10 years of "stuff" saved between 3 children!

Do you save everything your child brings home from school?  Do you save everything they make for you?  I did until it started taking over my attic!

Six months ago my husband and I cleaned out our attic....It was a mess!  What we found was an 8 x10 area of bags and bins filled with all things saved from my children starting when Anna Cate was 2!  It was out of control to say the least!

Of course I had to wait for the right time to purge through everything as I did not want my children to think I didn't care about the things they made.  I actually got "busted" once from Betsie last year for throwing something away of hers....her exact words were "Mom, I spent a lot of time I that"....I felt horrible!  So I just started to save everything....knowing one day I would "organize" it all.


Well, the day came.....I organized everything when the kids were home from school for two days from Hurricane Sandy...or what we "thought" was going to be a Hurricane in our neck of the woods.  I wanted my children to help me with this project, so they would understand we can not keep everything and I did not want them to get upset in the future if they saw me throw something away.

We had fun!  The best part for all of us was going down memory lane.  Wow!  Looking back at old pictures, seeing when they first started to paint and write their name...all of it was wonderful to see...again.  My kids helped me make piles of things to "keep"and "things to throw away".  I was amazed at how much "stuff" I saved.  If a piece of paper had one pencil, pen or marker mark on it...saved.  If they colored a page out of a coloring book...saved.  I think I even found old Valentine's Day candy attached to an old Valentine!

Go ahead....guess how many bags of trash we had?  ( I did take them to the recycling bin too). ELEVEN!!!!!

Now each child has a small bin for all their preschool years.  While Eli will finish filling his preschool bin up this year, the girls have started on their elementary bins.  Everything is so nice and organized!

Next stop for organization....cards....as in I think I could open a Hallmark Store in my house!  What do you do with all the cards you get over the years....Birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Just Because, etc..?  Do you save them?