Frugal Friday: Cheap Date Night

                             Date night out when we had a free babysitter... and yes, we were both wearing kilts.

Date night in our house is almost a foreign word, almost. With three small kids who are unable to watch themselves and babysitter fees on the rise (what happened to getting paid $5 an hour for some extra cash?), going out is nearly a luxury now. We have been blessed with some friends along the way who will watch our kids for free, which has been a marriage saver!   But when times are tough we have instituted the Date Night at Home!

 How to Have a Successful Night In:

Step 1: Skip the nap for the older kids so you can put them to bed early.

Step 2: Try to have the house as clean as possible so you can relax and that "one more thing" doesn't steal your time together.

Step 3: Get those kiddos to bed! Since ours are still young we can get them to bed at 7:30, but I know that may not be possible for everyone so if you know you are going to have to stay up past your normal bedtime consider getting some rest or drink some caffeine. You want to make sure you are awake and able to enjoy your time together, there is nothing worse than having your date fall asleep on you!

Step 4: Order take-away! So many sit down restaurants have a to go menu now which is great for a night in! Our favorite take away is Indian or Chinese. You could cook the dinner but this is your night off to, so save the romantic home made steak dinner for another night.

Step 5: Pick a place to eat the food! This may seem silly but now is your chance to eat dinner in a new place! Their are no kids you are teaching to eat at the table so be creative! Some ideas are: In bed ( Oh, how I miss the days of eating in bed), on your back porch, or in your bathtub (?). Okay, I was just kidding about the last one but my point is, try being adventurous!

Step 6: Eat! And of course talk and look deeply into each others eyes and whisper sweet nothings.... You get the idea.

We usually watch a movie but you can do whatever you want, it is your special time together. You can also enjoy the fact that you didn't pay for a babysitter and you probably saved some dollars and calories because you didn't have the option to order more.

Build your relationship on a firm foundation so that it can weather life's storms, spending quality and quantity time together will help build a lasting home!

Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light?

I am NOT a morning person! The alarm goes off and I do not jump out of bed ready for what the day brings, instead I hit the snooze button a few times or wait to hear the kids screaming bloody murder. I then slide out of bed, groggily walk around opening the various doors that hold mass chaos back, allowing  it to escape into the kitchen where it screams for food. I don't think most peoples chaos can scream or eat but mine definitely does! (I am pretty sure that chaotic mess of dishes in the sink could scream and eat too, especially the plate growing hair) I loathe my morning "routine," I really do want a change!

And so I have tried to be a "morning person" like my friends, who brag of all they have accomplished before a child even wakes. I long for devotions on the back porch while watching the sunrise, kissing my husband good bye while coherent ( this happens now but I usually end up hitting him, thinking there's a bug on my face), and enjoying a nice hot shower with out 3 children trying to break down the door. Yes, these all sound like things I also want in my life, but I can't seem to make it happen! And that is how I discovered this secret...

I have come to believe that the key to this morning joy, is going to bed early, ha, early to bed...I have no idea what that phrase means! By the time I scrape dried food off the TV, wrangle the toys into one place, throw the poopy clothes in the wash, and do the dreaded dishes, there is no more early left in my night. Oh, and squeeze that quality time with my husband in to there!  I wonder how all these woman manage to get all their chores done if they don't stay up late and than I think to myself, " If you would have gotten up early this morning you wouldn't be up doing these chores now!" Oh, the vicious cycle! So I throw my hands up in the air, I decide that being a morning person can wait till another day, and stay up till 1 Am playing Angry Birds on my cell phone.

Maybe it's not my destiny to be a morning person, or watch the sunrise with a cup of coffee in hand. That's okay with me because I just saw that meteor shower right before I fell asleep!

Please excuse any grammatical mistakes, as I was writing this my adorable children were whispering  how much they loved me into my ear. Oh, wait that was my daydream...