Friday, December 7, 2007

Cuteness and clutter

Quotes from R this week:

After seeing our town's Christmas lights display: "It's so beautiful, it makes me cry! Boohooohoo!" (with fake crying noises)

After seeing a crazy Christmas display at one house that had at least 10 different huge blow-up poofy thingies (snowmen, Snoopy, Santas, etc.): "I'm so excited that I can't express!"

When I got up to take a shower this morning: "Don't go, Mommy! I'll be so lonely!"

R and I had a nice day yesterday together. We played trains, went to the Museum of Science and the library, and then came home to decorate our mini Christmas trees (I have three). R was really into it, which made me so happy. I let him have one of the trees for his room, and he put all the teeny tiny ornaments on it all by himself.

Also, this week - R started putting his clothes (including his socks) on by himself! He was SO proud to show us. And, we of course were very, very proud as well. :-)

This weekend we'll be getting our Christmas tree (and decorating it), assembling our gingerbread train kit, baking cookies, and checking out more Christmas lights. Yay!



I can't remember if I've asked this before ... what do you do with your kids' drawings/paintings/etc.? Piles of R's artwork have completely taken over every surface of my office, my office closet, the kitchen, the living room, etc. I don't know what to do with it all! I've framed some of our favorite pieces and hung them up at home and at work. Do I start throwing it out? I haven't been able to bring myself to do that yet. How do you store it all?

8 comments:

shaun said...

um you throw it out

sandwhichisthere said...

You keep it in boxes. It is a wonderful thing that storage space is not infinite. Those boxes keep one from storing other things. I really needed a space shuttle adjusting tool but had no space to store it. The boxes are right next to the elephant training manual I got a great deal on. All of my love, always

Johanna said...

I kept all of Mike's artwork, until he started cranking out like 30 drawings a day of exactly the same thing, so now I keep sort of a "sample" from each era, different ages of each of them. I ask them if they want me to hang up certain things, and I give Michael folders for drawings he wants to keep. And when I leave it up to him(he has "keep" folders and a "recycle" box under his desk, I'm surprised how little emotional attachment he has to his pictures. But Shaun pointed out to me, a long time ago, how many papers and projects children will produce by adulthood, and what a fire hazard that would be. Shaun just told me that he had watched Braveheart before he commented and was in warlike herdsman mode and meant to sugarcoat that a little more.

Johanna said...

And R's quotes are adorable, and show him to be the sensitive genius we suspected he was! AJ used to call the houses with all the lights and poofy things "yunderyams"(wonderlands)and we still yell that out when we drive by one now.

Kristen said...

Johanna - "Yunderyams" is SO sweet! I always tell R about his cousins' antics and things they say, and he loves it. :-) Thank you for sharing what you do with the kids' artwork - it was really helpful!

To the Warlike Herdsman: Thanks a lot! ;-)

Dad - I don't think you're allowed to respond to this one since you are the king of packratitude. Hee hee.

shaun said...

HEY!?!
is packratitude an actual word?

Ericka said...

packratitude is totally a word (now). just like surgicalized, or Photoshopped, are both words because I use them like words. My first instinct was to bring up scrap-booking, but maybe shaun's right, there are going to be lots & lots of examples of artwork. Maybe ask R if he wants to get one or two framed for his room?

LEstes65 said...

I kept all of The Boy's artwork that seemed innovative for the time. After kinder, I started tossing most. But if it's special in some way, I keep it. Really big pieces, I keep in a portfolio I bought for that reason. But most of it is in boxes.

I also went back after a few years and purged the stuff I had kept. After a couple of years, you realize that not all of the works of art you thought were Monets were really quite all that. I keep big milestone pieces - like his first circle...things like that.

And Lil' Bro? The second child...let's see...have I kept any of his??? Poor second child...