Keepsakes: How we honor our kids

I am a sucker for cutesy odds and ends. It's not surprising that I'm all about keepsakes when it comes to my kids. I started from day 1 with our 1st baby when I took out a shoe box and placed the outfit he was wearing when I picked him up in it. That became his box, and now it has his 1st Christmas stocking, the hospital band from when he had RSV, his temporary medical card that came before his permanent one that went with him, his hospital receiving blanket, one of his binkies, and the 1st birthday card I got him even though he had already gone home with his biodad. It wasn't until after he went home at 8mo old that I was so happy that I'm silly and sentimental. He is all around me,even though we're not physically together anymore. Here are the keepsakes I have of my kids:

I already told you about the shoe boxes. I have one for each child:

We also go this paint your own pottery place with our kids and put their hands and feet on plate that I have hung in my breakfast nook:

Of course we take TONS of pictures. I make 2 baby books for each of my kids- 1 for me and 1 stays with them when they leave. We also have pictures on our "Family Wall"

We also got  little unconventional with our keepsakes, and memorialized our kids with tattoos. Mine is a large grapevine across my back that has 3 bunches of grapes on it for the 3 kids we have. There's room for 6 more. After that, I guess we'll have to start wrapping the vine down my leg ;) Brandon is collecting superman logos for each child with their initial and birthday designed into it.

Keepsakes aren't just for us though. We also send keepsakes home with our kids when they leave. All of our children have a Build-A-Bear with our voices singing to them and saying "I love you" with their name.