Sometimes the nicest things happen when you least expect it. It might shock some to know that beneath my tough and unpolished exterior lies a really soft and mushy heart. I like to do nice things for people, and I especially like to do them when they don’t ask me.

Last fall I finally decided that it was time to clear our spare bedroom of all of the baby things we were storing.  I went through the mountains of clothes and quickly found homes for all of the little boy clothes.  It seemed that several of my friends had little boys that were just the right size for what I had, and they were happy to have them.  The girl clothes were another story.  I had mountains of them, thanks in large part to my friend Heidi who has gifted me with her daughter’s entire wardrobe from birth. The clothes were stinking adorable too.  I really wanted to pass these, plus all the clothes that I had added, on to a new lil girl! Unfortunately, all of the ones I thought of were Goose`s size or bigger, so I was a little stumped.

Then I thought of Amy, someone who I had met once or twice, but had connected with online and through my love of her photography.  She had just given birth to a little girl, and had moved her family back from a year in Bogotá, Columbia. Given that she has three boys at home, I knew that she would be short on girlie clothes, so I dropped her a line and let her know that she was welcome to all that I had if she wanted it!  Want it she did, and the week before we left for India, she arrived at my house and took it all away.

I didn’t think of the clothes again, except when I would see the pictures that Amy would post of cute lil E rockin’ the outfits. It brought a smile to my face each time, to see another happy wee girl getting good use out of the clothes.

Then a few weeks before we came to visit, Amy dropped me a line to express how much she appreciated the clothes, and how much she wanted to shoot our family as a thank you gift. She didn’t want any payment for her time and efforts, or purchases of prints from us, she just wanted to say thank you.  We were flabbergasted, and I was excited, as I admire all of Amy’s work. We giddily agreed, and this is but one of the photos she took, one of my favs!

The rest can be seen on the Muddy Boots Photography facebook page*, but suffice to say that we love them.  Love them. To say that they are a “nice thing” that happened to us when we least expected it really doesn’t do them justice!   It’s nice to know that Amy is also someone who likes to do nice things for people, especially when they don’t ask.

*you can also find Amy’s contact info here… 🙂*