One of my focuses, especially for early 2017 as we add a new member, is to be more intentional about my time together with my little family. Am I skipping ahead to Fs with this goal? Nope, they all relate to D’s. Here’s how:

My husband’s name starts with a D- I also refer to him as my dearest sometimes. My son’s name starts with a D. In my blogging I usually just refer to him as my son or my kid, but now that I’ll have two kids, I believe I will start calling him little D in my writing for the next year or so. And finally, our second child doesn’t have a name yet, but she will be my Daughter. We haven’t made a big deal with a gender announcement because we would have been thrilled with a boy or a girl, but I know that this journey raising a daughter will be different than raising another son and I’m excited and nervous about what that will mean and confident it will be full of learning opportunities.

At the heart of my little family though, is my marriage. And that leads to a “D” I’ll be putting a particular focus on in 2017: DATING.

All through our marriage prep, our mentors and facilitators kept reminding us how important it is to keep dating your spouse, to stay connected and not fall into the routine of just being business partners or roommates. We definitely let regular date nights slip this past year between my husband traveling for his job and my insane sickness during this pregnancy. With a new baby on the way, I know setting aside time for just us amidst the lack of sleep and to-do lists is only going to get harder. So it is one of the things we feel is most important to intentionally focus on in the new year.

I’m not sure how our date nights will work- I love going out to dinner kid free but I’d also love to try some less traditional dates and I know my husband would love to have some outdoor hiking time next year (this will definitely have to happen later in the year once I recover from the baby!) I know some of them will probably stay at home dates- but they will NOT be flipping on the TV exhausted at the end of the day- they will be time together with conversation and thought.  Do any of you have advice on dating with small children and a tight budget? Does anyone have a favorite date night idea that goes beyond dinner and/or a movie? I’d love to hear them and I’m excited to share about some of what we do next year to focus on and grow our marriage!