Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to episode 115 of Outnumbered the Podcast. Just a quick reminder that if you leave us a review in your podcast apps on an iPhone in the month of March that you will be entered to win one of two coaching sessions with Bonnie. You guys, I talk to Bonnie every week and this is something you don't want to miss out on, so go leave that review. This week's episode is about
Speaker: date night. So we cover everything you can possibly think about. Date nights out, date nights in, what to do about the kids, if you have to take the kids with you. Tons of ideas packed in this episode that we are super excited to share with you.
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Outnumbered the Podcast. I'm Audrey. And I'm Bonnie. We are experienced moms to a combined total of 19 children. In our weekly episodes, we explore relatable topics using our perspectives of humor and chaos. Tune in for advice and encouragement to gain more joy in your parenting journey.
Speaker: Hey everybody, we're back and this week we have another one of in our marriage series for you, another episode in our marriage series and we're so excited to share with you all about date night. Yes, I love date night so much and it hasn't always been like that and we haven't always done it regularly. So we're going to dive in and talk to you guys about why we love it and why we think it's so important.
Speaker: But first, we wanted to share a little review. This one, we actually got through just some feedback. We got through Instagram. And we just love hearing back from you guys, especially on things that you love or things that you'd like to hear from us. And this one says, I genuinely enjoy the informative podcast you ladies run. You both have great chemistry together and you put a lot of work into your families and your podcast. I'm really happy to be a patron of your podcast. I know a lot of people are out of work right now. I'm not. You ladies put so much into
Speaker: free material. I'm happy to give something back. Keep up the great work you do." Oh, so sweet. Thank you so much. And we especially love our Patreon followers because just for just a few dollars, they can help support the podcast, which is just so, so kind and wonderful. And we love every one of you guys. So if you haven't left us a review yet, especially on iTunes, that's where it helps us the most, helps other moms find us. And
Speaker: and get some of the awesome content that we have, then we would highly recommend that. We even have a Instagram highlight, right, Audrey, about how to leave a review? Yes, yes, that's really fun. And you can go read some of the reviews that I've been left to. Yeah, yeah. So thank you so much for all your feedback.
Speaker: Okay, so we're going to talk about date night in this episode. We're going to, we broke this up into several parts. Why you should continue to date your spouse. Tips for getting a babysitter and then date night out ideas, date night in ideas, and then a subset of that date night out with kids ideas and date night in with kid ideas. So we're going to cover all those topics. We've, we've seen blog posts and listened to podcasts that have maybe one or two of these, but we wanted to put all
Speaker: this stuff in one place for you guys. Kind of like the date night encyclopedia. Right. And the reason we are doing it this way is because we really feel like date nights are essential to every marriage. And there are just phases of life where getting a sitter and going out by yourself with your spouse is not going to be an option. Like, I don't know, most of 2020.
Speaker: It just wasn't really an option that not a lot of restaurants open or places where you felt safe going or babysitters you can invite over or very often a babysitter is not in the budget. You have really little kids, you have a lot of kids, whatever. The case may be there's always a solution to spending time with your spouse and we wanted to go through all those so that everyone has an idea of how to make a date night happen.
Speaker: So, to start off, we just want to talk first about why we should continue to date our spouse, okay? So, first off, let's talk about the dating aspect of courtship, right? Like you meet someone, you kind of dig each other. You're like, okay, let's go on some dates. And this has kind of changed over the years. You know, back when we were kids and teens, people like
Speaker: actually picked each other up and went to dinner in the movies and then came back. I think teens are dealing with a whole different atmosphere. There's not a lot of dating from what I understand, which makes me kind of sad because I really like that whole paradigm of here we go out, we do something fun, we learn about each other, we figure out if we're compatible. But then once you get married, very often you think, okay, we don't have to do that anymore and yet
Speaker: It's so easy to just fall into that roommate scenario, right? Like he's here, I'm here. We throw laundry in the same general direction and show up for meals at the same time. It's very easy to lose that kind of romantic insight into your relationship.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree. And I think you could listen to any or all of our episodes in this marriage series and get a gist of what we think about why you should continue to have a good relationship with your spouse. First thing for me is I'm going to go back to that 20 year vision. In 20 years, I'm going to have kids gone. I'm not going to have any kids in this house. Well, I mean, crossing my fingers here.
Speaker: And what kind of relationship am I going to have with my spouse after my kids are gone? Well, I'm not going to have any kind of relationship or a positive one if we don't work on that relationship right now. So it takes maintenance now to have an awesome relationship in the future.
Speaker: I think that when we have a stronger relationship with our spouse, we're better parents. I definitely 100 % know that I'm a better mom when I have a super amazing relationship with my husband. And then there's just a little thing of, again, thinking ahead to when my kids have relationships and what kind of
Speaker: Like, I want them to look at mom and dad as their example relationship couple and be like, hey, that's goals, you know, and just exemplify the kind of relationship that they could have or that I want them to have through my own marriage.
Speaker: Yes, I love all those reasons. When you said maintenance, I had this thought, and excuse the crude analogy, but think about maintaining your car. What if the only time you ever took your car into the mechanic was when something went drastically wrong?
Speaker: Well, things would go drastically wrong a lot more often if you weren't changing your oil and checking your tires and your filters and everything else, right? So a marriage is just kind of like a car, but a very nice, wonderful, amazing luxury car that we have the privilege of driving, right? A limousine. Sometimes it feels like a jalopy, but we're going to turn it into a...
Speaker: into a BMW. That's a good, good analogy. Yeah. Point being, you have to do this weekly maintenance and daily maintenance really, but sometimes life gets crazy and it's only every week or maybe even every month that you get to sit down and really be close with each other. But the more often you can do this, the less likely we are to have catastrophic events happen in our marriage that need, you know, major professional counseling, although we also highly recommend professional counseling before bed.
Speaker: things get really bad. But yeah, it's just something that every relationship needs, that regular maintenance to keep it up and running. Yeah. And finally, I wanted to add that sometimes we need to give ourselves permission to spend time away from our kids so that we can be a better parent when we're back with our kids, right? This goes along so well with our mantra of self -care is everything.
Speaker: And we have to tell ourselves that we should not feel guilty for leaving our kids behind and going out with our spouse. We should not feel guilty for putting our kids in front of the TV if need be so that we can shower or whatever it takes. Because if ourselves and our marital relationships are not in tip -top shape, then we're not going to be the best parents we can be.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And I like just a little example of that is that for several years when my husband and I would go out on dates, like the only thing that we would talk about is the kids. And that's fine. I mean, like, you know, if there's things about kids that you need to discuss and that's what you're discussing. But like then I learned to give myself like a mental break from my kids too when I was on date night and just focus on us.
Speaker: Yeah, so yeah, you know, I like what you said about kind of being roommates. You're together a lot. You're, you know, you're spouses. You live in the same house. You're together a lot. But a date is a special opportunity to focus on your relationship.
Speaker: you're not maybe focusing on your relationship when you're cleaning up supper together and loading the dishwasher or whatever. But when you go on a date, that's an opportunity to just put your relationship first and under the microscope or just get it in focus and get it better. And then plus, hey, fun, right? Totally. Yep.
Speaker: Okay, so in order to share some date night ideas with you, like Audrey said, we've broken them down into different categories. So let's first start with the date night out ideas. So just you and your spouse date night out, that's kind of the quintessential date night that we think about, right? Can't always happen, but if you manage to swing this, here are a few of our favorite ideas. So my husband and I almost always start with some sort of food, because food.
Speaker: An easy way to go fulfill your physical need. And I love the chance we have to talk. We don't usually take as much time to sit and talk as we should because life is busy and we feel like we have to be productive all the time. But going to dinner or lunch or whatever, or even just getting takeout and going and sitting by the lake or something, helps me feel a little bit better about just taking two hours to sit and talk to my husband because we're doing something while we're there, right?
Speaker: And sometimes in the times when restaurants haven't been open or we've been trying to cut back on spending money, we can even pack a picnic. We can even maybe just go out for something very small afterwards, like an ice cream cone. You can drive through McDonald's and get an ice cream cone, go sit on a park bench. It makes it a little bit more fun than just sitting there talking, right? But there are so many date night out ideas. In fact, here I will share
Speaker: My friend Camille's blog Friday We're In Love is a fantastic resource for all kinds of date ideas. And she has both date night out and date night in ideas, family date ideas, anything you can imagine. But just a few things that we have enjoyed doing are going
Speaker: bike riding, rollerblading, something physical, rock climbing, especially if you have a rock climbing gym that makes it really easy and not scary to go up the side of a mountain. Anything that gets us out and moving together, we really, really like the physical ones. But I'll be honest, in the last few years, by the time Friday night rolls around, I'm so tired that the idea of going and doing something physical is not as enticing to me. So those Friday night dates, we usually just still stick with our meal and then going and wandering around somewhere while
Speaker: while we chat. If we get a chance to get out other times, like on a Saturday morning, that's when we do a lot of our physical ones. That sounds like such so many nice date night out ideas. Yeah, we generally have defaulted to going out for dinner too, but then we came to a point and we live in a small town where the choices are pretty limited, where we felt like we could cook better at home.
Speaker: than out. So really, we were just paying to have somebody cook us food not as good as we could make it so that we didn't have to like, you know, clean up the dishes, which, you know, there's advantages in that too. Unless it was like some really specialized thing that we couldn't generally make at home, like sushi, you know, we could make that at home, but it's a lot of time and effort. So anyway, we have default, we have sought out some other ideas because we like it kind of
Speaker: pun intended, leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you go out and you pay a bunch of money for a meal that you feel like you could have cooked better at home. That's true. Yeah. So we've tried to come up with some other creative ideas to do and some things we have done is gone on like house tours in a fancier neighborhood. Like they have open house. They're trying to sell their house and some of those because both of us really like architecture. A walk along the river.
Speaker: In our area, there's a paved walk along the river and just chat, go to an art gallery. One of our favorites is go to a bookstore that has a coffee shop and we can browse. Picnic at the lake, like you mentioned, canoeing or kayaking on the river, hiking, going to visit friends like some older friends in a nursing home or just something that we can't do with a bunch of kids in tow. So it's not always exclusively just us, but us without kids is what we consider date night out.
Speaker: Yes, I'm so glad that you mentioned the visiting friends because my husband and I are also huge fans of double dates or group dates. So right now,
Speaker: So right now we have a group from an old church congregation that we get together with regularly. We have a couple of friends from old neighborhoods that we get together with every few months or so. And I love that chance to reconnect, catch each other up on our lives, and do so without a bunch of screaming children running around. I mean, it's fun to get together with families as well, but this works particularly well if you have friends where you and your kids don't really match up very well, right? We've had a couple of double dates
Speaker: or game nights with couples that are significantly older or younger than us. So it wouldn't work really well with our families because they'd probably be like so overwhelmed with all our nine screaming children. But it's so fun to get to know people who are in a slightly different stage of life than we are and make friends that way. So I really, really love going out with friends. That's really fun. That does sound very nice too. OK, now we're going to switch it up and we're going to talk about date night in ideas because, you know, 2020.
Speaker: taught us that we can't always go out for a date. So some things that we've done that we've considered date night in ideas are working on a project together. My husband and I, we have lots of projects that are separate from each other, but then there's a couple projects that we work on together and that's just kind of fun to be a date night doing something.
Speaker: We love to plan our garden or a project together. Stargazing on a blanket in the backyard. Put the kids to bed early and watch a movie together. Teach your spouse something about your hobby. So that's always kind of fun and funny and cute and fun thing to do together. Listen to an audio book or a podcast and then kind of have like a book club date or time where you talk about it.
Speaker: do a puzzle, cook your date night dinner together and not just like, you know, what food that you would normally cook, but like more involved, like, you know, make sushi together or something a little more involved or bake a fun dessert together. Read old love letters aloud to each other. My husband and I corresponded through, it was a long distance relationship before we got married. And so we have tons of letters and it's just kind of fun every once in a while to read a couple of those out loud, like to hear him read what he wrote and all that.
Speaker: It's so sweet. We have a sauna, so we like to have sauna dates. Carry out from a restaurant so you don't have to cook, you know, get that part out of it, but just eat it at home or in the car if you have to get away from your kids or whatever. Exercise together, watch the sunrise or the sunset, and then plan a trip together for when you can have your next date night out. Oh, you took all the best ideas.
Speaker: Admittedly, we are not great about this because usually, like I said, by Friday or Saturday night, I'm so done with being stuck inside with my kids. I'm like, peace out, kids. Even if there's no restaurant open, I'm going for a walk down the street with my husband. I don't want to be here anymore. I just wanted to share a few ideas for making this work around little kids that are there or big kids because if you can't leave the house or you don't want to, but you still need time alone with your spouse, sometimes it can be a little tricky to get that.
Speaker: with kids. So a few things that have worked for us is, like Audrey mentioned, just telling everybody they're going to have early bedtime. And yes, you can do this with teenagers too. You can just say, guess what? Everybody's in their room by 8 p .m. And you can do whatever you want as long as it's quiet, but dad and mom are having a date night in and no one has a lot of other rooms, etc.
Speaker: We like to give them some sort of fun bribe. So sometimes we'll just put them all in one room and let them watch a show or play a game together with some popcorn, something exciting they don't usually get while mom and dad do our own thing. Sometimes we have even had, we've done double dates before where friends have come over to our house and they've brought a teenager with them, which is really nice. And they just kind of hang out in our house while we
Speaker: makes s'mores or something outside so that it feels like a day away from the kids, but the kids are still in there and someone's listening for them. You can do that without a teenager too, but you know, in case you got a little one that's crying or something and you need somebody else, that's helpful. But you just have to kind of use your creativity. Sometimes we've gone for a walk and this is when we've had really little kids. Sometimes we've gone for a walk just down the block, close enough that we can still see the house, but far enough away that we feel like we're getting away. That's another solution or just like I said, hanging out on the
Speaker: porch or something with your spouse. There's lots of ways to make this happen. But as far as activities, man, Audrey, I think you covered them all. Those are pretty great. I love them all.
Speaker: If none of those appeal to you, you can always Google it too because I was like, when I was making my list, I was like, oh, this doesn't seem very long. Have I forgotten anything? I mean, this is like the things that we like to do and we just keep doing them over and over again because we like them. But there's tons and tons of ideas out there. Just something that you like to do together. And the idea of a date night in is you both put down or put away what you would normally be doing.
Speaker: And you focus on each other. It's that focusing on the relationship time. So that, I don't know. I guess after we don't have kids anymore, every night in the house anymore, I guess every night will be like a date night in, right? That's going to be kind of great. I get old, but whatever. We'll have grandkids eventually help break up the monotony. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know you and I don't really have a chance of having time. Yeah.
Speaker: It's going to be a while. I also wanted to mention that I love your idea of reading old love letters together. My husband and I dated predominantly when we were living in separate states as well, so we actually have email.
Speaker: But we printed them out and saved them and they're really fun to read. We did the same thing too. It was like way back in the days of dinosaur computers, but there was computers and we did email a lot and we both wrote letters and did email. So at one point shortly after we were married before I had a million kids, I printed out all the emails and took all the letters and put them in a binder in chronological order so that we have them all together. Smart.
Speaker: Okay, so now we're going to move on to finding some babysitters. Tips for finding a babysitter. This, honestly, I have to say was my least favorite part about going out for years and years and years. And now we have built -in babysitters, but it was so awful. It honestly felt like dating. Like I'd call around a bunch of different people and cross my fingers that I wouldn't get.
Speaker: rejected, you know, and then feel bad if nobody wanted to babysit my kids and think, oh, it's probably because they're so wild, etc. So I totally understand the drama that is finding a babysitter and finding someone that you trust, that your kids love, that everybody enjoys, and that doesn't break the bank. Because I don't know if you've checked into babysitting fees lately, Audrey, but I'm like, these are not following the inflation trend.
Speaker: Like this is ridiculous. It was paying like $2 an hour as a kid and now we're like, wait, you want how much? Wow. Okay. I know. I know. I haven't, because I've had built -in babysitters for so long, but you're right. When I was babysitting age two, I charged a dollar per kid per hour. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: So anyway, so we totally get the challenge. Here are a few tips that we have used. First of all, I love to look for babysitters within the communities that I already feel comfortable in. So for example, my homeschool community, great place to start, especially if you are friends with people who have older kids. You might already have friends that have older teens or maybe they have a neighbor that they've used for years.
Speaker: Um, church congregations also a great place to start because chances are pretty good that that person has, um, similar values to you. So you don't have to worry too much about, you know, what kind of TV they're going to let your kids watch or whatever, uh, just the neighborhood in general. Um, very often you will see teenagers coming and going or young adults or even childless couples you might
Speaker: ask if they'd be interested in coming over to earn some extra money, especially if they're in college or a little bit on the poor side, et cetera. So starting with those communities that you know and love is a great place. Secondly, if you happen to live nearby a community college or university, that can be a great place to start.
Speaker: So I have in the past just put up little flyers at community colleges and universities. We actually live by a community college that has a
Speaker: what they call an institute with our church. So it's like a Bible study for our church members, for college students. So I know that they're going to be members of my church and they are going to be college -age students and those tend to work out pretty well. Like I said, same value set. And I mean, really you can ask wherever, but of course the broader you get,
Speaker: maybe the more nervous you get because you don't know the person's background. So word of mouth is probably the best way. But then there are also lots of opportunities to find one outside of your immediate circle of influence.
Speaker: Yes, those are all awesome ideas and I too agree with the feeling of not trusting anybody enough to take care of my kids. So I kind of had to get over this part where yes, nobody's going to love my kids as much as I do and nobody's going to take as good of care of my kids as I do, but I still
Speaker: want to prioritize a date with my husband enough to get somebody that I do trust and that I do feel, you know, loves my kids or will take care of them or whatever.
Speaker: Yeah, a couple of more, like I had all those ideas too for getting a babysitter, a couple more that I thought of was trade babysitting with another couple. So, you know, maybe not a weekly date night, but every other week is better than nothing. Or once a month they babysit your kids and you babysit their kids. And it's kind of fun when you babysit other people's kids because the kids, it's not like a whole bunch of extra kids to take care of because your kids are playing with their kids and you kind of have time to yourself as well.
Speaker: I agree with asking for references like when you when you're trying somebody new that's that's completely acceptable. I mean it's kind of your responsibility to check out the person who's going to be alone with your kids for a while. And then I hear I haven't looked into it much although one of my daughters did. I hear there is a babysitting app out there that you can
Speaker: you can look into and like if you're going to be a babysitter, you can put references on there and you can put, you know, if you drive in your age and all that kind of information. And then if you're a parent looking for a babysitter, you can search by geographical location and you can read through their references and that kind of stuff. So it's a little bit more commercial way of finding a babysitter. But if you're like, if you don't live near any other family or you're not part of any other circles or connections yet because you've just moved, it might be a good way to find
Speaker: Um, somebody to babysit your kids. And then I did also want to recommend, um, the live free creative podcast episode 10 has a bunch of ideas on how to get a babysitter too.
Speaker: Cool. Yeah, I forgot to mention I have a blog post as well about finding and keeping the perfect babysitter because we actually got really lucky and found a girl when she was about 12, also within our church congregation, who babysat for us for like eight years and still does on occasion if we leave town and she's available. And so I share all the tips of how we found her and how we kind of
Speaker: kind of curated her to be the perfect babysitter because she hadn't had a lot of experience. She was so young when she first started sitting for us, but we just like it's totally worth training someone to be an excellent babysitter, right? Like these are our expectations. This is how you change a diaper. This is what happens if there's an emergency and then keeping communication open as things go on, you know, and the money thing
Speaker: It doesn't have to be a big problem either as long as you're open to communicating. So I share lots of tips in that post. I will link that in the show notes as well. All right. So now we're going to move on to the date night out with kids. So I fully realized that taking a child or multiple on a date night doesn't sound like a date night, but it really can be. And we've had a lot of fun doing this. So our predominant reasoning at this point
Speaker: in our parenting journey for taking kids along is to give the kid a special time with mom and dad, both to reconnect as a couple and then also, we usually just do one child at a time, give them this special date night out where they get to maybe go to a restaurant, which we never go to with all our children.
Speaker: Or maybe wander through a store. Like you said, go to a bookstore and look at some things. Go for a bike ride with mom and dad. Any number of things that just makes them feel super special and loved. One that we did recently, for example, was I have a 13 -year -old who is my resident foodie. If anything is weird or different, he wants to eat it. And so we happened to mention that we were going out to a favorite sushi place and he just
Speaker: was like on his knees begging to be brought with us. And I said, okay, sure, it could be your date to come with us. And we had the best time. We went and had sushi out and he was old enough that we were able to still have some mature conversations, but even the younger kids can be really fun to just let them open up and ask them about their goals and their dreams and what they're working on, something good that's happened to them, something bad that's happened to them, kind of just get to know them a little better.
Speaker: And then after our sushi, we went and wandered around a little open air mall and had some ice cream as well. And it was just such a fun night connecting with this one kid, having just one child for an evening. So that's why we love to bring a kid or two. Yeah, that's really cute. My brother and his wife take each of their kids out on their birthday for a date breakfast. They do that. So that's a really cute idea.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. So, um, I had some thoughts about date night out with kids too. Sometimes you can't find a babysitter or there's a special circumstance like you've got a newborn or a breastfeeding baby that you don't want to be away from for a couple hours. That's kind of the reasons that we would take a kid with us. Um, and so my thoughts are make it, make sure you make it about the parents that they realize that this is mom and dad's time and they're just getting to come along.
Speaker: Make sure if you're going to a fancy restaurant that there are kids allowed. We made that mistake one time where we had reservations at this restaurant and we showed up and we had this nursing baby and they're like, nope, can't come in, no babies. I've literally never had that happen. That's crazy. It was a really fancy restaurant in a big city and they were like, yeah, no.
Speaker: I've had that happen at a business conference once. Generally, blogging conferences are pretty mom friendly because there are a lot of moms that are bloggers, but I showed up at one and they were like, but I had flown there so they couldn't kick me out. Thankfully, I just kept the baby quiet, but yeah, that's always awkward. Then my last tip was if you have to take the kid or kid out with you, take a little time before the date in the day, assuming it's an evening date.
Speaker: to make sure that the kids are well fed and that they're rested. They've had a good nap and because, you know, maybe take along a snack for them foods that they like if they're kind of a picky eater and you don't want them to get hangry in the middle of your date and then you have to end it short because they won't eat or whatever. So just just think about your kid ahead of time if you have to take them with you. Yeah, totally.
Speaker: Okay. And our last topic that we're going to, area that we're going to move into is date night in with kids. So again, 2020, you might not be able to go out and your kids, you know, you've put them in their bedroom too many times and they're just not going to stay there. Sometimes it's a little bit different.
Speaker: and fun to plan a date night at home with the kids. So I think I've mentioned this in one podcast episode before, and I don't remember which one, and it might've been one of our Patreon episodes. Side note, if you're not a Patreon supporter, you really should, because we discuss some super fun stuff in our Patreon episodes.
Speaker: Okay, out of the rabbit hole and back onto my idea that I shared one time. The kids plan and serve the parents the meal. So they're like the waitstaff of the restaurant. And especially if you have a little bit older kids that can help prepare and serve the meal and
Speaker: Some kids can do the music and some kids can put the towel over their arm and be the waiter and other kids can, you know, it's just super fun. They love it. And it is, you know, put candles on the table and eat in the living room instead of the dining room, make it all fancy. And kids, they just love it. They get into it so much. And it remains where the date night is about the parents, but the kids kind of get to be involved and help help mom and dad out with their relationship. It's it ends up being kind of fun.
Speaker: So in the spirit of keeping it about the parents, have a family game night, but mom and dad are on one team and kids are on the other team. Another fun thing we like to do is look at our wedding album, but with our kids. So we show them pictures and we tell them about the day and what it was like and who maybe these people are that they don't recognize.
Speaker: you know, they weren't there and all that. So that can be a fun thing. They love to do that. Talk about what you've done for each anniversary, where you've gone, what you've done, and just kind of reminisce. Another idea, oh, let them plan the next date night for you.
Speaker: So they have a date night where they plan your next date night in or out or whatever. And another idea I had that's really kind of fun is use Google Maps Street View and take them to the place where you went on your honeymoon and just walk them down the streets and show them, oh yeah, we ate at this restaurant and we had breakfast here and we stayed at this hotel and that, you know, because sometimes people go different, maybe more exotic places on their honeymoon. And so take them on that little trip with you.
Speaker: virtually on Google Maps and show them where you are.
Speaker: Oh, that's a super cute idea. I've never thought of that. We have taken, we got married in San Diego. And so we have taken our kids there on trips and gone, oh, that's where we got married. And that's where we spent our honeymoon night. And this is the beach where we took those pictures you've seen on the wall. And that's really, really fun to get them, you know, more invested in, in the start of our family, you know, right? Because really the, our marriage is the birth, birthday, I guess, anniversary of our family. And so I love the idea of getting kids involved and really,
Speaker: Um, invested in, in the health of our family, right? Which starts with the health of the marriage. So I love that. Um, I still cannot get, we still have not done this, but I still can't get out of my head your idea that you shared a long time ago about having kids make dinner, make a romantic dinner for you. And I think I actually might, um,
Speaker: have my kids do that for this Valentine's Day because it's on a Sunday, which is just kind of weird. And anyway, and letting them serve you, you know, so often, you know, like, I don't know, 99 % of the time, everything we do around the house is for our kids or eventually for their benefit. And so allowing the tables to turn a little bit and sharing a night where the kids can
Speaker: show some service and some interest in their parents and their marriage, I think is so healthy and reminds kids that actually life isn't all about you. We have this marriage that we are trying to cultivate and to help, you know, keep healthy and strengthen. And you're going to want to do the same thing when you grow up and get married. So this is how you do it. I just I just love that idea. Yeah, you really should. You will enjoy it just about as much as they do. It's it's a really awesome experience.
Speaker: Oh, I bet. I think when you first shared it, it was probably right at the beginning when we first started our podcast, I wasn't sure that I trusted any of my kids to make anything good, but they've gotten better. So we might give it a shot. The first time I did it with my kids, I prepared a lot of the foods ahead of time and they just served them because then I could make sure, you know, it was nice. And you can also like order things in for them to warm up and serve you if your kids are really super young.
Speaker: That's a good idea. Yeah, for sure. And make sure that they dress up in their tuxes. Yes, absolutely. Little suits and dresses. That's super cute. Yeah, in general, when we've done date nights in with kids, it's basically just been what we call our family night, our family date night. And it's everything from basically anything we can do at the house that feels a little bit special. So we've done everything from like a s'mores smorgasbord, if you will. So like a
Speaker: all the ingredients you could possibly want for s'mores and a bonfire. We've done movies outside, which is really fun, especially with some sort of special treat like kettle corn or something. But I really love the twist of making it a little bit, be a little bit more about the parent's marriage. So I'm going to try that.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's really important for kids to see their parents date and to maybe even feel like they have a little bit of a hand in helping their parents have a better relationship through, you know, serving them a meal or any of these other fun things that we've talked about, even behaving with a babysitter when you're gone. You know, I have explained to my kids in the past, it's how important it is for mom and dad to get some time together alone and you can help us have a good time out if we know that you're at home behaving.
Speaker: But I think it's so important to keep dating your spouse. For going back to that 20 -year vision, you know, I have known several couples who, after their last kid moves out, their marriage falls apart because it was all about the kids. And the kids, they're very – okay, so there's this analogy about things that are
Speaker: urgent versus things that are important. And kids are very urgent. So when your phone rings, that noise is urgent, but the call may not be important. It might be a telemarketer. So kids are like that. They're very urgent. They're very loud. They need it right now. They're going to die if you don't come look at them, hop on one leg, like right now.
Speaker: But what is important is the health of your marriage and your relationship. And I think we really can do our marriages a favor by by maintaining them through date nights.
Speaker: Yes, totally. I have noticed a huge difference in our relationship when we're taking our regular date nights and when we're not. And sometimes I forget that there are other options besides going out and spending money. And so when we're trying to stick to a stricter budget, sometimes date nights get cut back. And then I very soon realized, no, no, no, no. We had those there for a reason. We can find a cheaper
Speaker: idea. Or just start running errands together on a Saturday afternoon or sometimes we'll just go grocery shopping on Friday. It's money we had to spend anyway and maybe we'll buy ourselves a little treat at the end to make it kind of special. But it is absolutely essential that we spend time alone with our spouses, preferably away from the
Speaker: hustle and bustle of home because I think as moms especially our home is both our sanctuary and our workplace which makes it really difficult to relax sometimes and really difficult to step out of that role of caretaker and homemaker when you're looking at the mess that you never got around to cleaning up. So any chance you can get to give yourself a break from those roles to connect with your spouse to feel you know like the girlish
Speaker: thing you did while you were dating is an excellent investment in your relationship. We highly recommend it. So thank you guys for listening to this episode on dating your spouse. We encourage you to go listen to all our episodes in our marriage series about helping your marriage. And we will talk to you next week. Hey, you guys, there's not going to be a test or anything, but did you realize we shared over 60 date night ideas in this episode?
Speaker: So what we've done is compiled them and 40 more into a date night bucket list with the top 100 ideas for date night. We're sharing this list with our Patreon followers this month. Thank you so much for supporting the podcast through Patreon. It really helps us keep going and keep this podcast running.
Speaker: Thanks for listening, friends. Click the link in the show notes to subscribe to our email and never miss another episode. Show us some love by leaving a review on iTunes or sharing the podcast with a friend. Thanks for all your support. We'll talk to you next week. Yeah, totally, totally. Yes, and I love that all your ideas seem to be... Oh, sorry. Were you done? No. Oh, go ahead. Finish.
Speaker: I just heard a break and jumped right in. I did. I was pausing for breath.
