Storytelling Sunday - My Precious 11

So what is in my beautiful hope chest?  One thing you will find in there are baby clothes, carefully wrapped in acid-free tissue...

Although all my girls are officially now "twenty-somethings," I still have these remnants of their newborn days. The outfits in which we brought each of them home from the hospital.

In the center is Sarah's outfit. Being born at the end of June, a summery little bubble suit was appropriate. Being a new mother, I thought "dress up" was required. Honestly, that was a woven, not a knit, so I can't imagine it was all that comfortable. But hey, in my defense, I didn't make her wear it all that long.

Here's Sarah in that outfit for her hospital picture at just three days old:

Rachel and Becca were born in September, at a time when the temperature in this area is quite variable. And as I was a more "experienced" mother, I was all about comfort and ease of dressing rather than "dress up" by then. Becca wore the little sleeper on the left, Rachel the one on the right. Since there is nothing in the photo to give you a size reference, let me tell you these two were little. Becca came home weighing 4 lbs, 11 oz and fitting only preemie size clothing. In fact, the only thing that fit her properly was a sleeper we took off a cabbage patch doll! For the first few weeks I called her "peanut" or "Little Roo." Thankfully neither of those nicknames stuck. Rachel was 5 lbs, 11 oz, but even that seemed tiny to me as Sarah had been just shy of 8 lbs at birth.  My girls were swimming in these outfits when we brought them home.

Here they are at just over two weeks old:

Rachel is on the left, Becca on the right, and the little sleepers are still a little too big on them. No worries. By the time they were about three months old, they had caught up to their peers in size and Rachel had put on enough baby fat to make those worried-old-lady-wrinkles on her forehead disappear. In fact, this picture isn't a good indicator of her personality as truthfully she was the happiest, most easy-going of my babies.

I have no idea why I'm still hanging onto the baby clothes or what I will ever do with them - I once had plans to scrapbook them but can no longer find the plastic "shadow box" style page protectors I was going to put them in. I know they were on the market once - 12x12, about 1/4" thick, front and back snapped together, with a binder edge with holes that would fit in a post-bound album. But I haven't seen them in years. So in the meantime, those outfits remain wrapped up in protective tissue in the hope chest, a poignant reminder of my life twenty-something years ago. 

This post is written as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday. But before you hop over to see what everyone else is sharing, do tell me... have you saved baby clothing? What do you plan to do with it?