Childhood memories to save

The time for The Girl to move on to her own space is drawing near...it's been a long process as you can see here and here and here, and in numerous other places on this blog as it's been a twice yearly thing since high school graduation.  All this time, I've been the caretaker of her toys and mementos.  And that's been a struggle in this already too-packed house of ours.  Here's just the stuff that was stored under Scout's bed in her old room:

 But now since Firstborn has moved on, there will be extra closet space in here.  And hopefully, I have learned not to hang on too tight to childhood toys, etc.  But someone forgot to send that memo to The Girl...and she found the pile of boxes.

 Yes, she had to assemble all of the Barbie stuff.  I never realized how much she really played with it all.  She said she mostly did on the weekends while I was at work and the boys were occupied doing boy things.  There are many happy Christmases, Easters, birthdays, and end-of-the-school year sussies in there.

 I think she had a bit of fun, reminiscing and digging through it all.  She'd had a stressful day moving the rest of her stuff from her apartment in Waco - call this "play therapy".

She carefully picked out what to save, and the rest went into a giveaway pile, which I will take to work.  Not shown are the dozen or so Beanie Babies, some Polly Pockets, a couple of Sky Dancers, some Harry Potter Legos, and a baby doll in a 60's Tourister makeup case complete with handmade clothes by Grandma.

 It makes me smile that she has happy memories, and I'm glad we can save out so much of it.  I don't remember being so fortunate as to choose - my mother unceremoniously gave all of my Barbie's and Dawn Dolls all to my nieces.  

But this treasure?  This is  a way to re-connect to The Girl's happy childhood.  And she can keep it as long as she likes.