Valentine's and a Hockey Surprise

I'm sharing a couple days later than I would have liked to but we are busy enjoying some family from out of town.  Hope you all had a very lovely Valentines!

The night before Valentines I decorated the breakfast table with heart plates, napkins, and foam stickers from Walmart.  I found the felt hearts at Joanns.  I decorated some Target Dollar Bin mailboxes with our first initial. 

Daddy surprised the girls with a rose for each of them.  The big girls got some valentine notecards and Pedi/Mani kits from the Target dollar bins as well.  Plus a necklace that I picked up for them at Walmart.   Little Sis got this movie:

Plus we all recieved a bunch of cards from our families :)

 

 My surprise for Daddy was a hockey game on Valentines with some friends from church!  He was so excited to go he went and put his Panthers jersey on as soon as he was done reading the printable I made to reveal the surprise. 

 We enjoyed some seafood stir-fry from the arena while watching from the comfort of a suite at the best spot in the house.....CENTER ICE!!

 Very excited to have a night out together!!

We also got to sit the third period right next to the ice, I've been to a few hockey games but never so close before and it was pretty cool!  The game was 0-0 until the other team scored a point during the over time.  Thank you to our family who helped with the girls so we could enjoy our Valentines together :)

Date night at home

This past weekend we had set up a babysitter in advance, just like I said I would try to monthly.  Then Little Sis went and got a cold :(  She was very whiny and clingy most of the week with a lingering cough that took almost two weeks to get rid of. 

 

We cancelled our sitter but still wanted some fun at home. 

We ordered in our favorite chicken wings added by a salad that I made, gotta eat your veggies!

{click here for this fun free game!}

After Little Sis went to bed we had fun playing "The Dating Diva's" Newlywed game.

We each answered their list of questions and then took turns to see what our spouse thought we would answer.  It was fun to answer the questions and really think and reminisce about our memories!

 

We wrapped up our date at home night with some DELICIOUS banana splits that I went out and got from a yummo ice cream store right around the corner.  Needless to say we were stuffed.

We had a great night in, eating some of our favorite foods and playing a fun and free game.  Oh and we definitely saved some money too :)
(Maybe next time I'll buy the fixings for banana splits and make it myself!!)

 

 

I link up here:
Monday's: A Better Mom

Tuesday's:Time-Warp Wife, A Bowl Full of Lemons

Wednesday's Women Living Well, Good Morning Girls

Thursday's Delightful Order

Friday's Comfy in the Kitchen, Tidy Mom

Make time to date!

My husband and I have been married for nine years but have known each other since we were fifteen!  We've known each other for more than half of our lives.  We had a lot of fun dating in high school, we loved doing anything as long as we were together.  Isn't that how young love goes?

We were so in love, we even had

pictures made together in high school.

Junior Prom

Fast Forward to 2012, we are more than double the age we were in the previous pictures, have three daughters, made a major career change and moved five times in the past four years!  We've been through a lot of ups, downs and trials but God has brought us through each and every one of them and continues to bless our family. 

{celebrating our ninth anniversary}

 

We went on our first family vacation this summer since going through flight school for the past two years.  We were staying with family so thankfully we were able to enjoy a couple of dates while we were there!  Here we are taking a walk on the beach that we would four wheel drive on during our high school years. 

We enjoyed an afternoon taking a horse carriage tour and snacking on some yumminess from a local cupcake store!

With my husbands work schedule being pretty demanding in this season of life we haven't gone on many dates lately.  This is something that we really need to make room for in our busy lives.  We don't have any family nearby, so we don't have the luxury of having built in babysitters, but we have found a babysitter from our church.   We get his work schedule usually a month in advance so I'm going to make it a priority to look at the calendar and get more dates scheduled! 

Our last date I kept our restaurant a surprise, I picked out a local buffalo wing restaurant, because we both love wings.  Early in the week I texted him a choice of activites we could go do after dinner. {Movie, bowling or ice skating}  We both grew up ice skating so he chose that and we had so much fun.  We were definitely one of the youngest couples in there but it was so fun to skate around holding my loves hand to keep me warm.  I am not kidding when I say that I felt 15 all over again! 

We all need to go out and do things that we use to enjoy during our dating years, sure its fun to go to a nice restaurant with a great view but I will take a fun date over that anytime! Who says you even have to leave the house to have a date night! 

We get busy with our family and work and forget to make our marriage a priority. I would love to plan for a date night for each month and look forward to having some more fun times to share with my husband.

If you need some help coming up with some fun dates, I've found some really great date ideas on pinterest.

Check out my pinterest board

titled "For my Love", by clicking on my button below.

Check out one of my favorite

blogs here for some fun date ideas!

I also have found some

really creative date night ideas here:

I'm linking up today here: