for spouse bonding time? Lately I've been exposed to a few couples who have daily or weekly traditions with each other, and it really got me thinking. I see Erik so little that I want to make the time fun and worthwhile, but I swear, most of the time we're together is spent doing chores, trading off with Morgan, or wondering what we should do. I HATE getting to the end of a Friday night and realizing that we didn't do anything together. What do you couples do to maximize your time together? Any little traditions or ideas? Here's a few that I've found interesting:
-Homemade pizza night once a week, trying new and fun toppings
-Weekly movie night, with one for the kids, and another for the adults
-Make cookies together every Sunday and take some around to friends/neighbors
-Grocery shopping together (although we've tried this, and I discovered that Erik likes to be blissfully ignorant of how much food costs. Way too stressful an experience. Besides, if I waited to go with Erik to go to the grocery store, we would starve)
Onesie and Dress Tie Embroidery
10 years ago
7 comments:
Past ideas that worked for us:
1. Date to the library, pick some old horror movie to watch with some new popcorn flavor to try at home.
2. Walk around Lowes home improvement store to dream about future paint colors, accessories, appliances etc.
3. Go to a plant nursery and look for a new flower or indoor plant you want to adopt.
4. Shop for homes online together in strange places just to look at the pictures.
Brad and I always used to end up crashing and just watching a movie every night after Abbi went down and we didn't do anything to interact with each other. So we decided to read a book out loud to each other instead. It usually leads to some discussion and we spend more time talking (about stuff that normally would never have come up) than reading.
Haha! Very funny post.
When I go shopping, we have food for a week.
When Ben goes shopping, he spends the same amount but comes home with gourmet olives, swiss chocolate, expensive meat cuts and no staples and we eat really fabulously for 2 days and I have to go shopping again.
As for the date night, we did awesome before we had Addie, but it gets harder to do things with her. We watch a lot of movies and make popcorn with mnms after she goes to bed.
Good luck! I'm sure with medical school as his mistress and little Morgan you don't get tons of alone time, but making the effort is important.
Lauren, I can say that I totally feel for you. We are going through the exact same thing. Cody gone all the time and when he is home he is exhausted or needs to study or it's too late to do anything. So all that makes it hard to do anything together. But if there ever is a moment to spare we actually do a lot of the things suggested. Library, grocery shop, cook, movies etc. We used to go on walks and throw frisbee around before it got so cold. Why not try going to a local recreational center and put Morgan in the daycare (usually it is like a few dollars, unless you have family close by to drop her off..I don't have that option, which would be very nice), and go play some good old fashioned racquetball! Then shoot up some hoops with him afterwards.
Here's some ideas. With the exception of #1 and #3, we've never actually done any of them, but I think they'd be fun.
1) Read the same book series around the same time. Even if one of you is a few books ahead, you can still discuss them.
2) Talk about your 'dream home.' How you want it designed, the decor, where you'd like to live etc., and maybe look at homes for sale online. Especially the really, really expensive ones, just for fun.
3) Netflix a new, maybe out of the ordinary TV series. Sometimes you find some good stuff.
4) Family outings once a month to somewhere neat (and potentially educational). I've been wanting to go to the zoo, Tracy Aviary, Gardner Village, the Museum of Natural History, Thanksgiving Point and Wheeler Farm. We have yet to go to any of them, but I bet it'd be really fun.
5)Build snowmen
Those may not be helpful at all, but good luck!
We played a lot of board games like Chinese Checkers. Now there are so many fun games. It allowed us to have fun and talk at the same time - a little competition was always good for the relationship! Feel free to come check out what we have, you are welcome to borrow anytime.
Here's an idea that's worked for us. We spent an evening filling up what we called our "date jar" we each put in 20 ideas for different dates (as detailed as possible) Then every Monday as part of family home evening we would alternate drawing a date. Then we had the week to plan, getting sitters, tickets, menu items or what ever we needed to do. It's been fun (in face we're on round 2 cause we've done all the dates in there)
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