J + D

Date #3

At Home Date:

Movie Night

After a super-fun evening with the kiddos at a very parent-friendly kiddo birthday party, we put the kids to bed, got in our jammies, watched the snow fall for a few minutes, and then snuggled up to this movie:

CRAZY STUPID LOVE

We didn't know anything about it, nor did we expect much.

BUT WE LOVED IT!

(the trailer doesn't do it justice)

I'm not even hesitant to say that I think I'm going to buy it.

It was hilarious and sweet and thoughtful and totally great.

Go see it with your honey! 

GAME NIGHT

D + T (Date #   )

C + B (Date #   )

J + D (2012 Date #2)

Game Night

D and I have decided to revamp out date nights this year by organizing them a little differently.  We've decided that one week a month will be for a temple date night (without kids), one for a game night with friends (where kids are invited--since they tend to play the games with us anyway--and we can still have adult time), one for an alone date (going out without kiddos) and one that's either a home-date or a family date.

For us, that's easier because

3 of 4 dates = Potentially FREE

2 of 4 dates = Don't need babysitters

2 or 3 of 4 dates = Just US alone still

2 of 4 dates = Potentially at home

2 of 4 dates = Potentially with friends

We figured by trying it this way, we'd be more apt to stay on the ball without feeling guilty about leaving the kids (which I realize we shouldn't feel that way, but we often do), spending the money, or having to trade/find babysitters so often.  

We'll see how it works out for us as we go along...

Anyway, our date night was super fun!

We had D&T and C&B over for a game called QUIDDLER, a big bowl of popcorn, a pan of brownies, a package of oreos, and some other assorted fingerfoods.

We laughed, we had a great time, we didn't worry about getting back to the kids, and best of all,

I won the game. :)

Laughing.

Here we ladies are--including C's darling baby girl P.

Such a great crowd!

Thanks again for coming!

J + D Playing CatchUp

J + D

Dates 38-47ish

First off, its been a whole year since we started "dating" regularly again.

I must say that it has been an AWESOME and CRAZY and BUSY year for us....

So first, here's a quick anniversary movie I made for the hubb...

We've had several dates that I haven't posted on here for 2 reasons

1..repeats of things we have already done

2..having had the time to sit down and punch it out

So here I am...at the start of a new year:

Dates 38-42 I'll give credit to at-home movie watching.

For about 8 weeks I was INCREDIBLY sick

(thank you non-credited-due-to-not-being-appropriate-on-this-blog babymaking dates :))

so we (I) spent a lot of time on the couch

watching movies

And D would often lay beside me so sweetly.

I wish I could say that at I was this perky and happy....

but I'm still counting them as dates...

Next on the list are our 3 mega fun Christmas parties we were able to attend without babies...
(Dates 43,44,45)

1: Our annual Christmas party that we throw for all of our bestest friends
(a total success--I didn't even feel sick)
2: My work's party at a fancy schmancy country club where we got all gussied up together for
dinner and a hilarous white elephant exchange
3: A fondu party where we nearly hit a deer and ate so much dippable food we came home nearly puking.
All were so fun to go to together.
I have the bestest dating partner. :)

Date 46
consisted of staying up SUPER late Christmas Eve and wrapping gifts together, placing them strategically under the Christmas Tree, and acting joyously like Santa and Mrs. Claus.
Why doesn't she have a NAME?
We were more excited about Christmas Morning than the kiddos were...
Being a parent at Christmas time is SO SO SO fun!

And then Date #47

 was saved for our Anniversary, just a few days after Christmas.

We always go to the temple on our Anniversary, so that's what we did again.

Its my favorite thing to do on our special day...

And then we got some take-out from one of our favorite places and hurried home to put the kiddos down to bed. so we could have the rest of the evening together.

We didn't make it to 52 dates this year, but 47ish isn't all that bad.

We've made a new goal to start up again FRESH and EXCITED for 2012 and 

we're excited that our first official date of 2012 is TONIGHT!!!

Yay for Dating!

Down Time

B+C

Date #24

Dinner and Internet at home

J offered to babysit for us and we happily accepted! Thank you, J!!

Since we hadn't really thought about it ahead of time we just stayed home. I'm a little embarrassed by how many of our dates have taken place at home. I have a great time, anyway. I AM a home body. I just feel kind of lame doing the same thing each week. Please don't judge. At least we're trying! : )

aaaaaaanyway,

I had already planned for dinner at home, so I went ahead and made dinner for us and then we watched funny things on the internet and looked at art online.

B and I both have a need for a creative outlet, so we enjoy doing artsy things together.

We watched bad lip readings and died laughing, and then we checked out the cool hunter and dreamed about the day when we have a house to fill up with art. We loved the Cate Parr watercolors, Theo Altenberg's AH-mazing oil paintings, and the Francoise Neilly paintings. I guess we like a lot of color. There's some WAY cool stuff on this site (hence the title i guess). We could've spent hours looking. It's so amazing what people can think up and bring to life, and I absolutely LOVE that my hub and I share a passion for it.

Love Lazy Dating!!

D&T

Date #36

We did a impromptu home date this week.  Kids were in bed and D and I were both craving some ice cream.  D ran to the store and we had a red box so we settled on ice cream and a movie and cuddling on the couch.  Things have been crazy busy so this lazy date night at home in jammies was just what we needed!!  Movie was SOURCE CODE.  Pretty good.  Fast paced and entertaining. 

TV SHOW & TELL

J+D

Date #30

Trying to catch up......

July was a nutso month but we're back into making sure we're focused on each other.

This date, after we put the kids down, we turned off our phones and I pulled out my clippers.

I usually cut D's hair while the kids are up, but we made it part of our date tonight. :)

Then, after D was all cleaned up, we snuggled up to each other and played TV SHOW & TELL. I chose my favorite show to watch and he chose his and, even though they were TEVOed, we took turns flipping back and forth between the two each commercial break.

While we fastforwarded through the commercials, we snacked on jelly beans and sour candies and giggled about how silly each of our shows were.

We love to snuggle. We love to watch shows together.

We love home dates!

Happy 8 years!!

B+C

Date # 21

HP and Butterbeer, in a fort

We celebrated our 8 year anniversary on Monday!

We've never done anything huge for our anniversaries. Lack of money and grandparents who live nearby, keeps us from doing anything too extravagant. This year we made a fort in our living room, got a babysitter, and made dinner together.

Since we're still reading Harry Potter together, we decided to watch The Goblet of Fire in our fort and make a Harry Potter-ish dinner. We made a meat pie that turned out to be really delicious. We also tried our hand at making BUTTERBEER! Yum! recipe here.

We had a nice, relaxing night together before B and our boys went out of town, the next day. It was nice to have a home date where our kids weren't sleeping in the other room. We had the house all to ourselves. No stress. A great way to celebrate 8 years married to my love. It was perfect.

Reading

M&R
Date #29
Reading Together

For our date this week, we intended on getting a babysitter, but it just didn't happen. We had too many other errands to run and things to take care of.

We put the kids to bed and pulled out a magazine to read together. We both picked a couple of articles and took turns reading out loud.

I like reading with my hubby. It's a good way to start a discussion about something that maybe wouldn't have come up in our everyday conversation.

Plus, it was just good to be together. Things have been stressful the past week or so. We both needed that quality one-on-one time. Even though we haven't been awesome with date nights lately, I'm glad that it's still something we are being mindful of and trying for.

Upstairs, Downstairs, and InBetween

J+D

Date #27

July has been a hard month to fit in date nights. Between both of our crazy work schedules taking up babysitters and evenings, we just couldn't find moments to run away together.

But finally, last night we put the kids down and went upstairs (monitors in hand) and had a rip-roaring good time playing ACES & FACES. We laughed and laughed and had a great evening.

Game nights with friends are the BEST--especially when the kids are safely and soundly asleep close by.

The end of our little get-away game date was where the sadness came in. D and I curled up in bed together and reminisced about all the many game nights we'd had with T+D when they lived downstairs from us. Those were the best of days...

WE MISS THOSE DAYS!

But for now, we are just grateful that our upstairs neighbors are cool enough to play late night games with, that T+D aren't too far away to play games with on other nights, and that we have so many other great friends who play games with us when we get together on other occasions. Games are the best.

And making a date of it is even better!

Snoozing Hubby

M&R
Date #26 and #27
Tired Hubby+Movie in bed=Snoozing Hubby

For our dates these, weeks, we totally dropped the ball. I'm a little dissapointed in how we've been doing the past month actually.

Hubby has been working 12 hour days, 6 days a week. He comes home basically dead and not in the mood to do anything but lay down and get some shut-eye. Not fun for him and not fun for us either. We look forward to the hubs coming home and it's sad when he comes home so exhausted. Obviously he doesn't like it either.

We tried to work out a date, turning on a movie on a weekend night. But it turned into a snoozing hubby both times. Sigh....what can you do? You win some, you lose some.

Today hubby called me from work saying that we are going to have to double up the next couple of weeks and make up for our low quality date nights. That made me happy. He cares just as much as I do! Hopefully we're back!

Game Nights Galore!!!

D&T

Date #27

I think game night was the theme of the date night blog this week - and we totally did steal the M&R idea!  A couple years ago a game night with friends could not be considered a date night cause it happened so frequently, but sadly, not so much anymore.  We invited our neighbors over after kids bedtime so play my favorite two games and eat some DELICOUS homemade ice cream D and I created a few days earlier.  Much to D's dismay - I won BOTH games.  That has never happened before and may never happen again, but it won't be forgotten cause now its in the blog.  :)  No pictures of the game playing couples cause my neighbor friend and I (the women of course) were both having allergy issues and I totally looked like quasimodo with one eye swollen shut. 

But I still won the games. :) 

Ticket to Ride

M&R

Date #25
Ticket to Ride

What happened to the time last week? I was making some cookies and R was watching TV. Suddenly, it dawned on me that we hadn't had a date. We are having so much fun enjoying this summer weather with our kids, that I guess we weren't dying for our date night.

BUT...we aren't going to break our dating streak. So I finished up the no-bake cookies and we picked out a game out of our teeny game stash. Ticket to Ride. We like that game! R won and he wouldn't have it any other way. He is very competitive. I am very not (although I do rub it in his face when I win to drive him crazy).

It was not a very well-thought out date, but at least we did it right? Otherwise, R would have continued watching TV. I would have finished the cookies and gone upstairs to the computer to check facebook and blogs or something. Then we would have gone to bed, probably at different times.

Instead we spent the night together, next to each other, focused on each other and what we were doing together. And I'd call that success!

Couple Friends

M&R
Date #24
Couple Friends

We planned a double date with some friends, to go again to the driving range and then have dinner. Due to lack of babysitters, we ended up being "that" couple that had to bring our kids along. We love our kids, but date night just isn't date night when you have to deal with sibling fights and temper tantrums. Oh well.

After the driving range, we headed back to our house for dinner, kids bedtime, and dessert and chatting with adults only.

We have been living here for a year now, and are just starting to get to the point where we are finding couples to be friends with and hang out with. Until recently, it's just been a wave and small talk in passing. I think it may be that everybody is starting to feel comfortable in their new neighborhood, and now that it's warm, we're all coming out of hibernation (and maybe depression). Seriously, the sun and warm temperatures are like prozac for me.

Anyway, we had fun with our new couple friends. That is a hard one sometimes. Finding a couple where we all like each other individually and as couples. Luckily there seem to be some winners around here. Hooray for that! Funny thing about this particular couple is that the husbands are the ones who are initiating all the get-togethers. Usually my hubby is just happy hanging with just me or just the family, but he is the one making buddies this time. I kind of like it.

And..on that note...I wasn't quite comfortable enough to whip out my fatty camera and take a picture for the blog. We'll get there though. :o)

I did take a picture at the driving range with my phone.

By the way D&T, J&D, and C&B--you guys are all great individual AND couple friends! Just want to make that clear.

game night

B+C

Date #15

We had a fun-filled day with the fam, going to the carnival and out to eat for dinner, before I realized we hadn't gone on a date this week!

SO, while we were at dinner, we picked up some dessert. Then we went home, put the kids in bed, and stayed up to play some Mastermind and eat our [KNEADERS] peanut butter pie. Mmmm, Mmmm, Mmmm, it was good!

The game lasted a few rounds before we were just too exhausted and had to head to bed, but it was nice to have a quick little 'mini date'.

"DATE NIGHT" DATE NIGHT

J+D

Date #23

After a crazy week and a weekend trip away from the hubby, we needed to fit in a little US time before the week ended...so after the kiddos went down for a nap, we made our favorite cookie dough,

pulled out BACKGAMMON (D's favorite game)

And popped in "DATE NIGHT" the movie.

This is seriously the story of our lives...So many of the conversations they have WE have regularly. So many of the things they do at dinner together WE do at dinner together (we have even taken someone else's reservations a time or two...). So many of the crazy things that happen to them have happened to US (well, maybe not, but still).

My hubby teased me about how the only reason we were playing backgammon and watching the movie were to count it as "a date night." The fact of the matter is that YES, we did need to count it as a date night because we were too crazy all week to get time together, but even if we didn't have a blog to post on, I STILL would have wanted to spend time doing something alone with him. That's the whole point of this---to purposefully and thoughtfully make time for each other.

Without the blog, I probably wouldn't have taken a picture of the cookie dough or the board game, but I still would have meant to make a "date" out of our time alone together...

Dot the Map

M&R
Date #21
Dot the Map

This date was actually really fun. We sat down at the table with our world atlas and dotted the map with all the places we have been together. It was fun going back through our 7.5 years together and reminiscing about all the places we've been.

It doesn't even need to be said, that we are by no means world travelers. We definitely need to get out of the states, and also our dots are heavy on the west side of the country. The top three places we've been are:

(1) the Big Island, where we actually hiked (in the rain), over all the jagged, hardened lava, and stood within yards of the hot flowing lava. It was crazy and the air was so toxic. That was an experience that we'll never forget.
(2) honeymoon cruise in the Bahamas. We kayaked with huge sting rays gliding through the crystal water underneath us. We almost got attacked by swarms of jellyfish on our snorkeling excursion (think Finding Nemo. Okay maybe that's a little dramatic). We snuck into the Atlantis hotel and R wheeled and dealed to get us into the aquarium there, where we saw the 1,000 lb. manta ray named Zeus (seriously, he was amazing...google him).
(3) San Francisco. Though not very exotic, we had the best time there together a couple of years ago. It was a surprise trip that I planned for R's 30th birthday. We had so much fun running around and exploring. We wore ourselves to the bone and had so much fun doing it.

There are many many more places we have yet to check off on our "travel bucket list", but it was fun remembering all the places we've been together already.

Backyard Plans

M&R
Date #20
The Backyard

Last week we kept things pretty low-key and simple. Hubby and I sat down together and made up a plan for landscaping our backyard. We're not quite ready to get the ball rolling on utilizing these plans (due to issues that are not in our control) but we thought it would be nice to have an idea of how we want it to look.

We kept it pretty simple for now. We just wanted the basic layout. For the most part we want to keep a lot of open space for the kids to be able to ride their bikes, throw balls around, and run freely without too many obstacles.

Sigh, if only it could be done tomorrow!! I could just see us laying in a hammock together, planting/weeding the garden, or sitting by a fire on a cool summer night.

We're trying to be patient in the meantime, but we'll get there!!

Two Nighter for a Two Wheeler

J+D

Date #21

My oldest son informed us just a few days before his 4th birthday that all he wanted from us was a "two-wheeler bike."

Whoops. We hadn't thought of that.

So when our friends informed us that they were going to take a tiny bike to DI, we asked if we could claim it and transform it into something great for our son.

It took two nights of priming and painting:

Both nights, though it was by far our MOST informal declaration of a date yet, we turned off the TV, silenced our phones, and closed our books, and had a fun conversation and evening together.

We always have a great time working on projects together. Our best project yet is our marriage.

Our son LOVED his "new" bike and the sweetest part about it was that the bike was relatively free (minus the transformation supplies) and now, from the birthday presents we didn't end up giving him, we have most of his CHRISTMAS presents all ready to go now. :)

CHOCOLAT

D&T

Date #18

We had a strangely busy week and I was in "the date funk" as we have named it on our blog.  Sat. was a super busy day so we were exhausted on top of a lack of planning for the week.  We did get a neighbor girl to come over for about 30 min. after we put the kids to bed so we could hold hands in the car on the way to Maceys and pick up a few groceries.  We saw B there - from B&C - and my apologies for being sort of socially awkward, I was having a serious avocado dilemma - which sounds silly, but it seemed like a really big deal at the time (did I mention being in a funk?)  Then we came home and had a movie night.  D was sweet and let me pick the movie and I had one in mind - borrowed from J - CHOCOLAT.   It was perfect.  Intriguing and intense at times and sweet and funny and romantic.  Not too chick flick cheesy for D, and I LOVED it, for sure on my list of top 5 (had seen it before I realized, but not for YEARS).
GREAT suggestion - thanks J!!

Little note for those just following the blog and not participating (is anyone out there?? :).  It may seem like our "HOME DATES" are kind of a cop out. There have been plenty of weekends that D and I have put the kids to bed and then fallen to the couch and put on a movie or turned on our favorite show - heck, that can happen a few times a week.  But when we know we need to DATE and we call our alone time a DATE, something changes. There is just a different feeling and a different sort of communication that goes on when both parties know its that "special time" for the week, whether its out of the house on a planned evening or just spending the time in the house with kids in the back room sleeping.  I just wanted to write that down, in case I ever forget. 

Green Thumbs

M&R
Date #16
Herb Garden


I have to laugh about our date this week. We decided that we were going to do a home date. I came up with the idea to start an herb garden. Hubby was on board with that idea, but by the time we made it to the store to buy our seeds, pots, soil, etc., we were short on time. We ended up buying this little herb garden kit because we were determined to have something to do together for our home date.

Our herb garden planting took a whopping 10 minutes. Ha! Yes, it sounds a little silly, BUT, I stand by J when I say that since we took time to do something together, it was fun, and special. Under normal circumstances, I would have been planting the herbs by myself while my hubby was at work, or watching the tv, or internet surfing.







Afterward, we watched a movie in bed (The Tourist). Good home date night.