Project 52: Date 10

The days before Christmas included several family activities so I counted them as a collective family date night (maybe more of a cop out since we didn't have a dedicated date night that week). We enjoyed watching many of the ABC Family 25 Days of Christmas movies, playing together, having a birthday party for Jesus, making tortilla snowflakes, eating homemade marshmallows and drinking hot chocolate, and attempting the Christmas Eve service (since Anthony leads I'm on my own with the boys and Reed doesn't know how to be quiet or sit still, so we made it through one song before going down to the nursery. We came back up for the candle lit ending).

Project 52: Date 9

Two weeks ago our date night included some Christmas favorites- egg nog and peanut butter bars. While indulged we played Bananagrams. The words had to be "Christmassy" words. I realized that you can rationalize pretty much any words into the category that you use in this game. My favorites included- "Lou" and "Laura" (according to Anthony they are the names we will choose between should we have a Christmas baby someday), "jags" (rough edges on packaging), "eieio" (what the animals in the stable said), "strip" (wrapping paper off of gifts) and "nativity."

Project 52: Date 8

Anthony had the day off from work, a gift card to buy new suits for work, and my parents were in town. It was a given. This weeks date was going to be spent suit shopping without kids. I was excited especially since we left after putting the kids down for their nap and my mom said to be back by bedtime. Wow. I don't think we've both been together without kids for that long in a long time if ever. We spent the gift card (bought the only suit in A's big and tall size that the store had) and then planned to go to Burger King for dinner, only we were in the wrong lane so we ended up at Wendy's. It was super fun to be out together without kids for multiple consecutive hours!

Project 52: Date 7

Two weeks ago I had an idea of what I wanted to do for our date. Lack of explaining that combined with a busy week that included decorating the house right before our scheduled date time led to a disagreement that pretty much ruined the night. Thankfully we made up for it and had "take 2" the next night. We spent some time doing some internet Christmas shopping. To make internet shopping as romantic as it gets, we lit candles and laid in bed together.

Project 52: Date 6

This week's date happened on Thanksgiving night.

We ate our "meal" at lunch time so we had grandma and grandpa available to babysit that evening. We should have planned better since we could have really left whenever we wanted. We waited until an hour before bedtime which didn't give us much time to be gone. Anyway, we went to Walmart and then drove around looking to see what was opened. Aside from the line of people waiting to get into Toys R Us (it opened at 10pm that night) there wasn't much. We drove by Ruby Tuesdays. It looked closed but I noticed that the salad bar was stocked. We drove into the parking lot to find people inside and ended up sharing dessert at the bar. We were told we were the 6th customers of the day. I'm sure our shared dessert was a let down as far as tips are concerned, but we were too cheap to pay for a full dinner and weren't hungry enough for it anyway. It was nice to go out without unbuckling car seats etc and next time we have free child care I will put more thought into what we will do!

Project 52: Date 5

Here's what we did for this week's date:


You may be thinkng, "wow they went away together somewhere." Don't be jealous. Our date consisted of literally packing our bags. We were leaving the following morning for our Thanksgiving vacation, so the night was spent getting everything together that we would need for the 11+ hour drive. While the night may not have been quality time spent together, we did enjoy time together in the car the next day. Several funny things happened along the way that is still making us laugh. One of the best parts about going on this trip is that we are at the grandparents house and they will be watching the kids for this week's date, so we'll get to leave the house this time!! Come back next week to see what we did (because I still don't know where we will go :)

Project 52: Date 4

Anthony said he did not have any ideas and we were both in need of some relaxation so I pulled this idea out of a "Little Black Date Book" that I made him several years ago for Christmas (I'll try to post those ideas sometime in the future).


I had candle holders, tea light candles, scented beach candle, sand, shells, rocks, and massage oil on hand. I purchased some unscented candles, tea light holders, and sparkling cider from the Dollar Store. I got some apple cake from a local Amish family that sells baked goods in town. I used Pandora with a combination of Mystic Sea by Thomas Kinkade and Ocean Waves to set to mood.

Everything came together very nicely. We were both extremely surprised by how warm the candles made the room and really helped set a relaxing environment. We also learned that Pandora does not work well if another computer is downloading something; so we had periodic moments of silence. Regardless of the internet issues, we had a wonderful evening together. And now that the weather has gotten colder, I want the candle warmth back :)

Lessons I'm Learning: Being Intentional

Intentional.

It's the new word that guides much of what I do. The Lord has been showing me that there were certain areas of my life that I needed to be intentional about making happen. Too often I was just hoping that they would happen and they never did. I recently wrote in my journal about the areas I wanted to improve in. They were:

*playing with Graham and Reed
*weekly date nights with Anthony
*teaching Graham
*memorizing scripture
*getting up early to have my time with God

Here's how I'm hoping to become more intentional in these areas:

*Playing with Graham and Reed: It might seem surprising that this would be on my list. I'm a stay at home mom. Aren't I playing with them all the time? It just seems like the "things to do" always get in the way and so many nights I go to bed feeling guilty that I didn't sit and play with them. Then there are the times when I do play with them and I feel guilty that I'm not doing one of the 1000 things on my mental to-do list.

To get beyond this, I'm trying really hard to get past the guilt. It's certainly not accomplishing anything. I'm trying to make it more of a priority to stop what I'm working on when they wake up from naps and play a little before I work on dinner. I'd love to play again after dinner, but I don't want to set the standard too high! I know it won't be achieved everyday. But the days it does, I know I'll feel good :)

*Weekly date nights: This is being accomplished with Project 52: Date Nights. I know we're enjoying it!

*Teaching Graham: He goes to preschool twice a week, but I've been trying to do more specific learning activities with him as well. I'll do a more detailed post about this in the days to come, but many of the ideas I'm using have come from ABC Jesus Loves Me and The Letter of the Week Curriculum. Both are free resources that I've taken the parts that I really like. We're still working on finding the right combination of activities to keep his attention. Some days he has does 5 minutes and others have been much longer. I've been enjoying this time with him.

*Memorizing Scripture: I can't find it now, but I was working on some Awana stuff and read a quote that said I can't expect these kids to learn if I'm not doing it myself. (**updated: I found the link!) What a slap in the face. I've known that I needed to work harder at this. I am learning the verses that Graham has to learn as well as the ones the kids in my group learn, but most of this was just from teaching it to them. I wasn't being intentional about learning verses for myself.

I recently read a series of blog posts on memorization that led me to this video:

and a link to this scripture memory system. I think this system will really work for me. I made my dividers and found an index card binder rather than box to store them in. My plan is to write the verse on the front and the first letters of each word in the verse on the back. I hope I'm able to stick with it and most important hide His Words in my heart!

*Getting up early to have my time with God: I didn't want to do this. I decided a couple of weeks ago to give it a try. For the first time since Reed had been born, I set my alarm. Since I've started, the boys have been sleeping a little later (although now that the clocks have changed that might not be the case) so I've been able to have a time of prayer and reading the Word that is mostly uninterrupted. By the time I'm done they are both awake. Some mornings Graham has curled up on the couch with me and we pray together. It's becoming a sweet time of day that I am looking forward to. Now we are working on filling in all of the other things that need to happen in the morning to cultivate an efficient and effective morning routine.

I found this post with a recommendation for this e-book to help maximize the morning. I have not read it yet, but hope to go through it soon.

Project 52: Date 3

In my effort to not fall asleep this week

I decided to keep us active by playing A Minute to Win It.

The Invitation

This was emailed to Anthony
along with this link to select three games to play.
I also picked three.
We gathered supplies and started playing after the boys were in bed.

The first game was Shoe Fly Shoe that we did not get pictures of.
We had to fling shoes onto a table (we used the couch).
It was pretty easy, since we got most of them on.
Anthony won.


The second game was Johnny Applestack.
We had to stack 5 apples on top of each other.
Anthony was close, but I won!

The next game was Speed Eraser.
We had to bounce pencils into the pot.
I think Anthony won this one.

Next we played Rapid Fire.
We had to shoot rubber bands at cups and knock them all off the table.

We both finished this one and I'm still picking up rubber bands today!

We moved around by playing Defying Gravity.
We had to keep three balloons in the air for one minute.
This was pretty much impossible.
Our ceilings were not high enough and we only made it 5-10 seconds before one hit the floor.

Our final game was Wheel of a Deal.
We had to sort 20 cards into 5 piles, one at a time.
Neither of us finished this one.

Project 52: Date 2

Anthony planned Date 2. He mentioned something to me on Tuesday asking if I was looking forward to Thursday night. I said "YES!" He said it probably would be lame (or something like that) but that we would have fun. I was excited that he already had come up with something. We called this the "Random Date."

(I made up the invitation after the fact since I know A doesn't want to learn how to use Scrapbook Factory :)

Anthony set up an air mattress on the porch along with his laptop and a bowl of Sour Patch Kids, Fizzy Skittles, M & M's, and Reece's Pieces. I was told that we would be feeding each other the candy rather than ourselves. I was then told to pick a number from 1-20 and 1-100. We used the laptop to watch an instant movie on our Netflix account. The first number determined the genre of movie and the second determined the movie we would watch. We would then have to watch 10 minutes of the movie and could pick another or keep watching. I ended up picking comedy and the movie was Dance Flick. It had some funny but totally unrealistic moments in the beginning. When he explained to me that it was supposed to be like Scary Movie I got into it a little more. We watched for 10 minutes and I picked again. The first was The Fly 2 which he said he had seen and I wasn't interested. I picked a third time and came up with Stuart Little 3. We went back to Dance Flick and watched some more. Then I fell asleep. Next week's date will not involve laying down in dark places since I cannot handle that at that time of day!

I was very proud of Anthony for coming up with something creative like this. The movie may not have been the best, but it was still a fun night together.

Project 52: Date 1

I was really pleased with how Date 1 came together. When I was doing my initial reading on the project, I found a game called First Words and made a mental note that I wanted to incorporate that at some point. Thursday rolled around and I had not thought of anything else so I knew that was something easy that we could do. I wanted to make the night more than the game, partly because I thought it might go quickly. I tried to think of other things that went along with "one" or "first" (and in the midst of it realized that this was our "first" date following the pledge date so I was super excited about how the title of the game worked with the date number we were on). Options that I came up with included reminiscing about our first date and first year of marriage, watching the movie 50 First Dates, making One and a Half Minute Cookies, watching a show for the "first" time, writing a story with our answers to First Words, and playing Uno. I also happened to be at the library that day and was going to see what books came up with one or first in the title but the card catalog was not working.

I settled on playing the game, writing the story, and watching a show together for the first time.

Here is the invitation that I completed Thursday afternoon. Since A was off from work that day I just set it as the desktop wallpaper instead of emailing it to him.


I'm trying to be a little mysterious and not come out and tell him all the details, plus it might give me extra time to put the details together but still send him the invitation earlier in the week (if the invitation is made more than a couple of hours in advance :)

The Date

We played the game and I must say it was harder than I expected. We alternated saying the word on the word card and the other person said what came to mind first. Several times I could not figure out the first thing so I had nothing to say. Thankfully A has such a clever mind that his answers often led to fits of laughter which was my goal in selecting this one.

After playing the game we laid out the word cards and they really wrote their own story. Here it is in all its glory (italics are words we called out and bold are the first words that came to mind)-



Once upon a time there was a boy named Hilarious Harry (who also had the name Buttswick). It was summer winter which meant it was time for birthday 27. He opened his present and in the gift box was a modern television. He planned to watch 27 movies to celebrate. The movies included:

Free Braveheart
Fun Loving Scary Monster
Boring Notebooks
Sports Definitions
Chore Chore
Winter Wonderland
Fluffy French Bambi Family
Childhood Memories
Money Tree
Dark Night
Cold Temperature
Messy Brown Annoying Habits
Foul Language Flower Shopping
Career Minded
Easy Button
Country Ham Shindig Bake
Toy Sheep
Fast Car Hot Ticket
Silicone Bathroom
Store Front
Action Children
Deer Hunting Outdoors
Night Museum
Color Purple
Music Big Notes
Baseball TV
Wrapped Candy

After that we watched the first episode of Outsourced on Hulu. I saw the first scene before falling asleep. Pretty pathetic since it was only 22 minutes. A is planning this weeks date, so hopefully I won't fall asleep!

Here's an opportunity for you to join the fun: pick a movie title and tell me what you think it is about.

Project 52: Date Nights

On Prayer of Hannah last week, I read about:

It is hosted by www.simplymodernmom.com.  The goal is to set aside time each week as a date night.  You come up with different ideas and then post on your blog what you do each week and link back to her blog.  She has been doing it since the beginning of the year so we are a little late, but it's never too late to start and I know this is something we need.  We both tend to do our own thing each night after the boys are in bed.  As Anthony affirmed on our first date this week, I'm good at watching tv and he is good at playing video games, so dedicated time together will be good for us.  I'm really excited about some of the ideas other have come up with.  For our first date I emailed this invitation to him:

Julia was in town so we had a babysitter in place.  The plan was to take Subway and eat by the water while I introduced him to the Project 52: Date Night and we worked on our pledge.  We ended up going to a Chinese restaurant, then to Verizon to discuss cell phone options, and browsing Walmart for R's Halloween costume.  We drove to a random parking at the hospital across the street to work on the pledge.  It was time ALONE together, so what if it didn't follow the plan (and does anything ever follow "the plan").

Here's our pledge:

I'm planning on printing it as a 4 x 6 picture for us to each sign and place a copy in our Bible's so we had the daily reminder.