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. 

Cabin Fever and Crafting

It is the end of February and the ground is still covered in some strange combination of snow and ice.  Strangely enough. we got all of our snow in November and February while December and January remained quite mild.  I feel like I've hit that tired-of-winter-ready-for-spring wall.  I'm so ready to plant spinach, walk in the sun and take kids to the park.  In order to beat the blues, I've decided to turn my attention to crafts at least for a couple of weeks.  So far I've already made a couple of baby presents and two toddler spring dresses and my next project will probably something like this:

Tutorial Here

I also want to make us a new library book bag as we've destroyed a couple and the others don't really work so hot.  I've made two of these bags for others but I think it is time to make one for us. 

Check out this easy tutorial

As I was making one of the toddler dresses, I had a brilliant idea for a super easy to make skirt.  A couple of days later, I saw a tutorial for the exact skirt I wanted to make.  Check it out here.

I'm also thinking of making some reusable grocery bags and some springtime kind of wreath or decoration for my front door.  Any ideas for the door? 

On Sleep and Things

A few days ago, my cousin wrote a blog post about a decision her family recently made to do something she thought she'd never do.  We had a similar situation here last week and the results have been wonderful!
As you probably know, my son never sleeps...well unless you're willing to hold him and even then...It is not abnormal for him to wake up every 2 hours or even sooner all night and then turn around and only take 3 20 minute naps the next day.  No joke.  And his bed? HA!  Don't even get me started on that.  I tried and tried to get him to sleep in his bed and sometimes I succeeded but earlier this month he woke up every. single. time. I would try and lay him down in his bed.  Out of exhaustion, I just let him sleep in his swing which he loves.
Earlier in his life, we'd tried the crying it out method twice.  Both times he screamed for at least an hour.  I decided that I wasn't a fan of the method.  It is one thing to make your child cry it out for 5 minutes but an hour?  That seemed a little extreme.  I decided that I would just wait it out.
However, out of desperation, I decided that it was time for him to learn how to sleep in his own bed even if it involved screaming.  One night a couple of weeks ago, he woke up as normal. I rocked him to sleep and then laid him back down in bed.  He immediately woke up and started screaming which was also very normal.  I told him that I loved him and climbed back into my own bed.  He screamed for an hour straight.  Finally, he started to doze off and I thought he'd given up.  But no, he dozed for 30 seconds and then screamed for 30 seconds for another hour straight.  Finally, I just accepted that I had failed and I went in and fed him and got him back to sleep.  I was kind of sad the next as I felt that he was immune even to the extreme version of  crying it out.  Boy was I wrong!  Starting the next night we heard him crying in his bed.  Aaron and I were talking so I planned on finishing my conversation before getting him up.  3 minutes later, he calmed down and put himself to sleep.  We were dumbfounded.  Ever since them, I just lay him in bed and if he wakes up, I make him cry himself back to sleep.  A few times I've even just laid him in bed when I knew he was tired and let him cry it out.  Sometimes he cries for 10 seconds and the longest he's ever cried is 15 minutes.
I still get up with him at night if he wakes up but I think he's been waking up less than he used.  Last night he only woke me up at 10:30, 12:30 and 5:30.  Do you know how wonderful it is to get to sleep for more than 3 hours in a row.  I feel so amazing that I don't even need coffee in the mornings!
I guess I write this just to say that don't say "I'll never do that."  Sometimes that is the very thing that will save your sanity.

Purple Skirt

EDIT: I just now noticed that there is a small potty in the background.  Don't you just love potty training?
I needed new skirts.  Some of the ones in my closet I've had for approximately 8 years.  No joke.  Others were stretched out.  Others out of style and some just didn't fit well.  I dragged my sister along with me to Goodwill and found one new black pencil skirt but I wanted to get at least one more without having to pay big bucks for it.  Our fabric store recently had a huge clearance sale and this material jumped out at me and I knew it was meant to be a skirt.
I'm not a fan of a lot of the current fashions but one I do like is lace.  I decided that since I dislike most of the others, my best bet for looking at least kind of in style is to embrace the little that I do like.  So here is my attempt at a purple skirt with a lace overlay.  I sort of used this tutorial.
Without further ado, I would like to present to you my purple skirt with a lace overlay.

The hardest part was the zipper and the sad thing about it was that after I put it in very poorly, I discovered that I didn't even need it as the skirt was stretchy enough that I could slip in and out of it without unzipping it.  

I can't remember exactly how much I paid for the fabric but I think it was $4 or less.  I'm pretty pleased. 

Homemade Christmas Roundup

Ah, Christmas...it feel like it all happened years ago.  I took down our tree by New Years and all the new presents have found homes around our house.  I wanted to show off a couple of handmade presents.  Maybe it will inspire you for next year.

I made these simple teacup candles for my sister Sara and my mom.  They were super simple and fairly inexpensive to make.  I bought the teacups from Goodwill and some wax and wicks from Hobby Lobby.  I melted the wax and poured it into the cups.  The best part is that they can reuse the cups when they are finished with the candles!

I made these pieces of state art for my sister-in-law.  She has lived in KY, is currently finishing up her degree at Auburn and has plans to move to TN after graduation.  I wanted her to have something to remind her of her time in both of those places.  It is hard to tell in this photo but each of the states are made out of paper covered with glitter.  It is super sparkly and cool. 

My sister Abby is a PotterHead.  What better way to represent than with a customized piece of Potter art?  I painted it in colors that match her room. 

I also made a couple of necklaces but forgot to take a picture and a drew a picture on a canvas in pencil for my sister Jubilee to paint over.  

Right now I'm launching full tilt into baby presents as I know 5 different people having a baby this year.  Stay tuned for those pictures...