aliviajane: my favorite night of the week: date night

i love dates with my husband!

there is nothing better than giving kisses to our sweet kids, and driving off, holding hands, smooching the night away, pulling into a restaurant and having an un-interrupted conversation over a nice meal!

have you ever seen those couples who sit at the table and don't talk?! it's so awkward. most times they are on their phone or starring at menu cards or something! how sad! and i hate to say it but it seems like it is always older couples and or couples with kids! and i can tell you why that's happening.....

they stopped dating years ago. maybe after they had kids....

it's so easy to make everything about the kids, the kids, the kids...then bam, your kids are adults and moved out and your sitting across the room from each other with nothing in common! maybe your kids are even still young and the one time you go out, you have an awkward silence or have nothing to talk about but the kids.

start dating.

it will change your marriage.

i think its kinda crazy that if i put a picture on social media, people are surprised that we go on so many dates, especially having small kids. setting aside 3-4 hours a week or sometimes every other week , is not very much time together. i wonder, why isn't everyone dating?

when i was little my parents went on dates every week! every monday night to be exact! when i got old enough, i was the baby sitter and would make hot dogs and mac n cheese every single monday night

{i remember that like it was yesterday}

i was probably like "come on, i have to baby sit so you can go on another stinkin' date!" haha, but i am so glad they did! it really showed us kids that date night was a priority!

there is no excuse not to date. but here are some common ones:

we have kids.

get a baby sitter.

my kid cries when i leave them.

i heard something i thought was a super good point from a pastor that came to our church, do you want your kids crying now because they miss you for 3 hours? or would you rather them be crying in a few years because your getting a divorce?

BAM.

i understand not wanting to leave your kids. carter would cry sometimes when we left for dates and i would feel so bad. i had to put those feelings a side and realize, he will be fine, we are just going away for a few hours, he's in good hands and i need to do this for our marriage. nine times out of ten he would stop crying 5 minutes later:)

we have a small babe.

when each of our kids were little babes, we still made dating a priority. i pretty much nursed the kids on demand too, but that's not an excuse. we would go somewhere 5 minutes away, so if i was needed we could be there!

we don't have the money.

um, when you were dating before you were married, did you ever just go get

a pizza and go to the dollar theater? do the same! it might make it fun to reminisce too!

it doesn't take a lot of money to go on a date!

and if you can't afford a babysitter, see if you can switch baby sitting for another couple!

your too busy...

you will make time for things you value,

so if you don't have time for your spouse , you need to rearrange your priorities!

this is just a little bit of encouragement to start/keep dating!

we hadn't been on a date in 2 weeks (which is a long time for us) so we asked my parents to watch the kids while we went to get coffee, a donut and looked at Christmas lights for an hour!