The sticker collection!

Another photo from the wedding album from Heidi.  Her caption for this one, "Your beautiful sister!" while on the next page she titled it, "My beautiful sister!"  These two pages brought out her humor.  I'm not saying she isn't as cute as a button in this photo, because she is yet these two pages contain the photos we necesarily weren't as fond of.  I always loved this picture but Heidi, not so much.  This fact alone makes me smile.  She included pictures of herself (and of me) that she didn't like because she knew I loved them.  Some of the photos I had thought were silly pictures of us in our matching outfits or doing goofy things...have been the ones to make me laugh and cry when I need a trip down memory lane.  God knew what he was doing as He directed her to put together this wonderful and precious gift.

Collections...Heidi collected stickers and charms.  We all know what stickers are but you may not know what "charms" are.  The charms were plastic and resemble everyday household items.  She had necklaces, bracelets and even this "charm organizer" board that hung on the wall.  I forget how many there are, but there has to be at least 100! 

When my daughter was younger my parents gifted the charm collection with a note explaining where they had come from and why they were passing them on.  She was tickled...1st because she now had something of Aunt Heidi's!  It was as if, through the charms, the photograph of the girl named "Aunt Heidi" was real to her and 2nd - she had a new toy to play with.  This also started her love of "collecting"! Ugh...

I always had two favorite charms in her massive collection - the toilet (pictured below) and the telephone.  Heidi could play with these for hours, she loved them.  At age 18 when she was kidnapped, this collection still hung on her bedroom wall - a reminder of how much fun being  a "kid" was.  Today, they hang on my livingroom wall - with a similar yet deeper reminder - it reminds me of the fun we had as kids while it also reminds me of the day my daughter realized her aunt was more than a photograph.