I think we can all agree that dating is ridiculously expensive and just because your date happens to be your man, your husband, your babies daddy means nothing; it’s still dollar bills out of your pocket. Dating is also necessary. Nothing is worse (or more annoying) than not connecting with your spouse and trying to raise kids at the same time. So, I’ve come up with a few easy and inexpensive ways to date your man at home.
Heres the truth: the constant busy when you are married and have a family is precisely that, constant. I remember thinking when my kids were a certain age it would get easier to date my man.
HA! No seriously. HA-HA.
Now I know that the 26-year-old me was dreaming which is why I am writing this now.
My husband and I need lots of quality time. We have found that the less we communicate and the less we are around each other, the worse we do. Not everyone is like that, all couples are different, but all couples do need time to invest in each other and the best way to do that is to schedule out intentional time.
With that said, scheduling out quality time a.k.a. A date doesn’t always have to require a babysitter. There are times of course that Case (my husband) and I have to get a sitter for certain events, and we are blessed to know some sweet girls that love our kids. However, hiring a babysitter is freak’n expensive. That on top of the fact that I don’t want to be the cheap lady that expects sitters to play with my kids and then pays crappy. I want to spoil these teenagers and college kids so I can have them when I need them, people!!
Because having a baby sitter every weekend is not ideal for us we have learned to get creative and date at home! It’s actually pretty fun to find ways to hang at home and make sure we really have quality time together rather than doing the laundry, dishes and trash removal. Here are a few tips on dating your man at home that I wanted to pass along!
Candle Lit Picnic at Home
After the kids go down, we like to have a table full of our favorite snacks and light candles in the room and just eat and talk. Food is definitely a love language for both of us and this is the one time when my hubs knows he has to share bites with me! Think spooning cheesecake one small bite at a time while laughing about the ridiculous things your kids did that week, or that day for the matter!
At-Home Movie Night
Now its important to prep for this at-home date night before hand. Like pick the movie and know what is happening or you most likely will fall asleep while your husband schools through Netflix. We love to pop our own popcorn and fight over the best spot on the couch! Take turns too, I can’t watch sports movies every time, just like Case isn’t a huge BBC fan. We do make sure that we both have chances to catch up on things we wanted to see. Its nice to explore areas that your spouse likes and I love to hear him get excited and talk sports to me. I have no clue, and he knows it, he just wants to talk!
Game Night
I LOVE game night!! I am super competitive by nature, and so is my hubs…this can be very comical at times! We love to have friends over for a double date at home and team up, and the laughing is non stop. Laughter is so good for my momma-soul. I can easily get caught up on lists, and laundry. I don’t want to be the momma who can’t step away from the every day and remember what it is like to just be silly.
Dream Date
This is where we do exactly that; dream. These nights we put everything away and talk about where we want to go on our next trip, what we want to do to our house; anything goes. Case and I love to make plans for down the road. We love to dream, dream about our future together because someday these beautiful babies we made will grow up and leave us. When that time comes, we will still need each other, and when we invest in our dreams together, we are building into our future after kids.
These are just some of the ways we connect at home that don’t require any extra expense, but it does require taking the initiative and choosing quality time over other things! Choosing time together is worth it, its always so worth it!
