6 Non-Date Date Ideas

Some of the bloggers I read have date night with their husbands every single week.  How in the world do they have time or money to do this?  And of course there are tons of blogs out there that have suggestions for out of-the-box dates.  This post is not going to contain date night suggestions.  Honestly, we usually only go on 1 date ever 6-8 weeks and a sometimes we include things like going to fundraising dinners as "date night."  However, we do try to spend some intentional time together every week.   My biggest piece of advice is to simply turn off the TV. So many couples spend their evenings watching TV.  In general, this should not count as spending time together.  In almost 4 years of marriage, we've never owned a TV.  We do watch occasional movies together on the laptop and I do watch TV shows or movies in the middle of the night when I'm up feeding the baby.  Without further ado, here are 6 ideas for spending time together that are completely free and easy to do even with two little kiddos running/scooting around.

1. Play games together.  We both love games so this is an easy one for us.  Our latest craze is Boggle because each round only takes 3 minutes.  This means that we can play while our kids are awake and just take a break every 3 minutes to discipline one child or another.  We can also fit in a few quick rounds in the small window between the kid's bedtime and ours.  
2. Go for a walk.  We love to put the kids into the double stroller and go for a long (or even a short) walk.  We can talk and the children enjoy riding in the stroller.  One of favorite topics of walking conversation is about the houses around us.  We love to pick out the ones that we love, love to hate, and also talk about how we would change each house to fit our own taste. 
3. Just sit down and have a conversation.  Ok, so this one kind of has to happen somewhat organically but I love it when it does!  Turn off all the distractions.  No phones, computers, children, and especially no TV.  Talk about serious things, sad things, happy things and just plain silly things.  We used to do this all the time when we were first married but now we're a lot busier and we've used up most topics of conversation.  
4. Read a book together.  Every once in a while, we'll start reading a book together.  Since we read it at the same time, this means that we have to snuggle up close.  Fortunately, we read at approximately the same speed.  Some times we pick a longer book like Tale of Two Cities and other times it is something we can read in a few minutes like a Father Brown mystery. The plus side is that reading in bed makes me super sleepy so I always fall asleep very quickly afterwards.  In fact, Aaron will sometimes make me read something with him if I say that I'm not very tired when he is ready for bed.  Works like a charm.
5. Minister together.  This one is super important and a great way to build up both your relationship and your church.  Some things that we've done are plan an event for our church, show hospitality, intentionally stay connected with overseas missionaries, and try to minister to an unbelieving couple. 
6. Finally, watch a movie together.  Documentaries are great because we often end up talking for awhile after watching one.  If you use this one rarely, it can really be a special treat.  This is best at the end of a long week when your brain cells are completely depleted.  

These are my top 6 suggestions.  Do you have any extra things that we've been missing?  

Newbie Gardening Advice for Other Newbies

I love gardening...at least in the spring.  I tend to get tired of weeding and watering sometime around July/August but that never stops me from starting gardens in the springtime.  My Grandma is a master gardener.  I'm still a newb.  Someday, I hope to be really cool and be able to give some amazing advice as to why your tomato plants aren't doing so hot or how to get the perfect soil composition.  For now though, I'll just stick with the basics.  Last year, we bought a pepper plant that turned out to be chilis (totally mislabeled) so hot that we couldn't eat them.  In case you're wondering, I now know how to identify a chili plant.  Here are my top 3 pieces of advice for a newbie gardener. Plant some perennials and give some of your annuals a chance to come back before buying all new ones.  

1. Plant at least some perennials and give your annuals at least a chance to come back before buying all new ones.  It is so exciting to go outside and check for new signs of growth each day.  So far I have spotted chives, lilies, and rhubarb.  Things like tomatoes and basil will often come back as well but they do take a long time (think mid-May). 

Hiya, baby chives.  We love you. 

2. Grow things that you love.  I love edible plants and flowers for picking.  I turned my front flower garden into primarily an herb and cherry tomato garden.  I love my herbs more than I love keeping up the metaphorical Joneses.  I did decide that this year I need more picking flowers and so I'll have to try and find somewhere to squeeze them in.  

I loved these flowers.  Can I have some more? 

3.  Compost.  Seriously, if you eat even kind of healthy, you'll find yourself throwing away tons of reusable scraps.  SAVE THEM!  There are so many easy and economical ideas for composting on pinterest.  Take a moment and check them out.  I love not being wasteful.  I almost feel guilty now if I try to throw away compostable material in the garbage can.  Plus, if you are like us, you can also use your compost heap to feed the local rabbit.  

4.  Ha, I only promised 3 pieces of advice so this one is just a bonus.  Figure out what a chili plant looks like and don't buy it on accident.  

8 Months!

So my little man is 8 months.  Those months have in some ways flown by but in other ways (long nights) have dragged on and on.  As my children get older, they get marginally better at things like sleeping through the night, but they also learn a lot of new ways of sinning.  Sharing, what is that?

I was trying to sew but these two little stinkers were being super grumpy.  They were banished to their booster seats and forced to watch me sew. 

 Around 7 months, my little man became a bottom scooter and he also learned his first and only word, "Hi!"

At 8 months:

• He is very mobile and can move quite fast. 
• He loves all the things that he is supposed to have better than his own toys. 
• He is stubborn and persistent

He was determined to play with daddy's toys which were in the hallway since daddy was working on the bathroom.  We had to use the chairs as a blockade. 

Going after the cup at all costs. 

 He loves to pull the books off of the bookshelf.  One day, caught him doing it and lightly smacked his hands and told him, "No touch," and pulled him over to his toys.  30 seconds later he was back at it and I repeated the process.  30 seconds later it all went down again.  Finally, Aaron decided to intervene.  He put a stack of pillows in front of the bookshelf hoping to deter our crazy son.  He, however, was having none of it and started pulling all the pillows out.  Aaron decides to make things really hard and puts a kitchen chair in front of the bookshelf.  This makes our son really mad and he tried his best to pull the chair away.

"Playing" in the snow for the first time. 

•  He generally wakes up twice a night.
• He eats some solids but only about 1-2 T a day. 
• Barely needs to nap.  Yesterday, he only took two 20 minute naps for the whole day.  Though to be fair, he has taken a couple of hour long naps in the past week which is very unusual for him. 
• Has already had a couple of hair cuts (his mullet at 6 weeks and a second cut about a month ago) and is almost due for another.