I Marry You Mama

My sweet Judah the Lion.

His name means "to praise" and I rejoice in his little life that is a song of praise. 

He is the most darling temperament - tender, empathetic, sympathetic, and simultaneously fierce in his living and loving.

As he grows he has of course emerged more into a masculine way of being and is daily my knight, my rescuer, my hero. He yearns to be a hero in every game. My little man. He looks at his daddy with heart eyes and copies everything he does. Thank goodness his daddy is such a noble heart.

Of course Judah has moments of losing his temper or lashing out, yet his remorse is so swift and so sincere that we struggle to be firm with him. Still we are because he needs to learn self- control. If he accidentally hurts one of us somewhere he absolutely smothers that part of us with kisses and strokes. "Sowwy, sowwy, so so sowwy Mama!"

He has the most maddening and endearing habit of my skin being his "lovey". While I've been able to "wean" him off of stroking my skin while he falls asleep, most nights he crawls into bed around 2 am and spends the rest of the night stroking my arm. Last night I woke up to my face being cupped in both of his little hands. He was fast asleep, and I was fast asleep, and my face was in his hands. Joe and I are OK with his little nighttime adventures into our bed, because we know very soon they will end (as did his sister's) and I will lie in bed missing him a little. These moments fly too quickly.

I never want to forget the moment, a few weeks ago, when he was brooding about something. Thomas Rhett's "Die a Happy Man" came on the radio and I whisked him up and danced with him around the kitchen. He quickly forgot the reason for his misery and sang along a little, until he finally looked up at me, gave me a huge kiss on the lips and said "I marry you Mama."

Oh yes, my son I am perfectly OK with being your one and only as long as you'll have me, as I know all too well how quickly these precious years pass.

I love being your Mama!

** photos by Blair Marie Photography

Family Vacations - Expectations vs Reality

We just arrived home from a glorious, difficult, exhilarating, exhausting, happy, dirty, budget friendly, expensive trip :) All of the above sound contradictory, which they absolutely are! I am learning, slowly but very surely, that life with little children is never as expected, straightforward, or carefree as one might hope, but always more joy and grace filled than we could have imagined in our wildest dreams.

In an incredibly valiant step towards establishing new family traditions and family culture my side of the family planned a camping reunion in Priest Lake, Idaho.  Valiant because we have not camped as a family for perhaps 20 years and because it was absolutely a step outside of comfort zones.

True to form we were relatively last minute in making our plans, for several reasons, and so ended up in a walk-up camp ground very close to Priest Lake. Our little family has always dreamed of camping but were deterred by the cost of acquiring gear, so this was a perfect impetus to start our collection and start living the dream.

13 people, 5 cars, 2 campgrounds, 4 tents, no facilities, a beautiful river, a stunning lake, a weekend of fun.

True to form, however, our two little ones returned from our glorious week on Nonna and Papa's ranch in Texas with stomach bugs. Despite the fact that we did our best to feed them only bottled water this time, their little tummies just don't seem to handle the foreign flora and so we headed into our relatively rustic camping situation with many many bouts of diarrhea daily still occurring. This really made the trip at times feel like a nightmare. This is real life, though! On social media one might only see little snapshots of the carefree moments, but in between were frantic middle of the night outhouse sprints, accidents, visits to the laundromat, the purchasing of new gear, 5:30 AM coffee on the campfire after being up all night with sick kids, and exhausted mommy and daddy at their absolute wits end.

There is something wonderful about parenthood, however, that even at your wits end the best still shines through because it is not about you. When there are other little lives relying on you somehow you find the strength. I'll never forget Joe in the middle of a chilly night in a tent, covered in poop (YES IN POOP) wiping off a hysterical child and telling them it was OK and it happens when your tummy is sick. I will never forget locking eyes over a brown bagged chelada in the laundromat as our kids licked their popsicles wondering how we were spending our long weekend in a small town laundromat with our fingers crossed that our gear would come clean. We laughed, we laughed so hard because it was either that or cry. I'll never forget falling asleep holding hands praying that this night would bring more rest than the next. I'll never forget the moments in between of carefree or ringing in our daughter's 5th birthday with campfire coffee and camp stove french toast, and playtime in the beautiful lake with doting aunts and uncles.

Despite all of the challenges we eagerly look forward to continuing the Christianson/Packard/Zohorksy/Di Lucca summer camping tradition as the years roll on. Maybe next year we will just make sure we find a place with closer bathroom facilities ;)

A few photos from our happy, dirty, hard, and carefree weekend....

My mom and dad with their 6 children and 3 grandchildren

Auntie Joc, Auntie Eve, and cousin Sophia Rose

Fun Uncles make every day better!

Sophia Rosie and Liliana Joy in matching bathing suits

Judah was obsessed with this water gun, I am obsessed with Uncle Luke's face in this photo

Birthday boy Grandad (61) and Birthday girl Liliana (5)

I loved summer mornings around the campfire and arms full of littles

6 children, oldest to youngest

My handsome men at Priest Lake

I hope your summers have been full of adventure, humour, and memory making!