Got Memories?

How do you handle all the good ol' fashion stuff that travels home in the backpacks throughout the year? 

Here is a little glimpse of what came home with our girls the last day of school alone. 

 I love saving all of those precious memories but keeping them organized can be quite an undertaking.  A while back I started two memory boxes for the girls.  One box they keep under their beds. 

Those are filled with things they want to save and things they think are important. You'll find anything from deflated birthday balloons to notes from friends hiding in those boxes. 

The other memory box sits on a shelf in my closet.  

This is where I keep the memories that are important to me 

and tell a story of where they were in their lives that year.  

Although there are a lot of school memories in there, I include other items that helped to tell the story as well.  Things like a poem, a drawing or even a birthday list.  To try and keep some type of order, I have divided the memories by school year and store them in a large manila envelope. 

The girls love to look through these boxes, and with the memories divided by year, it is easy to take out one at a time and then get everything back neatly before opening another envelope. 

 I love this system..I just think I need bigger boxes!!:)

Any great memory storing ideas?