If you’ve read any of my articles you’ve probably read that I’m a HUGE believer of Date Nights with my husband. It’s quality time where we can take a time out from our children, a pause from life, just a few hours to catch up on our own personal thoughts and feelings. So this Momma is happy to announce that I’ll be starting a new section of my blog dedicated to just Date Nights. Once a month I’ll be having a date night with my hubby whether it’s dinner in, dinner out or having another couple over for dinner. Maybe you can use it as a reminder to go and schedule that special night with your man 🙂 Stay tuned I plan on starting next month!
If it’s one thing I’ve come to notice in the past 2 months since having my son it’s……..there is even less time in the day! It’s even harder to find those few minutes a day to talk about things. Having two kids has made life so much more chaotic for us, I know life will balance out at some point, but for now making time for one another may be tough, but it’s also a necessity! So far my husband and I have quite a few Date Nights, I know a lot of my friends make comments about how lucky we are to have the support that we have from friends and family and yes we are. I know a lot of Mom’s wonder how we can set aside so much time to be together, but it’s a MUST Momma’s! You have to stop and think of how your family got to be where you are today…….Sit back and ask yourself, where did these beautiful children come from? It all started with the two of you so don’t loose that! I don’t believe in the “When your away from you kids don’t talk about them.” Come on, it’s impossible! They are your life. We try to take the time to talk about ourselves and some accomplishments/goals that we are working on ourselves however the topic of our children is going to come up. What do you do to make time to be with your other half? It doesn’t always have to be going out if your worried about money. I know I’ve already talked about this topic before but it’s so important to me so we are talking about it again. Here is what me and my husband do to make time for ourselves and some tips and idea’s to keep each other in mind when life gets busy and there aren’t enough hours in the day.
1. Date Nights In- Before my son was born we had date nights in once a month. It consisted of dinner alone after our daughter had gone to bed. Yes at that time she slept through the night faithfully from 7-7. But I made it fun by making it a 3 course meal, an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert. I love cooking so it satisfied the “do something for me” urge we all get. I always planned a menu around our favorite foods, for example I cook steak a lot and I’ll splurge and buy filets for us but I’ll make a new sauce for it and different sides to go with it. I usually make an appetizer that consists of something my husband loves because there is just nothing that makes me feel better than cooking for my man. I get to drink my wine while I cook, my husband lounges and watches TV and usually we rent a movie to watch afterwards. Read Here about a few date nights we had. Keep in mind these were done on my old site so a lot of the pictures are gone 🙁 Not sure why but you can at least see how far I’ve come in blogging/picture world! Now that our family of 3 has turned into our family of 4 I’m not sure how I’m going to tackle this but I will, and I know it’s usually more of a winter thing we do, but I do plan on doing this again……VERY SOON. My husband has even done it for me! He hates cooking but he tackled it once for my birthday 🙂 You have to read this post because my hubby did so good in the kitchen……..that reminds me, my birthday is coming up!! The last date night my hubby and I had in was when my daughter was away at my MIL’s for the weekend, we assumed it would be a lot easier to do it on a night that she was gone and we only had our little one to care for. Luckily he cooperated! I had a few Filet’s frozen in the freezer and my husband was working outside so I had to think of a way that I could make this dinner special but still be able to care for my son at the same time. Here are some simple tricks to make a regular looking dish look like it came from a 5 star restaurant!
All I did was add some canned garlic and shaved almonds to my green beans when I was steaming them in my Pampered Chef Steamer. If your boiling the green beans, no problem add your garlic and almonds at the end before serving. For the sweet potatoes I just diced them up, cut up a few strips of precooked bacon, chopped up some onion, put them in a grilling throw away pan topped with olive oil and rosemary and it made a delicious side that was different yet fancy smancy! Now for the mushroom sauce, I originally wanted something homemade but as the day wore on, I didn’t have the energy, nor the time for that matter so all I did was saute some fresh mushrooms and the other half of the onion from the sweet potato mixture, added a can of gravy into the saute pan and boiled for a few minutes, I even put it in a gravy boat and put it aside until we were ready for dinner and then I microwaved it! Wala, there are so many ways to make a simple dinner look like you just ate at a 5 star restaurant!
You don’t like to cook? That’s ok, order out, it’s cheaper than going out because you can have your cocktails at home! We sometimes do this and order Chinese and catch up on our taped shows we watch together. How about a board game? Cards? There are so many things you can do at home to spend that quality time together, it’s just a matter of making time to do it. My husband calls me crazy and my sister laughs at me for being such a “scheduled” person but it really works for us.
2. Date Nights Out- Yes you have to have these too, we plan them every now and again and go to our favorite restaurants, or we plan a couples night and we ask one of our couple friends to hang out, it’s always nice to sit and chat with friends that have little ones too since they know the battles of motherhood and can relate with you! Having adult time and adult conversation is really important in staying sane in my book.
3. Therapy! Yes therapy friends! I’m not embaressed to admit that my husband and I see a marriage therapist. It’s the best thing we ever did for our marriage. We now actually really look forward to these appointments. We get a sitter and we talk the ride there about what we want to discuss with our therapist and then we go to dinner afterwards and talk about how it went. It’s never a late night, it’s just dinner and a drink and we are home and in bed at the same time we are every other night during the week. It gets us out, it keeps us connected and by the end of the night we are holding hands and smooching again!
4. Appreciation Lists: Our therapist suggested this back when I first became a SAHM because my job was suddenly to take care of the children and the house and well…….there isn’t much appreciation in that! Who thanks them for cleaning there toilet? When does your husband ever notice that his underwear is miraculously clean, folded and put away every week! Does your husband even know what it’s like to get to children out of the house and all that it involves! Well I came up with a list that involves small little things that my husband can do or say that will help me feel “Appreciated” on a daily basis. It’s really helped us and since having our son 2 months ago, he is working on his list for me 🙂
It’s the first time within my marriage that I can see how couples drift apart. It’s so hard juggling the everyday life of work, kids, school, chores, the list is just endless. There are nights when I just don’t want to talk about anything, I’m so emotionally burnt by the end of a day talking to an almost 3 year old all day long is pretty exhausting! Sometimes by the time both kids are in bed I just want to zone out, jump on my laptop or even read a magazine! Sometimes we force ourselves to, some nights we look at each other and say, yeah we’ll talk tomorrow! LOL…..when I met my husband I wanted to love this man for the rest of my life, those were my vows, now I have to keep my word. I often remind myself of those very vows:
I, Tammi, take you Andrew
To be my husband and my best friend
Today I give myself to you in marriage
Promising to encourage and inspire you
To laugh with you, and to comfort you in times of sorrow
From this day forward you shall not walk alone
My heart will be your shelter
My arms will be your home
These things and more I give you today
And all the days of our life.
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I, Andrew, take you Tammi
To be my wife and best friend
To have and to hold from this day forward
I promise to love you unconditionally
To support you in your goals
To honor and respect you
To laugh with you and cry with you
To cherish you for as long as we both shall live
Very wise.