{2012 goals} At-Home Date Nights

Date nights.  What are those again?  

Back when M was a little baby (and I thought I knew everything), I would have predicted that Mark and I would have a date night at least once a month.  Five years and two more babies later, reality has set in.  Good, trustworthy babysitters are hard to find and man, are they expensive!  And with our single-income home, that’s really an expense we can’t afford to have.   

After reading an article about strengthening marriages through date nights, I knew I had to make it a priority and add it to my 2012 goals.  Just because we’re at home doesn’t mean we can’t spend intentional time together.  Nothing like a little creativity after the little ones are in bed!

Here are some of the ideas I’ve come up with so far:

• Re-watch the first movie we ever went to see when we were dating.
• Order our favorite take out.
• Play 20 Questions, Couples Style.  Always fun to learn a little something new about your spouse!
• Have a themed movie night.  Choose a movie and dinner with the same theme.  Ideas: French, Western, etc.
• Put a blanket down by the fireplace or TV and have a picnic dnner.
• Do some sort of service project together.  Example: pack care packages for troops overseas and handwrite letters for each box.
• Bake a special dessert together.  Brownies, ice cream sundaes, apple pie, a cake…
• Have a special wine and cheese dinner, along with fruit and crackers.
• Play golf/putt-putt in the backyard.  (Make our own rules!)
• Talk about our hopes and dreams for the future: “dreamstorming”
• Break out the board games.  We like cards or Scrabble.
• Eat breakfast food for dinner and eat in bed.
• Read together.
• Have a fancy candlelit dinner in the dining room.
• Work out together (circuits?).
• Play one of his favorite video games together.
• Watch Monday Night Football together and eat stadium food like nachos and hotdogs.

A great website for more ideas can be found here.