Getting sentimental about clothes

The calendar says it is Spring.  The weather, however, is telling a different story.  The past week has been down right cold.  Despite the weather, Easter is next weekend and the girls actually wanted to go spring shopping last weekend.  We got each of them a few outfits, but I decided I better clean out their spring/summer clothes from last year before went went too crazy buying more stuff they really don't need.

Earlier this week, while the girls were at school, I spent a while going through Emily's things and I found myself feeling rather sentimental about several of the outfits that no longer fit her.  Several of the items/outfits have been handed down through all three of my girls.  For most of them, I can remember who purchased/gave the outfit, if it was some special occasion, and usually have some memory associated with it.  Is that crazy??  Here are a few examples.

This was Emily's absolute favorite outfit last summer.  The skirt was a hand-me-down from a dear friend (well, from her daughter) and the little tank top cam from Target.  This outfit is quintessential Emily - ruffles, flowers, flowy.

This dress was probably Emily's second favorite thing to wear last summer.  My mom actually bought it for Megan a couple years ago.  Megan wore it some, but not as much as Emily did.  I called it the ladybug dress, but Emily deemed it the criss cross dress because the back looks like this:

Which is one of the reasons she liked it so much.

This one really gets me.  This is a skort I bought from Children's Place years ago.  I actually bought two at the time - one for Rachel (a size 5) and one for Megan (a size 4).  Back then, Rachel loved this "rainbow skirt" as she called it and, once in a while, she and Megan wore them together.  Then, as they were passed down, Emily and Megan wore them a few times.  This on in the picture is the last one - the size 5 - and now it doesn't fit any of my girls anymore. ::Sniff::Sniff::

Remember Emily wearing this dress when I posted this video back in July, 2011???  She was only three and she was the cutest thing!!!  She looks like such a baby in that video and she still says "calepitter"! :-)  Originally, my mom bought this for Megan.  I remember Megan wearing it to her PreK class where another girl had the same dress.  They thought it was funny when they dressed alike and Megan always wondered if the other girl would be wearing her caterpillar dress, too.

I guess the good news is that we have a sweet friend from church to whom we can now pass these clothes along.  Emily loves to see her friend wearing her "old" clothes and, from what her mother tells me, the friend loves to get things from Emily, too.

It's funny how these inanimate objects can hold so many memories and how they can make this rarely super-sentimental mommy feel just that way -super sentimental.

What "things" hold memories for you??  Do you enjoy cleaning out or does it make you a little sad??