibly buy for a mother who already has everything, but who deserves it all? How can you make this Mother’s Day one to remember? Use the steps below to complete a very special project with the whole family, but this time it is focused on your Mother.

• Time: 1-2 hours
• Supplies: 8.5×11 colored paper, pens, fun photos with Mom or Grandma, tape, hole punch, string (binder with clear sleeves optional)
• Participants: The whole family, kids, grandkids, mothers, and more!

5 Steps to a Mother’s Day Memory Book

Step 1 - Gather the Family: On Mother’s Day, when the whole family is together, gather everyone to a central location and have a table ready with the supplies above. This includes the moms too - they are the most important part of the project!

Step 2 - Explain the Project: Your family will be creating a Memory Book all about your mom. Each family member will have the chance to create a “memory page” for the final Mother’s Day Book. They can create one page or as many as they’d like. Once everyone is done, you’ll bind them together and share the stories with Mom that day!

At the same time, Mom will get a chance to write a few of her favorite memories from motherhood and include them in the book. At the end of the hour you’ll have an amazing Mother’s Day Memory Book - an instant gift more priceless than anything you could give!

Step 3 - Everyone Makes a Memory Page: Each family member will take a blank piece of paper. On this page they have a chance to pay tribute to Mom in any way they’d like. Little ones they may want to just draw a picture, but the older family members have a few more options: write a poem, create a short story about a special time with Mom, affix a special snapshot of you with your mom and talk about that day, write a tribute from the heart recalling the things you’ve learned from your mom, or describe how your mom has impacted your life! Here’s a chance for everyone in the family to take the time to tell Mom or Grandma just how much she means to you!

Step 4 - Record Mom’s Stories Too: While everyone else is focused on creating their memory pages, you Mom has a job to do too! Have her answers as many of the below questions as she’d like. Give her some blank pieces of paper and let her write down some of her stories to include in the book:

1. What is your full name?
2. Where were you born and when?
3. What are your parent’s names?
4. What do you remember most about your mother (her appearance, her personality, her cooking)?
5. What skills did you learn from your mother that you’ve tried to use with your children?
6. Growing up, how many children did you want to have one day?
7. Describe what it was like being a mother for the first time (the work, the experiences, the emotions).
8. Which child was the easiest as a newborn? Which child was the hardest?
9. Describe a funny story about raising your children. What mischief did they get into and how did it make your laugh?
10. What advice to you have for other Mothers who are getting ready to start a family?
11. List off some of your proudest moments as a mother.
12. What hopes and dreams do you have for your children and grandchildren?

Step 5 - Share as a Family: Once everyone is done with their memory pages (about 30 minutes) collect them and choose how you’d like to bind them together.

• Option 1: Hole punch the memory pages in three spots on the spine and then tie them with ribbon.
• Option 2: Use an empty binder and slip each page into its own protective page.

It’s up to you how elaborate you’d like the final book to look! Make sure you put your Mother’s pages first and then everyone else’s behind that.

Once everyone is done, have them all come together and sit around your Mom. Present her with the bound book and have her read aloud the pages she’s just written. These are wonderful memories about her life! Then have her read through each page her loved ones have created! It will be an instant tear-jerker experience and one to remember the whole year through!

If You Had Fun: If this project was a hit with your Mother, don’t miss our StoryCatcher and our PhotoCatcher family history kits, created by Family Historian Rory Siefer, the same person who came up with the Mother’s Day Memory Book you’ve done today! This project is just a sampling of what you’ll get to do with your loved one using her two kits. Take the time to help your mom save her best life stories - so that your children will always get to know her the way you do!