Rich in Love & Happiness

As a kid I thought that being rich meant that you needed all the money in the world. To have true happiness, you needed to be rich. We didn't have money and we didn't have happiness, so clearly the answer to happiness meant money. Loads and loads of money. Then I grew up.

Rhonda & I are rich and by rich, I mean that we have true happiness. Money may give you more opportunity in life, but it will never buy happiness. Where have we found happiness? Within ourselves, our relationship as a couple, our daughter, the family & friends who enrich our lives and give us love,  the pride we take in our home and the sacrifices we've made in order to have the life we live on a daily basis. In my opinion, we are lucky to have realized early on that happiness comes from within.

Again, I grew up thinking that happiness meant money so the lesson was a little harder for me to learn. I didn't have guidance which in turn meant that I had to learn about it the hard way. But the key is, I learned.

Rhonda & I already know that we want to teach Brielle that happiness does not come from money. That she won't find happiness in brand name clothes, mountains of toys, iPods & iPads, and other material possessions. Are some of those things nice to have? Absolutely. But they won't be her entire world. We'll work hard to ensure that doesn't happen. We want her to feel happiness when we spend quality time together, as a family. We want to create memories with her that will make her smile when she thinks about them as she grows into a young lady. She'll remember weekends at daddy's cabin, picnics in the park, snuggles with mommies in their bed early in the morning, watching movies and eating popcorn, walks in the snow & then coming in for hot chocolate, running & splashing in the rain, singing as loud as we can on road trips in the truck, swimming at the lake, hugs from Grandma's and Grandpa's and a million, billion, trillion I Love You's.

We're new to this whole raising a child thing and we by no means have the perfect plan, but if you know us, you know we'll do everything we can to raise this little girl with good morals, standards, values and goals. I know we'll make mistakes along the way, but we wouldn't be human if we didn't. All we can do is continue to try until we get it right. And so far, I think we're on the right path.

As it is, we don't buy Brielle lavish gifts, spend oodles of money on clothes, toys, etc. But, we've had people think we spend nothing but money on her because she is always dressed nice and has cute things. In actuality, 99% of her wardrobe comes from thrift stores, super on-sale items, gifts and hand-me-downs. I can count on one hand how many brand new, full price items we've purchased for her. But just because she's dressed nice, doesn't mean we've spent fortunes on her. I'm just pretty handy at taking separate pieces from thrift stores & hand-me-downs to make a super cute outfit. It's very easy for others to judge a book by it's cover but not know the real story.

We also don't ever want to get into the habit of buying her something ever time we enter a store. It's not necessary and it creates some really bad habits. We don't want her to own every toy ever made and when it comes to Christmas and birthdays, we won't be spending lots of money on an endless pile of gifts. We'd rather she receive something meaningful from us. And when she gets gifts from grandparents, aunties, uncles and friends, she'll really appreciate them because it doesn't happen every second day of her life. We know way too many kids who have mountains of toys in every room of their house and to us, that's just not necessary. It would be nice to raise a daughter with some imagination and creativity. Don't get me wrong, there are some pretty awesome, educational, fun toys out there and Brielle has received some of them as gifts, but the point is, she doesn't need one of everything on the shelf at Toys R Us. We do appreciate the thought that people have put into what they've given her. It means a lot to us!

I guess time will tell what our future will bring and how Brielle will receive what we try to teach her. I think if we can create and hold on to fun family moments, she'll appreciate the life we share with her.

To me, this is what a happy family looks like. Rich in each others love. How does it get any better than this?