One of the best parts about the school year that just ended is the friendship I formed with the mom of one of Evie’s kindergarten classmates.  Amy also has four kids, but her youngest is the age of my oldest, which means that she has tons of helpful advice to share.  She knows plenty of tricks for making big city life with a big family comfortable, and she doesn’t take crazy kid antics too seriously.  She offers to carpool, she likes cocktails, and she kindly asks her older boys to play nicely with my eager little Mack.  I really think God sent her to me as some sort of angel in disguise.

Yesterday Amy dropped off several bags of hand-me-down clothes given to her by a family with triplet girls from our school.  Amy’s daughter took some items, and then we got to sift through the giant stash.  What fun for Evie (and me)!

Evie loves these new old clothes.  Because they were worn by older girls from her school they are automatically cool.  Most pieces have glitter or butterflies or ribbon embellishment. She could not be happier.

Evie spent hours sorting and organizing the clothes.  We can’t keep it all (we don’t have room), so two big bags are headed to our neighborhood parish for distribution at the weekly food pantry.  But, what we did keep is now neatly tucked into her dresser drawers after an evening spent admiring it.

Even Mack managed to find a couple things for himself – an oversized Blackhawks t-shirt (that he wore to bed last night) and a Chicago Bears sweatshirt (that he promptly put on first thing this morning).

I love that my kids are at the age when all it takes to brighten their days is a stash of hand-me-down goodies.  They don’t need much to feel like they won the lottery, and their sheer joy makes me feel happy, too.  We don’t have to spend a lot of (or any) money to make our kids feel special.

I’m so grateful Amy thought to share these hand-me-downs with our family. We’ll save plenty of money on clothes for Evie, and Amy’s generosity is a wonderful way to help out Mother Nature. Is there a little big kid in your life whose day you could brighten by passing down some old clothes??