Marriage Matters

Happy Monday!  I hope you had a great weekend and got to enjoy some delicious game day food yesterday for the Super Bowl.  We didn't care which team won so it was extra fun to just sit back and enjoy the show.  

I thought I'd share the ways Kevin and I have been working together to show each other that our marriage matters.  We have loved each other for a long time, but it gets easy to get into routines and forget to do special things for your spouse.  So we work on it together and practice being a good spouse.  I thought I'd share some simple things that we've done over the last few months to show each other that we are a priority and we appreciate each other.  They don't have to be fancy or expensive things - fresh sheets, taking out the trash, calling during the day, stopping at the store on the way home - are all little things that go a long way.

I also want to say that we have our share of snippy moments (mostly mine), disagreements and times where we bug each other.  But, we make sure that we are both working hard to regularly show each other love in the midst of living life.

Kevin planned a sweet date night from start to finish for us on Friday.  He came home from work early, picked up coffee before we got on the road and we enjoyed some good conversation while the kids napped in the car.  We headed to shop at Target (my favorite), had dinner at a new burger restaurant in Indianapolis that he found a groupon for and enjoyed a fun evening.  Teddy's Burger Joint was family friendly, had live music that Olive loved and the food was pretty tasty.  I will say that at first I was a little hesitant because we'd be getting back home an hour after the kid's bedtimes.  I'm so glad I went along with his sweet plan because we had a great time.

Kevin took Olive out on a date and they came home with a giant Ben's pretzel to share with me.  Those are my favorite so it was fun to include Olive in on the surprise for me.

Kevin has mentioned before that he likes when I send him pictures of what the kids are doing during the day.  So I try to send him a picture each day of something fun we did.  He'll usually come home and ask Olive to tell him all about that activity.  Here is a picture of the kids playing at our library

Treats!  Once a week we try to stop by Kevin's office with treats.  Sometimes I'll be his favorite drinks for his fridge, a donut, a coffee or lunch.  We typically do our grocery shopping during the day so we will pick out treats for Kevin at the store.  I'll include Olive and ask her to pick out daddy's favorite things.  Then she's so happy to drop them off to him.  It breaks up his busy days a bit and we enjoy seeing him during the day.

We love celebrating the holidays so Kevin offered to pick up Panda Express for Chinese New Year so I didn't have to cook.  Holidays and a night off from cooking sounded great to me.

We were in TJ Maxx one weekend and the kids were not thrilled about it.  Fletcher needed a diaper change and the women's restroom was closed, Olive was asking to buy one of everything and Kevin was trying to spend a Christmas gift card.  I'd admired some things for the house, but abandoned them to take the kids to the car.  I figured Kevin would have a much better time shopping quietly.  So we headed to the car, changed diapers and listened to silly songs on the radio.  Kevin came strolling out of TJ with this plant and a huge smile on his face.  He used part of his gift card on some new pants for him and the rest on this plant for our family room.  What a sweet surprise!!

Both kids were super sick.  I wasn't getting much sleep and Kevin had to be at work prepping for his new semester.  He wrote me a sweet note and left it by the medicine station where I'd be sure to see it.  It was super encouraging during those long days.

What's something sweet you've done lately for your spouse??
I'm always looking for new ideas :)