#147: Divide and Conquer

As promised yesterday, today I will be sharing the stories of how my family and I spent the weekend going through and claiming items that my parents were willing to part with.

Since J and I are moving into an apartment, we don't have a lot of storage. I self-imposed a two bin maximum on Christmas items (which was quite a struggle, considering Christmas is my favorite holiday). I told my family that J imposed this maximum, but it was really self-imposed (I swear, I don't always try to make J out to be the bad guy).

First up, this guy:

My first thought was, "WHAT is that?" Giggles and big laughs ensued. This, my friends, is a basket. A Santa basket, to be more specific. Sad to say, he ended up in the trashcan.

Next up, some things I snagged for my own collection:

1. A (Southern) California snowman. The title should be self-explanatory:

2. Paper reindeer. I hate gold, so these are going to be spray painted silver. My mom has so many gold things that my parents were holding things up and then saying whether they were paintable or not. So what if I'm a little predictable!

3. A small collection of trees! And yes, the gold one is getting painted silver. For sure.

And now I will introduce you to the artistic side of Erin. From way back in the day, I introduce you to handprint Erin of 1991:

Chyea. J isn't the only artist in this relationship. And if our kids have any of my talent, they'll give their dad a run for his money ;)

I also snagged some things made by my grandma (mom's side). I think these little coasters are SO cute and even cuter in their "scarf" holder:

Needless to say, after almost eight hours of going through things (with a nap break and a dinner break in there), my storage area in the basement was overflowing and a little stress-inducing:

I'm happy to report that, with the help of David Tutera (keeping me company) and some crazy mad energy at 10pm, I managed to get (almost) everything into a bin with like items. See those blue-lidded bins? They're now stacked six-high. Most excellent. Hopefully only about eight to ten more weeks with all these bins! Then we'll be in our own place and we can start unpacking!