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| Me and my Granny circa 1977 |
I love personalized handmade gifts. My cousin Lyndell made Kielle a beautiful yellow crochet blanket with white trim. Kielle also received a pink crochet blanket and matching hat from my Grandma's friend. These are going to be wonderful keepsakes. I can't wait to pass them on. Kielle's newborn photos are with her in my keepsake teal crochet outfit that my Great Aunt Eva made for me when I was a baby.
Keith and I thought of our own keepsakes that we can purchase for the family and collect throughout the years. Although they are store bought, they still have meaning and value to us - and hopefully the generations after us. We have 3 basic themes 1. Education 2. Holidays and 3. Marriage/Births. For education, we are buying class rings from each school we have attended from High School up to Grad School (So far we've got 3 out of 6 institutions represented...I smell a Christmas present coming). We envision this being something that each generation can keep adding to.
Our holiday heirlooms started randomly one Christmas when we came across the Swarovski annual edition Christmas ornament on sale in 2004. We decided to purchase and then got hooked. We bought some off of Ebay dating back to 1991. So far, we've got 11 in our collection. The ornaments alternate between snowflakes on even years and stars on odd years. We collect the stars. For Easter 2009, Khyri received the White House Easter Egg set from Auntie Netta. This has started a great new annual collection for us! 
Now the marriage keepsake we haven't started yet - but my idea is to have an anklet that I design that all of the women in the family can wear. My thought is to have the anklet made with blue stones maybe blue topaz, tanzanite, or turquoise that each woman can wear under their wedding gowns on their big day! I plan on having my linesister Halle of HAR Jewelry www.hallerichardson.com design it for me. It will be completely original and special. I figure I have some time to pull that together so no rush :-)
For births and marriages we've been mailing an invitation/announcement to the White House. Then we receive a congratulatory letter from the Commander in Chief! (White House Greetings Office, Room 39, Washington, DC 20500) We've got a letter from George W. Bush for our wedding and a letter from Barack Obama for Khyri's birth. We're still waiting on the letter to welcome Kielle into the world. Another thing that we do to commemorate births is to buy a brick in downtown Smyrna. Buying the bricks supports the Veterans Memorial Association of Smyrna and puts a lasting mark from our family in this city that we love.
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| Aaaaawwwww where it all began! |
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| Kielle and Khyri! |
Of course we are also keeping the traditional keepsakes - locks of hair, first tooth, bronze shoes, etc. But we wanted to try and do something a little different. Its weird to think that one day we'll be sitting around talking to our Grandchildren and showing them our family keepsakes. Who knows I might be talking to my Granddaughter holding my Great Granddaughter on her Christening day - in my heirloom white christening gown with a little white bow in her hair.
