Keeping Memories

My mom has the amazing ability to keep stuff. Not like a hoarder or anything but she has kept a lot of our toys and books from childhood.  When ever we go to my parents the girls love to play with my old toys and find the books that say my name in them and either Teagan will try to read it or they will want Grandma to read it to them.

It's really a lot of fun for me and it takes me back down memory lane. I enjoy seeing the girls find excitement and joy playing with toys I once found that same excitement and joy in.

My mom has each box nicely organized and placed in the attic.  They aren't dirty and they also aren't just stacked clutter all over the house. Oh and it's not like she kept every toy....or at least I don't think she did ;) But she kept the one's we loved the one's I remember and I can't think of any toy that she didn't keep because I must not of felt any attachment to them.

Now here I sit as a mom of 3 girls overwhelmed with the amounts of totes we have! Personally I would love to just get rid of all of it. If we haven't opened it in the last year why keep it??!! The only reason I have kept stuff so far is in case we have another baby some day. But even then I have no desire to dig through them to find my favorites or to get stuff out if we do ever have another one. Honestly it would just be easier to go to the store and buy new.

But that's the country we live in we are a throw away country.  We want the next new thing and we don't want the old. We are never satisfied with what we have. If it's broke we won't fix it and if it's not broke we try to fix it (doesn't make sense does it??) And ok I just went off on a tangent there that's not really what this post is about :) lol

So back to keeping memories.  I have brought down all the totes that were stored upstairs that are completely covered in construction dust and we're digging through them today. The girls are going down memory lane (that whole 5 years ;) and remembering playing with certain toys and who gave it to them and what they love about it. Oh and why we SHOULD or HAVE to keep it.

So the question is how do you decide? 

While I really want to just give it all away a keep none of it, I also want my grandkids to have that joy and excitement of playing with their Mommy's toys....just like my girls do here...............