Date Night

In September Landon and I decided to start something new....Date Night...with the kids. I was reading the Ensign this summer and one of the months it was all about family. One of the articles I read talked about ways that families could spend more time together. One of the suggestions that was made was to have date night with the kids. This family did date night with their teenagers, but I thought it would be something fun to start now and then hopefully our kids would still love doing it when they get older.

Landon and I discussed it and we decided to start a weekly date night. Every Thursday night we swap turns taking one of the kids out for date night. So, for example, one week it will be an Ellen & Mommy date and then the next week it is a Trevor & Daddy date. (We are only doing it with the older three because we figured that Kat gets enough attention from us right now.) We have been able to have a turn with each of our kids, and I love it!!!

Our dates don't always consist of doing something big. In fact, they are not meant to be a big deal, they are just meant to be time with each other. We do things like going to the library or out to get dessert or playing at the park. With four kids we have to split our attention between all of them most of the time. It is really nice to be able to spend one on one time with my kids. They each have such different personalities and I love them each individually. Date night has allowed us to start to focus more on each one of them and explore those different personalities further.

I look forward to each Thursday night and so do my kids. They keep track of whose turn it is and plan for the three weeks what they want to do on their next date night. I have loved the new meaning we gave....Date night!