At Home Date Night

Ian and I have two monthly date night tradition - the regular date night where we get a babysitter and do something out on the town (usually eating, but we do try to mix it up) and then we also have a stay at home date night. On our "out" date nights, we have 4 questions that we ask each month, usually one over appetizers, two over dinner and one of dessert (not because we actually plan it that way, just because it works out that way timing-wise). In case you're wondering, the questions are: 1) What's something you're enjoying about the stage of each kid; 2) What's something you're looking forward to in the next month? 3) What's something you're not excited about in the next month? 4) What's something you feel like God has been saying to you recently? 

These questions are great for helping us have meaningful conversation and we love this tradition.

For our "at home" date nights, we have a different tradition. We each plan one romantic thing for the other person. It can be really simple - a note, a bottle of champagne, dancing together to a romantic song, etc. Sometimes, it's more complex - one time Ian learned a Jason Mraz song that I like and played/sang it on the guitar for me. For our March date night, I made a jar filled with wooden Popsicle sticks, each saying something I love about Ian or something fun we could do together (like watching the baseball documentary he is always suggesting that I'm always shooting down).

We used to eat with the kids and then do these romantic exchanges after they had gone to bed but we recently discovered that we wanted to add a little something more to our at home date nights. So now we feed the kids something easy for dinner and then we eat cheese, crackers, salami and olives for our own dinner after they are in bed, usually with a glass of wine. 

It is so lovely and we enjoy the time so much. This past at home date night, the weather was perfect, so we were able to enjoy our dinner sans kids on the patio under our hanging white lights. It was very romantic and has already got me looking forward to April! 

If you've got suggestions (that are appropriate to share here) on romantic gestures, I'm all ears. I love new ideas!