Decades ago our grandparents and parents only had journals and photo albums to keep track of our funny quotes, and photos. My mom has some things and notes from our childhood saved, but most everything is scattered around and wouldn’t be easy to find pinpoint.

These days we can keep track of so much at our fingertips. I have a folder on my phone of my favorite apps to keep track of my kids’ milestones, and our favorite memories.

Here are 5 of my favorite apps to track milestones that you should totally check out!

QuoteMyKid

My daughter says some of the funniest things, and if I don’t jot them down, I’ll likely forget them by the time my husband gets home from work. Then I’m kicking myself trying to remember that hilarious thing she said.

This app lets you keep track of the awesome things your kids say, and displays them in a cute text message-looking theme. The app is free, but I paid for an add-on for an extra profile so I could also add quotes from my son, even though Big T isn’t talking much yet.

I love how it automatically tells you how many years and months your child is at the time of the quote, and you can add photos and narration to the conversation.

The more you get in the habit of grabbing your phone and adding the quotes right then and there, the more fun it is to look back and enjoy.

TimeHop

  
You’ve probably seen photos tagged with this watermark on Facebook and Instagram. I finally gave in and downloaded it after seeing them over and over again in my feed.

It’s an app that shows you your photos and updates from this same day in years past. You can connect it to your social accounts and allow it to access photos and videos from your phone and it pools info from those accounts and shows you where you were on this day years ago. This isn’t an app for record keeping as much as a time machine-like journal of all of your highlights. If you’ve shared it before, chances are it’s something you’d like to remember.

I don’t check it daily, but it’s fun now and then to peek in and use to take a walk down memory lane.

OneDay

A lot of people ask me how to I edit my home videos. I’ve been doing video work for over a decade, but if you want to make movies in minutes, this app will do it. It helps you edit short clips from your phone together with some words to tell a story. It’s seriously perfect.

There are different themes for the videos, and prompts to record the answers to. You can also add your own text to the videos for $.99. Once you’re done adding all of the pieces to your video you just click the create my story button and it edits it all together with music and transitions, making it a beautiful seamless video with minimal effort.

Personally, I prefer to record videos on my cameras and edit them on my computers but I love this app for quick little videos to remember some of the day to day, or how my kids look and sounded at this age. Especially for things that I wouldn’t record otherwise. Like random tongue twisters and other little moments we can record when we’re bored.

Keepy

As much as I love sharing my kid’s accomplishments with anyone who will listen, I know it gets old. So though sometimes it SEEMS like I’m sharing every little art creation or dress-up session with my daughter, I’m really holding back. I love this app because I can upload pictures of their art, and little tiny milestones that only I, dad (and maybe grandma) want to remember.

You can add video or audio commentary to each memory you upload too, so sometimes I have my daughter record her explanation of what she made to go with the photo, which is super cute.

The updates automatically backup to Dropbox too, which I appreciate. I’m hoping they eventually add a desktop/web element to it like Blinkbuggy (another app I like… Oh, there’s too many!) or a way to print these entries into a book once a year.

The one (BIG) downside to Keepy is that you can only upload 15 memories a month before needing a monthly subscription fee for more. So far I haven’t hit that limit, so it seems ok. But when they’re older and doing more awesome things on a more frequent basis, I may need to consider upgrading.

You can also invite family members to check out what you post, and backup all of your uploads to dropbox, and save to share with your kids at a later date.

Lyve

Between three iPads, three iPhones, DSLRs and two Macs, we have photos and videos all over the place, and this keeps them all synced.

I can view photos I saved on my computer from my phone using my Lyve App. And if you aren’t all on the same operating system, this is a great way to keep it all synced. I love that it automatically sends photos from my phone to my computer so I don’t have to connect it to upload.

Like TimeHop, it also shows memories from each day. But instead of pulling from my social updates it shows all the photos and videos I’ve taken from that day that are saved on my computer, phone, or other devices.

I like that my daughter can take photos on our old iPhone, then I can view them later on mine, and we can connect the app to our TV and watch a slideshow of them together.

The app is free to use.

If you have a Lyve Home device too, your photos and videos will automatically be backed-up to that device which is great in case you lose your phone or if you want to delete photos off your phone and free up some precious storage space. I have tens of thousands of videos and pictures stored on my Lyve Home and have hardly made a dent in the storage.

Giveaway!

And today I’m giving another one of these bad boys away! It’s a $299 value.

If you want to enter the the giveaway, just do the following:

1. Download the Lyve app for your phone or tablet (iOS or Android)

2. Find a picture that brings back good memories.

3. Share your feelings about it in the comments below!

If you want you can also share your photo on social media with the hashtag #MemoryLane and let me know so I can comment on it! Just leave a link to your share in your comment.

Do you have a favorite memory-keeping app I didn’t mention today? Let me know!

Note: Lyve will verify that the winner has created a Lyve account. Giveaway ends 11:59pm EST May 22, 2015. Open to US residents 18+. Winner will be notified via email and have 48 hours to claim their prize or another winner will be chosen.

**Winner Alert: Random.org #1: cindysn who said “I love lyve!!! I am looking back on his newborn pics and I just cant believe that he was that tiny.”**

Tags: best apps for kids, document life, family, kids memories, lyve home, photo storage