How to water your money tree

I just want to share a feeling I'm having and its totally something I could just put into my livejournal or regular old journal. Today I had an experience that hit me. You see the man up there in the picture above is watering his money tree. Don't we all just wish it was that simple? I feel like it is.
Jake and I have always been vacationers, go go go kind of people, pick up and run.... but his year has been different for us. Instead of finding ways to save for that trip to Disney or where our tax return will go, we've been planning what we're going to have to pay for. We aren't D.I.N.K.s anymore. This year we have had important expenses.
Jake went in to the dentist to have a regular old loose crown put back on.... ended up with way more than work that we expected needed done. That's fine, we can deal with that. But the more and more we talk about dental work the dollar signs seem to get bigger and bigger and BIGGER. We're pretty young and haven't shopped around or don't know pricing of dentists or if we're over paying- but we like the dentist office and that's all we feel like matters.
Well the other day when Jake went in to the dentist he had to pay $400 right there in the office. wowzers. Not expected. And he has to go in and have the same procedure done again. Bam, $400 more. Not to mention we are still paying off the work from before. 
How come my mom never told me how much this stuff cost!?! She always paid it without complaining.


Today was Sunday. 
As I got ready for church...Jake asked me where the checkbook was so he could get our tithing ready. 
It was at that very point where I stopped to think, who cares how much this stuff costs or if we're ready or not... we'll be taken care of. Heavenly Father has never left us stranded before...he will not start now.
So here I am tonight. After 10pm on a Sunday night exhausted from just finishing my 3rd weave for today, 2 from late the night before...and I have almost 2 weaves a day this entire week. I'm slammed.
All of these people for some reason or another absolutely need it now.


Without even realizing how........we weren't left stranded. Time and time again I am not surprised by Tithing and what it does for me in my life.

Tithing is how we can all water our money tree. It will grow.

If you ever don't think it will or you can't find a way... trust Him.

Riley's First Birthday!

Dr. Seuss! 3/20/2012

 Here's Briggs & Riley chillin' in the balls like a couple of big boys.

Riley's party turned out to be a lot of fun! Not pictured was the "Go Dog Go pigs-in-a-blanket". Those were the best wieners!  

 I can't believe that our little baby is a year old! Time flies when you're chasing him everyday! And boy is he fast! We just love this boy so much. He's so incredibly smart! He catches on to everything. His new thing now is almost getting to be able to feed himself with his own spoon. This year went by way too fast. Life needs to slow down and keep this boy little and silly. But if you've ever met our little Riley Roo...you'll see that his sillyness may never go away!

 Happy Birthday Riley Hess! 

Riley loves Doctor Who

Riley loves the Dr. Who theme song.

As you can see nothing is on the screen. He just loves the song for some reason.

WE MAKE A PERFECT MATCH

Valentine's day has come and gone. Every year it seems to be just a day full of candy, eating out at restaurants, "romance", sugar cookies (which are delicious), and every year its one of those holidays I feel like I can skip. But this year was the first Valentine's we got  to spend with Riley. And aside from telling each other how much we love each other...this year I felt like it was so much more about how much I appreciate those I love. I spent the whole day with Riley. We had our morning tickles which was just about enough to make my day anyway. Jake went to the dentist, we could have skipped that. Shopped at Target and did the usual complaining out loud about how much a three inch tall M&M man is for 5 bucks to make other shoppers laugh. I ended up going to lunch with my parents. They are so funny and fun to be around. Seems like we could just laugh all day. Then we had a nice dinner with the Hess' which I got to clean up alone as usual while everyone enjoys each other on the couch. (Inside joke, this does not happen.)

Back to the appreciation part-

I appreciate everyone for so many different reasons. 

I don't think we would be complete without certain people in our lives.

I love Jake so much. I am so grateful that he and I got married and are in this together. Life wouldn't be the same without him. I appreciate how great of a dad he is to Riley. He helps out with everything and never complains. I couldn't ask for me than he is already. He's the biggest part of me and who I am today. He's so dedicated to our family. He's also so dedicated to making sure we vacation and enjoy life. 

That's also why I love him. 

We make a perfect match.

 Riley got a haul for Valentine's. He can't eat candy and sweets yet so I guess this makes up for it.

 He absolutely hated wearing this. In fact I had to hold his hands down for this picture. haha. But it was so cute. He's so used to playing with his grandparents' glasses and that's all he knows their for.

 10 month old Riley

Today is Valentine's Day.

Even though today is all about loving someone....

I just want to say how much I love this boy.

Every time I come across someone who is expecting, I can't even being to tell them how quickly and how fast their lives will change.

I heard over and over again the usual things... 

but until it comes you don't understand.

Having this sweet boy has changed my life. The older he gets the more I fall in love with him.

Each day there are more and more characteristics I see in him that show how much he is like me and his dad and the things he gets from his grandparents.

He lights up my day.

Working gets hard sometimes. I work full time and then some.. then I do hair almost everyday I am off.

I'm not going to lie sometimes it gets hard. I'm so grateful that my rotation at work has worked out for us.

There's only one week out of the month that really is hard for me. After that week it gets back to the feeling that this job works great for me.
I went out with some moms from my ward and when I asked one of them what they did, she told me that she was a stay at home mom. She said it as if she was a little embarrassed. But you know, I kind of envied her. Staying home with these little angels is the greatest and job and I know my time will come. 

But back to Riley

 He is 10 months old and running everywhere! 

He recently realized that he can play with Wicket.

He loves drinking from his sippy cup.

One bottle in the evening.

He is not a picky eater at all.

This kid LOVES books! Jake and I have made several trips to the store just to pick up more books.

He will play with them in his room forever. Just sit on the floor flipping through them. I know its because we read to him each night and act really interested and point to the pictures. Its cute that he's got the hang of them being so interesting.

He loves shutting doors. He's so smart (or has smashed his fingers a few times) but he knows just when to slide his fingers around the door before it shuts. He shuts himself in his room, I go in there to do something and he instantly stops whatever he's doing and marches to the door to quickly shut it like, "MOM! Keep it closed!" There has even been a time where I heard a door slam and I searched the whole house.... he was in the laundry room just sitting in the dark quietly while I searched everywhere. He's so funny.

We had to get a bathmat for the bottom of the tub. He started getting so crazy in there. Not even for just standing but sliding everywhere. He'd get so hyper. That's why we love him.

Its starting to warm up and I can't wait! Swimming and sunshine is not something Riley got to do last year.

He's gotten to be the biggest cheeser. Not just in pictures but in general. 

We love it. 

The faces don't stop.

No more helmet for this boy either. I wish I had a picture of his head before. 

But this is the finished product. :)

It looks more round when his hair is shorter. But we were pretty happy with the improvement and that's all the doctor needed to hear. He even said it will round out a little on its own as he gets into his first year.

 My creative side doesn't have the heart to toss all the glass baby food jars. And they did come in handy for our Primary Class!