So I recently stumbled upon this blog,
Love Actually, a few months ago after my best friend mentioned the site to me. This blog as well as the
Dahling Dating Divas are my top favorite blogs right now. Why you ask? What these two blogs share in common is their love for love & marriage. It is the aim of both of these blogs, to give married women ideas to keep their marriage fun, exciting, and alive! One thing I love about these two blogs is that they offer dating ideas for those on a budget and offer free printables that you can use as well.
In October, I tried one of the date-night-in ideas on the Love Actually blog, called 'The Body Shop.' You can read more about the date-night and print off the free printables
here. The theme of the date-night was a car-shop. From food, attire, decorations, and movie, everything was themed around a car body shop. Each room of the house was also given a name, as a normal car body shop would have, i.e. inspection garage, maintenance shop, and car wash. Here are some pictures from our date night:
(The invitation to the date night, which I appropriately put on the dashboard inside his car before he left for work, and a small gift. The gift was garage door openers - not too exciting I know, but our garage door openers had been broken for awhile and I had been meaning to fix them. The date night gave me an excuse to go get them done, plus it kinda fit with the theme of our date night). You can download the invitation printable at the Love, Actually blog here.) (First stop - inspection garage. Here I gave him a mini gift for his car. You can download and print the free printable here at the Love, Actually blog.) (Second stop - time to fuel up! I decorated our dining room table the best way I could to fit with our date night theme. I think it turned out pretty well. For the free Love, Actually printable.) (Our feast: corn on the cob, spicy chicken wings, steak fries, celery sticks, and beer. Total guy food and super delicious!)
*The last stop was the car wash - not going to mention anything more. ;) To close the entire night, I had planned to watch 'Too Fast, Too Furious 2,' again the movie was about cars and the date night-in was car themed as well, but Raymond wanted to watch a war movie instead. Oh well, it was the thought that counts. Raymond and I had so much fun. I had never thought to do a date-night-in before, but I'm glad I tried it and I will definitely be planning more in the future. For this date night, I spent about $30, aside from food. This included all the decorations, attire, gifts, and paper utensils. I recommend going to The Dollar Tree for most of the date night supplies, it will definitely help you save money.
The 12 Days of Christmas...
I started doing the 12 Days of Christmas for my husband last year, and decided it was so much fun that I will definitely make it tradition in our family. Plus, it helped make Christmas shopping for him a lot easier. Whenever I asked him what he wanted for Christmas all he said was, "You." At the time, that didn't help me, but once I started thinking about the 12 Days of Christmas and reading a few blogs for ideas, I began to see how much of a servant I can be for my husband and to give him all of my love, which is all he truly wanted in the first place.
Instead of starting the 12 days on Christmas though, I start from the 12 days leading up to Christmas. Last year, I used the
S.H.M.I.L.Y Time blog for various ideas to do each day - which included acts of service, gifts, compliments, and fun activities. Some of the things I gave Ray were: 100 reasons why I love him, breakfast in bed, love notes & candy filled inside his work bag, compliments hidden throughout the house, in places I knew he would find them, and foot massage, which had the story of Jesus washing His disciples feet and Luke 7:36-50 for Ray to read, to name a few.
This year I will be doing the 12 Days of Christmas
Love, Actually style. I'm so excited for the 12 Days to begin and I already have ideas for next year too! This year he will be getting a gift each day and a note to go along, that explains the gift. Visit the Love, Actually blog above for the free printables. The delivery of the 12 Days of Christmas is a little different from last year. This year I put each note in it's own envelope and put the countdown on the front of the the envelope. I then attached all 12 envelopes with a clothespin to a Christmas garland that I have hanging from my stair rails and each gift is numbered and found under our Christmas tree too! Here are some pictures of the 12 envelopes:
For more ideas for the 12 Days of Christmas, check the Dahling Dating Divas blog
here.
Happy Dating Everyone!
