project 52 failure!

due to a HUGE lack of energy, our date nights got pushed back. there really is no excuse for not dating each other (making time for each other is the whole point)  but it seriously hasn't entered our mind. we're lucky if we get 10 minutes alone, let alone a whole date! when we can get quiet time, it's never anything super exciting so i have felt that it wasn't blog worthy. for example, last night we watched 'pirate radio' but not without about 3 interruptions from baby needing to eat and be put back to sleep. oh, and liam sneaking out of his room. 

this is apparently a phase in having children. so i've been told from mommy friends. where you don't have a single moment to yourself and everything is screaming for your attention and you just want to lock yourself in the bathroom and pull your hair-out and cry. i'm soooo there! but i am determined to win this daily battle and especially when it comes to my marriage. we have to make 'us' a priority again. our kids are taking over!

so hopefully, my friends, we will once again join you in this wonderful dating community. we will attempt for a date this week. even if it is an hour. and hopefully it will be blog worthy.

project 52:6

This past Friday was our 6th wedding anniversary. We were to celebrate it on Saturday by going out to dinner and my mom was going to watch all three children.

As some of you know, I've been starting projects around the house and felt a bit in over my head. The house was a disaster. Olivia's room was half painted. The children hadn't been doing well with their temporary sleeping arrangements. Jess' car hadn't worked all week. The basement was wet and things were getting ruined. My weekend to-do list was growing and the thought of taking up a whole Saturday to get the kids ready and situated sounded exhausting. Plus, when Friday came around, I really wanted to celebrate on that day. We didn't get married on the 13th it was the 12th!!!!

On top of that, I had dug through tubs looking for our wedding album with no luck except a bunch of pictures of me when I was younger. Didn't think I had aged that much... and THEN my husband told me about a necklace he bought that I had wanted a while back and that it hadn't been shipped yet. I felt horrible because I hadn't gotten him anything because I wasn't informed that we were getting gifts...

So, I came up with a plan of sorts that I wasn't sure would work out. I wanted to keep it a secret from Jess. I asked my mom to take Olivia and Liam for the night vs. all three children on Saturday evening. She agreed to do it. Good. One thing down...

Next was the house. I kept telling myself to just make it look good enough for one night. No need to deep clean. So I shoved a bunch of stuff into our office and Liam's room, shut the door, lit some candles, and vacuumed....

I also made pot roast that was going to be for dinner anyways and made a mad dash to the store for some sparkling grape juice (i'm nursing) and the makings for cookie sundaes.

I got home with 30 minutes to spare to throw it all together. And I did just that, knowing that my husband would be 30 minutes late.

An awesome co-worker of my husband's, who lives down the street, graciously drove him to work all week. She had a de-humidifier that she had been wanting to give us since we moved in here so they stopped by her house and picked it up.

When they came to the door he was fully expecting to come home to a chaotic household and I think even warned her so. (she's lucky that i'm not an answer-the-door-naked kind of girl) I greeted them with a half naked baby I was in the middle of changing but other then that the house was clean and dinner was set up and the older two kids were at my moms.

He was really surprised. As far as he knew we were just gonna have a regular evening and celebrate on Saturday. The good dad he is though, he missed the kids and was sad he hadn't seen them all day and now all evening but I don't think he minded too much...

How could he complain when he saw this?

We sat and talked. I ate way too fast (as usual). And, we enjoyed a quiet dinner at home. I have always wanted to do this and it was perfect...

Then we got bored and decided to tackle our to-do list. So, we headed out to Target and Lowe's and bought a bunch of crap to tackle more projects... Happy Anniversary to us! 

I am sooo my mother's daughter... Sorry babe!

BUT we did get back around 10 and had our cookie sundaes and caught up on our shows. Then we woke up on Saturday and worked on our daughter's room all day. Literally. (we didn't finish until 1am on Sunday). The kids wanted to stay another night at my parents' and my parents were crazy enough to agree. We were thrilled!  We took a dinner break and ate at one of my favorite local mexican restaurants. It was lovely and was a bonus date to us.. Not to mention, we ended up getting a whole weekend practically to ourselves!

It was a lovely way to spend our anniversary weekend and we are so thankful to my parents for keeping the kids. (Thank you!!!!)

need a change in your marriage? it's never too late to join!

(2 things: you finally got another picture of me. i met all the necessary requirements for this date. AND that is the dining room re-do i hinted at last week. it was a horrible smoker's yellow/poop color two tone thing and then we had painted it all white and now that lovely shade of sandy beige aka valspar oat bran)

project 52:5

This was my husband's first time planning one of our dates. He did a wonderful job! Just look at this spread!

That fondue pot was given to us when we got married and we've never used it! Until, Friday night...
He bought white chocolate chips to melt down, strawberries, angel food cake, cheesecake, and my favorite drink!

He put far more thought into his planning then I did in the 4 dates I planned put together. I'd like to think that it's because he's a dad and doesn't have quite as much going through his head as I do on a daily basis but I know that isn't true. He's just great at planning ahead and i'm great at pulling things out of my butt! last minute things....

He even researched the best way to melt the chocolate and found that you have to kill the flame after the white chocolate begins to melt otherwise the chocolate starts firming up. We discovered this to be true but thankfully had only guinea pigged half the bag and so we were able to start fresh with the remaining chocolate left. Yum!

We sat and talked for a long time. He wasn't feeling well but still gave me a lovely back rub that he'd promised me. He's very wonderful. I'm very blessed!

This coming date is going to celebrate our 6 year wedding anniversary. We are still working out what we are going to do for sure but I can't wait!

Need a change in your marriage? Just need to re-connect with your significant other? It's not too late to join!

project 52:4

on friday, at 10:35 am., i decided that i was going to re-paint our living room.  so, we spent the weekend putting the room back together. we were so determined to get our date in that we were trying to finish up what we were working on by 9 pm. on sunday night. 9 turned in 11 pm. but we still got our date in! 

i made us some coffee and chocolate cake......

it was amazing! my recipe?

1 tired mommy

1 minivan

1 wal-mart

1 box of chocolate cake mix

1 can of chocolate frosting

bring home. dump contents of box into bowl. add water, oil, and eggs. stir. find any clean pan that you can. dump batter into pan. bake. take out of oven. cool. slap on 2-3 inches of frosting.... and, enjoy!

we rented 'everybody's fine', snuggled, ate cake and drank our coffee, and ended up talking until 2 am.

the movie was a downer. i thought it was a happy holiday movie. we both cried. next time i'll research a movie a little better.

i am not including the photo we took of ourselves. how come? because we both look like crap at that hour and could not take a good photo. but we were both a part of this date! we both wore our comfy clothes though. (broke the rule again) BUT i still had some of my make-up on from earlier that day and my hair was still curled but pulled up on top of my head. so, for me, that cancels out the fact that i wore my comfy clothes.

so, that was our date! i love how the simplest dates can turn out to be the most fun. we absolutely LOVE our dates and time together. it has done more for us then i can possibly express in words. it has made every aspect of our lives as a married couple and parents even better.

this was my last date to plan for the next 4 weeks. i'm looking forward to seeing what my husband comes up with. he has our anniversary this month.

it's not too late to join in on project 52!

*blogger keeps messing up my typing. i assure you that i know that there are no breaks in the words 'little' or 'dates'

project 52:3

This date almost didn't happen. We were busy Friday - Sunday. We had a very eventful weekend. As mentioned in my previous posts, we traveled to wisconsin to pick up a minivan. What was supposed to be one night, turned into two because of road conditions. All is well though and we got home safe and sound.

We got home yesterday afternoon. We were exhausted. I got a little nap in so I was actually able to stay awake past the kids' bedtime in order to get our date in. Very little preparation went into our date but it made for a very fun date. I had read over at butterscotch sundae that they had played gin for one of their dates. I have never played gin but as a person who loves to play cards I really wanted to try. Plus, I was intrigued that it was a card game for two. We love playing cards and often play pinochle but always have to wait until his brother and his brother's girlfriend can join us. The only card game we play, that can also be for two people, is phase 10 and that i am sick of. I like a card game with a little more strategy. So, anyways....

For our third date we learned how to play gin! And it is really fun! I can't wait to make him play tonight now that we are a little more rested. We only got through one game last night.

We found some informative video tutorials online....

Our local Dairy Queen just opened on friday for the season so of course we ate that...

Then, we got down to business and tried our hand at gin...

Notice, I am not in these photos... I was present... I was an active member of our date but wasn't about to show you what I look like make-up less, exhausted, and frumpy. Yes frumpy. We broke a rule. But, we got over it and accepted each other as we were and just enjoyed our date. Lesson #1 - if cheating while on a date by wearing frumpy clothes.. wear oversized frumpy clothes instead of fat-hugging loungewear that you dug out because all of your other clothes were in the wash... it makes you complain the whole date about how fat you are and how badly you are in need of a work-out regime. oh and when feeling this way... don't eat dairy queen. it makes matters worse. tonight my husband will finally be downloading P90x onto my lap top per my persistent requesting last night.

Oh, and of course, I won! Good thing cause I was too tired for a re-match had I lost. (i'm just a little competitive...)

Lesson #2 - when unprepared... improvise! use a piece of scratch art-paper and your daughter's over-sized girly pen to keep score...

interested? join project 52 at anytime! it's for any couple! (married, dating, engaged, young, & old)