Marriage in the Chaos

Unique Wedding Songs for the Big Day

Choosing the right songs for your wedding day set the tone for the entire event. Music creates the soundtrack for the day. That sounds like a lot of pressure. The good news is that it’s the one day you’re allowed to make it about what you want. Find unique wedding songs to help personalize your celebration.

It’s your day. Songs that are personal for you, have history for you as a couple, or fit your taste are ultimately the best choice.If you’re looking for an upbeat, happy vibe, you’ll want to choose songs that fit that criteria. If you’re wanting to set the stage for romance, the right songs will go a long way. Whatever mood you want to set, music is the place to start.

Have you ever had one of those summers where you go to four weddings and all of them seem to play the same exact songs? Don’t choose the hits of the year or songs that are played to death.

Personally, I prefer to find underrated or uncommon songs. I’m a lyrics person, so for me, it’s all about the words.

Whether you’re into lyrics or melody, the following lists will help you find the perfect song for your wedding.

Unique Wedding Songs:

Your Man by Josh Sahunta

I’m partial to this one because we were fortunate enough to have Josh sing this song live as our daughter walked down the aisle in our backyard last year for her wedding. Josh wrote it the year before for his wife to walk down the aisle to at their wedding so you know it’s a special one.

It was a precious moment when Josh sang this as our oldest daughter walked on the grass towards her soon-to-be husband.

“Sometimes, I feel I’m dreaming
You’re too good to be true
I’d spend all of my hours
Just to prove it to you

And I would wait my whole life just to hold your hand
And do it all again just for you to understand
That I won’t leave your side if things don’t go as planned
I give all I had ’cause I will be your man…”

Start the Day by Aaron Howard

This song to me is relationship goals. Listen to the lyrics and you’ll see what I mean. A marriage built on this foundation will be a strong one.

My husband and I were at a small bar in Arizona for our anniversary and Aaron was playing cover songs. We soon discovered that the other two couples there that night were also celebrating their anniversaries which were on the exact date of ours! Upon hearing the story, Aaron sang us an original he had written inspired by an elderly couple he had seen walking hand in hand, seemingly still very much in love. This was that song.

The Story by Brandi Carlile

There’s something so raw and earnest about this one. It’s endearing in a bit of an angsty way. Perfect for a unique couple. Great for a mature relationship as well.

I Love You More by Avery Anna

“I love you more than any storm that’s coming. Let the sky keep falling. Yeah, the world’s got nothing on us.” This song makes you feel as if together, you can take on the whole world.

That’s What Love Is by Alexandra Kay

This song pays tribute to the road and hardships before getting to the wedding day as well as touching on the journey yet to come. “Here’s to the nights that we spent crying. The weight of the world hanging on our shoulders…Felt like the rain would never quit. But you took my hand and we slow danced through all of it.”

Never ‘Til Now by Ashley Cooke and Brett Young

If you’re someone who never pictured yourself settling down and then you met the one you can’t live without, this is the tune for you.

Stuck Like Glue by Sugarland

Looking for something upbeat, fun, and even a bit cheeky? This one is great, especially for long time couples who are finally tying the knot.

Fall Into Me by Forest Blakk

With lyrics like “I’d fall for you twice if that’s what you wanted. I’d give you my life from now till forever. I’m falling in love with you over and over again.”, it’s easy to see how this one made our list.

I’d Leave My Happy Home for You by Josh Sahunta

“You take me deeper than possessions. This love is my confession to you. And all this time I’ve been searching for an answer and you’re the one my heart is running to.”

Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles

This iconic song is great for getting toes tapping and smiles broadening.

All I Want Is You by U2

I couldn’t create a list of love songs without including at least one from U2. My husband is a huge fan so this is my little nod to him. Hopefully your marriage ends on a happier note than the music video!

I Want It All by Kat & Alex

The fact that these two are real life sweethearts who recently married just makes this song that much sweeter!

When I Found You by Jasmine Rae

Obviously written specifically as a wedding song, this one isn’t as obscure as some of the others, but it’s worth a look. After all, finding someone who helps you find yourself is really what it’s all about. “When I found you, I found my safety and I let it change me and open my world. When I found you, I found myself.”

Because You Loved Me by Celine Dion

This was the most popular wedding song in 1996. It’s not heard often at events anymore, but its message still holds up. It can also be used as a father-daughter dance. You can find other songs for the father-daughter dance here.

Carefully choose unique wedding songs for your ceremony, walk down the aisle, first dance, and reception. Consider your own favourites or melodies that hold special meaning for you because of the memories behind them.

Older Love Songs that Stand the Test of Time:

How Long Will I Love You by Ellie Goulding (originally by the Waterboys)
Only Wanna Be With You by Hootie and the Blowfish
Signed, Sealed, Delivered by Stevie Wonder (great for while you’re signing the marriage papers)
Have I Told You Lately by Van Morrison
When a Man Loves a Woman by Percy Sledge

What unusual or uncommon song did you have at your wedding?

How Adoption Impacts a Marriage

By Sharla Kostelyk

I love adoption and do not write this article to deter anyone from adopting, but to strengthen the potential success for families who do choose this road. One of the things that is spoken of very seldom within the adoption community is the effect that it will have on your marriage relationship.Though the actual statistics seem elusive at best, divorce rates among adoptive parents are reported to be higher than that of the general population. Parenting children with special needs and infertility are also two factors that increase divorce rates and those are present in many adoptive homes. While that is not good news for adoptive parents, there are things that can be done to help protect your marriage.

Some of the things that can place a strain on even the strongest of marriages for adoptive families include:

Public Scrutiny – When people birth their children, for the most part, strangers don’t come up to them at the grocery store and question their parenting choices and decisions. Adoptive parents are scrutinized for everything from what type of adoption they choose to pursue to their choice to bottle or breastfeed, to their discipline methods, to their stand on Immunization, to their changing or keeping their child’s first given name, to the way in which they choose to incorporate their child’s culture, to their decision to be or not be a multi-racial family, to their methods of attachment, to the foods they feed their children. People stare at us in public and come up and ask us questions almost every time we go out. Add to that the pressure to be the best parent possible because a birth mother is entrusting you to raise the most precious thing imaginable or an entire country has allowed you to take one of their most important natural resources and that’s a pretty weighty thing!

And then of course there is that most intrusive scrutiny of all – the home study. This is where a complete stranger comes into your home and because they have the title of Social Worker, they are allowed to ask you all kinds of intimate details and give their opinions of your parenting (even if they are 19 years old and have no children or nieces or nephews, but I digress!) and they ask about your sex life and about your childhood and about the whys of all the decisions you’ve made. I am not saying that checks and balances should not be put in place. I am merely pointing out that all this public scrutiny and pressure can put a strain on a relationship over time.

Sleep Deprivation – This is not unique to adoptive families but can be exaggerated by things such as time change/jet lag in the case of international adoption, drug or alcohol exposure of a baby prenatally, and of course the most obvious – that adoptive families tend to have larger families, making their years of sleep deprivation longer. Lack of sleep can change your perspective on many things and if you’re too tired at the end of the day, you don’t take the time to talk or perhaps to do other things that may be critical for a healthy marriage.

Special Needs – Adoption increases the chances that you will have a child with special needs and this alone ups your chances of divorce. Of our five adopted children, five have special needs. Among the most obvious special needs of adopted children are those related to prenatal exposures such as FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder) and Fetal Drug Effect, sensory processing disorder, ADHD, Reactive Attachment Disorder, and Developmental Trauma Disorder or PTSD.

Parenting a special needs child creates less time together as you run around to specialists and appointments and make decisions that most parents don’t even have to think about and you and your spouse may not agree on the answers. Then there is dealing with the everyday, be it medical crisises or behavior or safety issues. It can be exhausting. You can also read these tips for parenting a special needs child.

Infertility – Many come to adoption after years of infertility. The stress of that and the strain that can put on a relationship, on a sex life, on finances, is significant. Some infertility treatments cause mood swings for the wife which can be pretty unpleasant in a marriage too. So now these couples who have already suffered so much hurt and loss and grief embark on another road of ups and downs where the outcome is not always clear and the scars of the years of infertility are still there. The hurts are often still raw and for some, that pain never goes away. For others, they come to the realization that adoption wasn’t meant for them to be Plan B but was God’s plan A for their family all along.

Financial Strain – The number one cause of divorce in Canada and the United States is conflict over finances. Adoption affects this in the following ways…infertility treatments are very expensive and some couples have already wiped out all their savings on that before they even get to adoption…domestic open adoption, private adoption, and International adoption are all very expensive…adoptive families tend to be larger which is expensive in itself. So adoption costs more (unless you adopt kids in the care of the Canadian or U.S. government in which case that is free but their risk of Special Needs is much higher and caring for Special Needs kids is more expensive, so the rule still applies) than birthing your children which could lead to additional financial stress.

Disparity – In almost all cases of adoption, one spouse wants it more than the other. Sometimes, they both really want it, but often one is the driving force while the other is going along with it to make their spouse happy. That can obviously cause tremendous strain later on if there are problems adjusting. This type of disparity gives room for a lot of resentment to build.

Conflict – In any marriage, there are so many potential areas for conflict but the ones added by adoption may include things like disagreeing on birth family contact, discipline with really challenging behaviours, how to work on attachment, how to deal with questions in public, what to tell your children regarding their history, and adopting future children from the same birth mother.

There is a lot of talk in the adoption world about preparing yourself for attachment issues and toddler tantrums and parasites but preparing your marriage is rarely, if ever, mentioned.

Those that are still waiting could add some books to their reading list other than the typical parenting and adoption books. I would recommend starting with “Love and Respect” or “The Five Love Languages“. For less financial stress, I would HIGHLY recommend you getting “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey. Not only will it help alleviate some of the financial stress, but it will get you communicating as a couple about it.

The first year home with your child may be difficult on your marriage. As a couple, you will have far less time for each other and your relationship will undergo some major changes. As a family, there is a lot of adjustments to be made, so if at all possible, just get through that first year any way you can and don’t make any life-changing decisions until after that first year.

I am by no means an expert on marriage. There were years where my husband and I barely managed to stay together, but we held on and have now been married for 21 years. When we were at our lowest point, marriage counselling helped, as did changing our communication styles, but what we found to be the most effective prescription for our marriage was instituting a weekly date night. I have suggested it to other couples who have seen it turn their marriages around as well. We have some set rules for our date nights to increase the impact they have on our marriage. We have a set night each week that is our date night regardless of circumstances. If we can’t find a babysitter, we have an at-home date night. If we don’t have much money, we do something that’s free. Putting in that time commitment and being able to be a couple once a week instead of just parents was the magic for us.

Protect your marriage by:

– working on your communication,

– putting in place weekly or at least monthly date nights,

– budget, attend marriage counselling or marriage retreats or seminars,

– take care of your own self-care and encourage your spouse to do the same.

Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

Date Night Ideas

The Date Night Rules

By Sharla Kostelyk

Date nights saved our marriage. That might sound dramatic, but I believe it to be absolutely true. A number of years ago, we had a marriage crisis and went into counselling. The counselling helped somewhat but I don’t believe it would have saved our marriage.

During one session at the height of our crisis, the counsellor suggested that we turn our appointments into mini dates by going for lunch afterwards. We did that day and each week afterwards.

Image Copyright: deagreez / 123RF Stock Photo

Before long, we were looking forward to our lunches together after counselling and began to plan other activities. Soon, we were making a day of it. We went for a walk through the river valley, to the food trucks downtown, visited an art gallery, saw a comedian, even went indoor rock climbing. We began to anticipate spending time together. If for some reason, we skipped a week, we missed our time together. We started to remember the things we liked about each other.

Life circumstances eventually crept in and we stopped going for counselling which also meant we stopped our weekly dates. Cracks began to form in our marriage again and the old ones became wider until it was like we were standing on opposite sides of a deep divide.

It was then that we made the decision to implement weekly date nights. As the parents of 7, we could have made every excuse as to why once a week would be too difficult to manage…not enough time, not enough money (our date nights have been much cheaper than a divorce would have been!), no child care, but we also had a lot at stake and we knew there could be no excuses. We came up with these date night rules.

Since we started this a year and a half, so much has changed. There are still stressors in our marriage. We are still two people who come to this with different upbringings and communication styles. We still argue here and there. But we see more positives than negatives. I think one of the biggest things that has surprised me about the date nights is how much they began to impact the rest of our week.

As we learned more about each other and started to relax and have fun together, I began to notice my husband more, to think of him more often during the day which would sometimes lead to me sending him a short text just to say I was thinking of him. He would sometimes remember things I had told him on a date night and we had more to talk to each other about the rest of the week. The more time we spent together, the more time we wanted to spend together. It wasn’t a quick fix. It took months for us to relax more and see the benefits of this. At first, it was hard for us to stick to the date night rules but once we did, we saw immediate results.

The date night rules:

Non-negotiable. We chose Wednesday nights. If one of us gets invited to something else on a Wednesday or something comes up, date night trumps whatever it is. This shows that the marriage and the other person is a priority. It not only demonstrates that to each other, it also sends that message to the world. People in our circle know that Wednesday night is our date night.

There have of course been circumstances that are exceptions, but we discuss them together and for the odd exception, we reschedule for another night that week.

Issues are off limits. Date night is not time for “discussion” or therapy. It is not a venue to air your grievances. It is a time to enjoy each other’s company and get to know each other more intimately. No hot button topics, no finishing fights.

It is tempting when you get so little time alone together to use date nights as the time to make decisions and talk things out, but avoid the temptation.

Take turns planning. By taking turns to plan the date, the pressure is not on one person. This also leads to more fun as sometimes we try to outdo each other or surprise each other. Sometimes we plan something with the other person in mind which is valuable in our relationship and other times, we plan what we ourselves like which is also valuable as it allows you to still be yourself within the relationship and allows your spouse to learn more about you and your likes.

No excuses. If the babysitter cancels or you can’t get a babysitter, make an at-home date night. We sometimes play a board game or watch a movie or have charcuterie in our living room while we talk. If there is no money in the budget for a date, take a picnic to a park, go for a drive or visit showhomes, build Lego together, or make supper together in the kitchen after the kids are asleep.

Have fun. Life is stressful and the day-to-day can be monotonous. Make these date nights something to look forward to. They don’t have to be elaborate. Just walking together hand-in-hand or swinging on the swings at a playground while you talk about your hopes and dreams can make a pretty memorable night. Keep things light. Enjoy each other. It’s okay if you just go to a movie or dinner most of the time, but once in awhile, do an activity together. Go bowling, go on a double date with another couple, try out an escape room, play mini golf, take a cooking class.

Image Copyright: rawpixel / 123RF Stock Photo

How date nights saved our marriage:

we saw each other as people again
we talked more
we fought less
we relaxed around each other
over time, we began to look forward to our time together and told each other so

(that is a shower note The Husband wrote me a few weeks ago and my reply)

friends noticed the change in our marriage and some began their own weekly date nights with the same rules
this sometimes led to double dates which were fun and expanded our support network
our kids noticed less tension and arguing
our home became more peaceful
we were able to discuss deep topics, our faith, our hopes and dreams, our values
we remembered what we used to like about each other
we laughed together
our kids saw the importance we placed on our marriage
we made our marriage a priority
we made memories
we remembered what it is that we are fighting for
we are growing a relationship that is not only about the kids
we like each other again

If you’re looking for date night ideas to keep things interesting, here are 175 of them!

I know there are many obstacles standing in the way of a weekly date night but as I see many marriages ending around me, I feel more and more strongly that none of those should get in the way. If you don’t have child care, perhaps there is another couple who would also like to have a date night that you could swap child care with. If there isn’t extra money in the budget, either re-work the budget or go on free dates.

Movie Marathon Date

By Sharla Kostelyk

Marriage can be challenging at the best of times, but when you have seven kids, five with special needs, it can sometimes feel downright impossible. Several years ago, we implemented a weekly date night and it has made a big difference. It gives us a chance to talk and be two humans instead of just two parents. But more than that, it lets us have fun again. We try to keep things interesting and are always on the hunt for new ideas. We take turns planning the dates which makes it fun because we sometimes try to outdo each other on the creativity.

Movie Marathon Date: tips to plan one and make the most of the time (tips to do it as cheaply as possible too) Disclaimer about the pictures: The Husband was actually happy to be there. Really he was! We just aren’t any good at taking selfies and his face reflects the attempts to get both of us and the movie poster into the picture!

Date “night” might not be the best description of this particular date because this was a marathon date as well as a movie marathon! It took a full day and evening. We left our house at 9:30 in the morning and didn’t get home until after 10 at night! Fortunately, our second oldest is a great babysitter and the kids had a lot of fun while we were away.

What made this way more fun than an average “movie and dinner” date was that we could compare the movies and anticipate the next one. Scheduling four movies meant that if one movie was a stinker (and one was!), it wasn’t a bust because we still had another movie to look forward to. Seeing four movies in one day gave us a lot to talk about. It felt a bit like an adventure too as we had to be sure to get to each one in time to get good seats.

We had a good laugh about one particular movie short that played at the beginning of all four movies. We loved it the first time, liked it the second time, were annoyed by it the third time, and giggled about it together the fourth time.

Another element that made the date fun was that we took a selfie in front of each movie poster before the movies and posted them on Facebook so our friends and families were interacting with us during the day and asking questions about the movies.

Normally, I wouldn’t recommend being on social media during a date, but in this case, we did it together and had fun responding to comments together so it added a little something to our time.

Tips to get the most out of a movie marathon date:

Go online to determine showtimes and calculate your itinerary. You will need to play around with the order of the movies in order to make the times work.
Run times do not include commercials and previews but do include end credits. Most theatres recommend that you give an additional 20 minutes to account for the previews and commercials before the film starts. Keep this in mind when determining your itinerary.
Buy all your tickets at once. When you first arrive, purchase all the tickets so that you aren’t disappointed later if a showing sells out and to save having to stand in line each time.
Choose a location that has a lot of showings to get the most out of your time and to ensure that you can see a variety of movie genres.
Plan ahead to save money. Look for coupons (sometimes on the back of cereal boxes) or discount codes. Ask for movie tickets for Christmas or birthdays. We used a combination of a gift card, a movie night out certificate that included popcorn and drinks along with two adult tickets, and free movies we had earned with points on our redemption card.

The shows we saw on our movie marathon date were Joy, Brooklyn, the Point Break remake, and Concussion. If you are afraid of heights like me, I wouldn’t recommend the 3D Point Break! The others were all very good.

Joy and Concussion were our favourites. We found both to be inspiring. The Husband and I both enjoy biographies and true stories so we are partial to that type of movie but they were very well done. It sure gave us a lot to talk about!

At the end of the fourth movie, there was one more movie that interested us that we would have had time to see but we decided to call it a day. We aren’t as young as we once were and we were afraid that five movies in a row may be pushing our ability to stay awake!

If you are looking for unique date night ideas to keep things interesting, you can read our list here.

72 Ways to Express Your Love

By Sharla Kostelyk

Total1.1K
Facebook23
Twitter6
Pinterest1.1K
Mix
Yummly0

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey towards having the life you want. It’s already impacted my life in positive ways and I hope it is helping you as well.

One of the ways that you can raise your level of happiness right now, today, is to tell the people you care about that you care about them. It sounds too simple, but most of the best things are!

72 Fun and Creative Ways to Express Your Love to your kids, spouse or friends

By expressing your love to your friends, family, significant other, or kids, you are not only improving their lives, you are improving your own as well. We all long to be noticed, to feel that we matter in someone’s life. By letting someone know that they matter to you, you are making a difference. This can’t help but make you feel good inside as well as brightening their day.

I’ve put together a list of 72 ways that you can express your love. Some of these may be most appropriate coming from a parent to a child while others may be best coming from a wife to a husband and others may work well for friends.

Keep in mind that there are 5 love languages so if you are saying to your child every day, “I love you”, but their love language is physical touch, a hug might make them feel more loved than your words would. Your challenge today is to choose one thing off this list and do it for someone you love.

1. Write “I love you” on the mirror in lipstick along with the person’s name. (don’t worry. It washes off!)

2. Include a love note in your child or spouse’s lunch to surprise them.

3. Cover a door with post-it notes expressing all the different things you appreciate about that person.

4. Write on a (fake) ten dollar bill “My life is richer because of you.”

My Life is Richer love note on money

5. Text a suggestive message to your spouse.

6. Fill a spray bottle with food coloring and water and write a message in the snow. (this one won’t work if you live in Florida!)

7. Light up when they come in the room. Let the look on your face say it all!

8. Say “I’m sorry.”

9. Buy them their favourite treat.

10. Say “thank you” for something specific that they do.

11. Give them a hug.

12. Sing them or play them a song that expresses how you feel. Bonus points if you make the song up!

13. Tell someone else how much you appreciate that person.

14. Make their favourite meal.

15. Sneak a note under the sun visor in their car so that the next time they put it down, it will fall on them unexpectedly. This one might be particularly fun to do with your newly driving teenagers!

16. Call a friend up just to tell them that they are important to you.

17. Give them a backscratch.

18. Leave magic love notes for your kids if you’re going to be away.

19. Bring someone flowers just because. A few weeks ago, my friend Richelle brought me flowers after a hard month but said they were in celebration of an achievement I had had. It really helped me reframe my thoughts and every time I saw them on the counter, I was reminded that someone had thought of me.

20. Read your child a sappy book. These are our favourite sentimental children’s books.

21. Go on a one-on-one date with your child or spouse or friend.

22. Listen, really listen.

23. Snuggle.

24. Leave a trail of papers on the floor, each one with a memory made with that person and ending with a page that says “My best memories have you in them.”

25. Put down your phone. Make eye contact.

26. Pray with them. Often, we tell our friends or loved ones that we will pray for them. This time, pray with them right at that moment out loud.

72 Ways to Express Your Love

27. Bring them some homemade cookies.

28. Use Crayola window writers to draw hearts or write messages on their car window or house windows. This again might be fun to do for your teenager. It wipes off easily so they can erase it before their friends see and tease them!

29. Play with them. This one goes for your kids but also for your friends or spouse. Swing at the playground, play tag, have a tea party!

30. Offer to run an errand for them to make things easier for them because you appreciate all that they do.

31. Take extra time when doing tuck-ins with your kids.

32. Give a gift without there being an occasion.

33. Say “I’m glad you’re you.”

34. Record a message into a card or book. You can even buy a personal alarm clock that would let you record a “Good morning my love. Hope you have a great day!” message.

35. Make a homemade card with a handwritten message.

36. Look through old photo albums together and reminisce.

37. Spell out the person’s name in strawberries or make a pancake in the shape of the first letter of their name.

38. Put alerts on your loved one’s phone that will beep with messages like “Thinking of you” or “You’re fabulous”.

39. Drop off their favourite tea or coffee.

40. Let them overhear you gushing about them to someone else.

41. Make a coupon book for them specific to the things they like. My oldest daughter Miss Optimism (who is 12) made one for me with coupons for things like “water from the water cooler”, “a Slurpee”, “breakfast in bed”, “nachos”, and “help cleaning up”. She knows me well! The ones she made for my husband said things like “pedicure”, “back scratch”, “lunch for your work”. What made them so special was that she had thought about the things we each like. (oh, and the breakfast in bed was fabulous! hash browns, eggs, grapefruit, bacon, and tea…she is a treasure!)

42. Drop everything. Once in awhile, drop everything if someone you care about phones or ask you to go for coffee. It will show them how important they are to you.

43. Write a letter…and mail it, even if it’s to someone in your own house. Getting mail is special. I once wrote a letter to a former teacher to let her know that her pushing me and believing in me had made a difference.

44. Draw a heart or spell out “I love you” on their back with your fingers.

45. Create a scavenger hunt either with notes about what you love about them or little treats you know are their favourite.

46. Send magic message bananas in their lunch.

47. Teach your kids the “I love you” sign in sign language. It becomes a great code for when they are in a sports or art class and you can send it to them from across the room. I also do it with my kids in the rear view mirror when we’re in the van. They love it!

48. Call a friend and say that you are going to pick her/him up and you have two hours to do whatever she/he needs.

49. Make a time capsule of your relationship.

50. Carve your initials and theirs into a tree.

51. Get the kids babysat out of the house and surprise your husband when he gets home by answering the door in an apron.

52. Call your in-laws to let them know what a good job they did raising your spouse.

53. Cut sandwiches into hearts.

54. Call a radio station to dedicate a song to someone you love.

55. Tape papers to your kids’ backs. Write one thing you appreciate about each of them on their paper and have them do the same for each other.

56. Put a note in their shoe.

57. Leave a treat under their pillow.

58. Create a special CD or playlist of songs for your friend or spouse.

59. Choose one member of your family to honour for a day. Have everyone share the things they appreciate about that person and give them the royal treatment all day.

60. Buy heart stickers at the dollar store and put them on your kids’ or nieces and nephews’ faces just to be silly and remind them they are loved.

61. Hang your kids’ drawings or certificates of accomplishment in a prominent place so they can see your pride in their achievements.

62. Let them help you.

63. Write a message on the toilet paper on the layer underneath what is showing to surprise the next person to use it.

64. The next time your child needs a bandaid, take a permanent marker and draw a heart on it.

65. Say yes. “Yes, I’ll colour with you.” “Yes, I’ll make you hot chocolate right now.” “Yes, we can play a game.” “Yes, we can stop at the playground.”

66. Go outside to wave good-bye, make silly faces, blow kisses, jump up and down…

67. Make a list of the things you know to be the most important to that person and put it somewhere you will see it to help you remember to prioritize those things.

68. Ask for help. Letting others help you shows that you trust them enough to rely on them.

69. Create a special tradition for just the two of you to share.

70. Keep your promises.

71. Make a slideshow or short movie to express your love.

72. Don’t wait to tell someone that they have impacted your life. We are not guaranteed tomorrow and living a life without regrets means telling people that you love them TODAY!

Join us this month as I share ways to help you move towards the life you want to live. Join me in the challenge. Ready to jump off the cliff?

Total1.1K
Facebook23
Twitter6
Pinterest1.1K
Mix
Yummly0

Inexpensive Date Night Ideas

By Sharla Kostelyk

Total11.9K
Facebook18
Twitter0
Pinterest11.9K
Mix
Yummly0

With Valentine’s Day approaching, I thought it might be an opportune time to talk about something I’ve become quite passionate about…dating your spouse.

The Importance of Dating in Marriage

For many, many years, my husband and I did not go on dates regularly. We went out just the two of us usually on our Anniversary and sometimes on our birthdays. I guess we figured that since we were already married, we didn’t need to date anymore. We were so wrong. With the pressures of our life as parents, we needed to date each other more than ever.

If you think of a marriage relationship as being like a car, consider regular dating like doing maintenance, changing the oil, getting tune-ups. If you don’t do maintenance, you could be heading towards a breakdown.

Regular dating creates shared experiences, improves communication, helps you to grow together and feel like a team. It also sends powerful messages to your children about the importance of your spouse and putting work into your relationship. This will help your kids to have more successful marriages themselves. We have discovered many times how much it means to our kids for us to date each other.

Dating Without Breaking the Bank

There was a point in our marriage when the lack of maintenance caught up to us and stressful life circumstances took a toll. One of the things we decided to do to salvage our relationship was to implement date night. At that point, given the circumstances, we began dating at least once a week. Obviously, if all of those dates were dinner and a movie, we would have run out of money quickly, so we got creative!

Creative Date Night ideas for couples. These are fun suggestions and most are inexpensive or free. Sometimes the dates that are the most memorable are the ones that cost nothing or very little. I am including a printable list of over 60 Date Night Ideas.

I would encourage you to give some a try. You could even cut the ideas into strips of paper and pull one out next date night for a real adventure!

Create a Rich History

When your dates are things that create a shared experience, you have more to draw on as a couple in hard times. You feel like a team, have inside jokes, have more to talk about, and get to know each other in a different way.

We found that once we started dating again, we laughed more and got along better. Some of our more creative dates have included doing olive oil and vinegar tasting at Evoolution, walking around the beautiful Legislature grounds in summer, eating from food trucks while listening to live music in the city square, going to the Italian market, touring Showhomes to look at wall colours and bathroom designs, and going indoor rock climbing which was not only a shared experience, but also a good trust building exercise.

What are your most memorable date nights with your spouse?

Read our Date Night Rules and how dating each other has saved our marriage.

If you are looking for more fun date night ideas both for going out or staying in, here are 175 more ideas.

Total11.9K
Facebook18
Twitter0
Pinterest11.9K
Mix
Yummly0