#2 What Happily Ever After Really Looks Like...

One of the best days of my life was my wedding day.  It was February 24th, 2007.  My parents gave us a beautiful wedding.  I loved my dress, the ceremony was beautiful, and the party afterwards was a really fun celebration (even if there was an ice storm raging outside!)  The best part of all of that was that I was becoming Darin's wife!  For better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health I was promising to spend my life with the love of my life.  I remember looking at Darin during our vows thinking, I can't believe he picked me.  I am so blessed.

I loved our wedding day.  We were surrounded by family and friends, which was awesome.  I got to have an all chocolate cake (yes, all chocolate, icing and everything!)  I'm not going to lie it was one of my favorite parts of our wedding.  We had a pretty fun dance party, which included my husband dancing around with a bag on his head.  Last but certainly not least I had a fabulous gown that was fit for the princess I always wanted to be.

The song at the very end of our ceremony, the one we walked out to, was Blessed Be Your Name.  If you don't  know the song, here is a link to the lyrics. I love this song and I picked it for our final wedding song because I wanted our mindset to be that, "every blessing you pour out, we'll turn back to praise, when the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say, blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be your name, Jesus."    This was our prayer for our relationship because while our wedding was as perfect as it could have possibly been (besides the whole ice storm thing), and our courtship was somewhat of a whirlwind romance, everyday life is not like that, and that was what our wedding day was, the beginning of every day life.  So my prayer for us was that no matter what was thrown at us in this life we would always stay close to the Lord and bless His name.

One of those rare date night.

I love being married to Darin.  He is a wonderful husband.  He's always willing to help me out in any way that I ask him to.  He rarely ever refuses one of my requests.  He's a wonderful father, our children are so very blessed to have a daddy who loves them as much as Darin does.  Darin and I have a great time together, we can have great talks where were pour our hearts out to each other, or we can sit comfortably in silence.  We play games together (okay, well we use to play games together, the past few years we are so exhausted from the small children that while we do occasionally play games, most of the time we just crash in front of a favorite tv show or movie.)  No matter what we're doing, he's just my favorite person to be with.  It's true our romantic date nights have turned into family dinners followed by a walk with our two kids in the double stroller or maybe going on a bike ride with our children tucked safely into their bike seats behind us.  We do ocassionally get a date night but they definitely aren't the norm anymore.

 If any of you are young, and single reading this, you a re probably thinking "wow, that sounds boring", but you know what? I'm okay with boring if that's what it means.  We're happy, we have a happy marriage (most of the time.)   Its not always easy, we fight at times, we get annoyed with each other, we get overly stressed and busy but we have a deep love for one another that makes us stick out those harder times.  I'm thankful for a husband that I can trust and depend on, one I know isn't going to walk out on our family just because it gets hard. 


The other day Emmaline was sick and I picked up a few movies from the library in case we needed to have a cuddle on the couch day.  One of them was a princess stories movie, not any the original movies, but one of those that has short continuations of their stories.  I've always been drawn to those kinds of stories because while I love the romance and excitement of the original story, I want to see what happens after "Happily Ever After."  Shortly after I picked up that movie, I found myself in the bathroom, trying to have a minute to relieve myself, when my children rushed in demanding things.  I sat there thinking I wonder if they'll ever make a story about Cinderella where she's raising her children with Prince Charming and they have to get up in the middle of the night to clean up the vomit because someone puked all over her crib, or she's trying to make a nice dinner while her children are hanging on her legs screaming that their hungry or some other demand that she just doesn't have the time to do.  Or maybe she and prince charming are trying to have a nice family dinner at a restaurant but one of their toddlers gets upset because they won't let him crawl on the nasty floor under the table and he proceeds to throw a fit so massive that Cinderella has to drag her flailing child to the restroom in order to appropriately discipline the fit throwing child.

What do you think about those movie sequel ideas?? I think it would be pretty awesome to see a princess movie like that but we probably never will because most people wouldn't put those situations into the "Happily Ever After" category. However, that is exactly what my "Happily Ever After" looks like at times. And you know what? I wouldn't trade it for anything else in this world because I get to do all of it, the fun days filled with laughter, hugs, kisses and fun family outings, as well as the less desireable tasks such as puke cleaning, group trips to the potty, and disciplining fit throwing children with my very best friend in the whole world, my very own "prince charming".  I'm pretty blessed because my prince charming is right there in the middle of all of it with me. He changes diapers like a pro, when I'm cleaning up the vomit covered toddler, he's changing the sheets and cleaning the crib.  But one of my favorite things about my prince charming is,( be ready to be jealous ladies,) he NEVER complains about my cooking.  He always eats whatever I make and never criticizes. The closest I think he's come in the past 6 years is ONE time he said, that wasn't my favorite meal ever. 

Being married to Darin has been one of the greatest blessing of my life.  He has give me so many precious gifts.  Our two children are of course some of our most precious gifts.  I was also given a wonderful extended family when I married Darin.  I am blessed to have a mother and father-in-law who I love dearly. They are supportive, generous and they love my children.  They taught my husband to love and serve the Lord and I am forever grateful to them for that.  I also got an awesome sister-in-law who I adore and really don't get to see often enough!  Another cool blessing is that he has an extended family of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins that are all really awesome people and I have very much enjoyed getting to be a part of their family over the past 6 years.

While all those things are amazing, the very best gift that Darin has given me is his steadfast love.  I know in good times and bad that my husband loves me dearly (even when he may not like me very much). I know he will stay by my side no matter what comes our way.  He is committed to us and our family and that is a priceless gift in a day and age where people take their marriage vows so lightly.  So yes... I can say with 100% certainty that I am very pleased with what my "Happily Ever After" looks like.

Thanks Babe for helping to make this girl's fairy tale come true.  I love you forever and ever! I'm praying for many more years of "Happily Ever After" with you!