Intentional Parenting- Family Traditions

Family traditions are a huge part of building a happy family. Sometimes, we strategically plan them and other times, they just fall into our laps… or pie crusts.

 

A few years ago, I volunteered us to make an apple pie for Thanksgiving. And then I decided that we should make it from scratch! (“From scratch” means we used fresh apples and made the crust from a box

 

So they kids were lined up on the counter and we rolled out the pie crust. We put the crust into the pie pan and I walked across the room to get the apples.

 

… and I thought, “maybe they’re onto something…”

 

I mean, I know we can’t go around putting our feet in the pie crust every year. Eventually, people would stop eating our pie.

 

So we decided to put our fingerprints in the pie crust. And it became a Solar family tradition… just like that.

 

But the thing about family traditions, just like ALL important things in family life, is that you have to put in the effort. And if you really want things to stick, you have to intentional about them. One of the best ways be intentional about cultivating family traditions is to document the stories.

 

It’s no secret that we’re professional photographers and we LOVE taking photos of our kids and our family life. But even if you’re not a professional photographer, you should still be documenting your family traditions through photos, videos, written words, and telling the stories. It can be a blog, a journal, a scrapbook… whatever works for you.

 

We document our family traditions with photos and videos and share them on our blog. Together, those short stories will tell a longer narrative of our kids’ childhood and explain why we’ll always have a place in our hearts for homemade apple pie!