Envelope Gifts

Look at these colorful envelopes just setting up on the wall!  Surprise your spouse with Envelope Gifts: inside each envelope is a gift card to one of their favorite stores, a love note, a drawing from the kids, money, coupons (back rub, foot rub, favorite dinner/dessert) or whatever else you can fit in there!

I did this for my husband for his birthday week ( five days), and each day he would spin to see if he got to open 1, 2, or 3 envelopes that day.  Almost all the days he got to open 3, since his awesome wife put more 3's than any other number on the spinner ;).  You could just as easily use dice, or less envelopes.  This game creates tons of anticipation, which makes everything more fun, while gift giving! Have fun with this, there are so many directions you can take it!  Inspiration for this gift idea from www.thedatingdivas.com.

Happy loving,
Rachelle

Shutterfly Gifts

My awesome friend Robyn, told me about gifts from shutterfly.com, specifically the Videogram.  You can make a videogram that has all your pictures of you and your family or spouse, put music to it, and   give it as a gift all for $4.00-$10.00!  It's such a good deal, and a really nice gift for your loved one that you'll want to keep forever!  My husband did this for me of all our engagement pics, and I loved it!  Shutterfly.com also has a whole list of gift ideas you can do through them that are worth checking out, and they make it so easy!

They also make stuff like mugs, desktop plaques, iphone cases, and much more!  Look how cute this looks!

Happy loving,

Rachelle

Favorite/Easy Family Dates: Pizza/Movie/Camping

One of our favorite things to do on a Friday night with our family, is order pizza and watch a movie together.  It's so fun to just relax and share time cuddling with our kids on the couch!  Sometimes we do this once a month or even longer in between, so it's super special when we get pizza and redbox a movie!

link for picture here

Another great family date, great for the summer, is to set up your tent in the back yard and camp out! Do everything you would do for regular camping, so roast up hot dogs over a fire pit or bbq, make smores, play outside and look for crazy nature bugs, bring out the hot chocolate at night by the campfire (if you have a pit), bring playing cards and board games in the tent along with stories, and don't forget your flashlights!  I have heard of great success from other families doing this, we tend to only make it out in the tent for a couple of hours and then move everyone back in the house because some of our kids a just too young, but it's another summer and the kids are a little older, so we will try again!  At least we always have fun, up until bedtime!

 link for tent picture here

  

A third option is to combine the two plans into one, which we have done with great success!  We set up our tent in the family room, set out the sleeping bags, ordered pizza, and rented a movie.  The kids thought it was so fun eating pizza in the tent while watching "Smurfs" as a family!  Then we put the younger kids (and ourselves) to bed, and let the older kids sleep in the tent all night inside! Perfect combo.

What variations do you do with movie night, or camping with your family?  What are some of your other favorite family dates?

Happy loving,

Rachelle

Presenting dates for a YEAR!

With Father's Day coming up, I wanted to share a couple of ideas for gifts that you could give your husband if you want to give him something a little creative and memorable.  (They are both alike, and yet have there own unique qualities, so check them both out) This first idea, I did year ago, on Valentines Day, when I enrolled my husband in "The Date of the Month Club".  It was his favorite gift -to this day- and filled with many memories for the both of us.  I found this idea on the Love Actually blog and switched a few things around and made my own homemade version.  Below is a picture from Love Actually that shows you can purchase your own personal digital version from them, to take out a lot more work on your part.  It's only $20 bucks to buy the personalized version, but then you have to print out everything still.

The idea is to enroll your husband in the Date of the Month Club, which means he will receive:

*One creative date (set up by you) per month for a year

*Two vacation getaways within the year (homemade or real getaway destinations-whatever your budget allows)

*Coupon tickets to use anytime throughout the year (examples: breakfast in bed, massages, make his favorite dessert)

*A bag of Hershey kisses, redeemable for the real thing!

So you would choose 12 date options for the year (making sure that at least half are things your spouse likes to do) and then a separate paper with all the months in the year, and he gets to pick which date he wants for each month.  Also come up with coupons your husband will enjoy using.  This is a great way to ensure that you have dates (bonus for you) and gets your husband excited and anticipating dates.  Plus he'll just feel so loved that you put all this effort and thought into him!

Personally, some of things I did in my homemade Date of the Month Kit for my husband were the following:

*Presented the kit in a photo book, and put our picture on the front of it

*Slipped a congratulations letter in the photo slots about how he had been enrolled in the club and explained what to do and what was included in it.(above)

*Some dates I chose were: Pizzeria night, Bowling Date, Game Night, Chinese Date, Tickets to entertainment at the college campus, Spa Night, Chef's delight, Golf Day, Wild West Night, Envelope Date, Trip to the Theater.  Many of these dates can be found on the Love Actually Blog, and others are just things we like to do.

*I included the Hershey kisses, which I enjoyed eating when they were redeemed.

*I included 16 coupons like the examples above.

*I didn't include vacation getaways this time.

*In the rest of the photo book I would put pictures of us on all our dates so that we could always remember the fun time we had.  Sometimes I'd put ticket stubs or invitations that I made for him too.

I just found another awesome idea like this on The Dating Divas blog, in which they were featuring one of their readers who came up this idea of "The Passport to Love" (picture below). They have great printables if you go to their link, and detailed instructions on how to put this gift together.  

The idea is the same, to provide one date a month for the next year, but this time, "traveling" to different locations around the world.  Her ideas for making each location in your own home are amazing and sound fun, and easy! Check it out, it's worth it!  I'm going to have to use this idea sometime soon!  Hope you enjoyed these gifts ideas!

Happy loving, 

Rachelle

It's Just My Nature ~Book Review

It's Just My Nature, written by Carol Tuttle, is a guide to knowing and living your true nature (along with your spouses, and everyone you associate with).  This book helps you identify your primary personality traits, thought processes, body movement, natural gifts, and much much more.

I have always loved and have done many personality tests and quizzes (including the four color groups: red, yellow, blue, and white) just because it fascinates me, but I love this book the most because it goes so much deeper and further than just personality traits.  It really can better help you understand how your or your spouse's mind process gets from A to B, and other things like what might motivate one person and how it differs from another type.  My husband and I have found this information extremely helpful in our marriage, knowing each other better, and knowing that it's okay that the other doesn't move and accomplish things exactly like we think it should be done ourselves.  We are so much more understanding of why certain situations would make us feel certain ways or react differently than the other, and we can "let things go" more easily.

So I would in a heart beat, recommend this book especially for marriages, but also for yourself, or any other relationship that you have with people. OH, and it's helpful with children also, even though it's not really tailored to children, as parents you'd probably be able to figure out their true natures too and have it help with parenting.  I can't stress it enough, read the book, both my husband and I have seen so much valuable knowledge for our marriage from it!  And if you want to borrow mine, I'd be happy to lend it to you!

Here is a link to purchase your own, It's Just My Nature




Happy loving,
Rachelle

Sherlock Holmes ~Date

Back in January, when the second Sherlock Holmes movie came out, I planned a whole weekend date involving Sherlock!  It was wonderful and really exciting to look forward to a whole weekend of things to do together.  On Friday night I gave my husband an invitation that read:

My dearest Watson,

we have come upon yet another case

that needs our attention.

Meet me tonight at 7:00 in our "thinking room".

We must make great haste!  A life depends on it!

But as always...

"It's elementary my dear Watson, elementary"

Sincerely,

Sherlock Holmes

This invite can be found at The Dating Divas blog.  So on Friday, we watched the first Sherlock Holmes movie at home, and thoroughly enjoyed it of course!  Then on Saturday night, we had a friend babysit for us and we went to the theater to watch the second Sherlock Holmes movie, which in my opinion, was equally as good as the first!  It was really great to watch the first movie right before, so we could be reminded of the story that continues into the second movie.

On Sunday, we began playing a Sherlock Holmes game together that we purchased and downloaded from Big Fish Games.  It was a really fun mystery game that ended up taking a few weekends to finish.  The difficulty was medium to hard and required lots of creative thinking.  I love playing these types of games with my husband and it topped off the whole theme for the weekend!

This date was inspired from The Dating Divas website. (link above)

Happy loving,

Rachelle

Chinese Date Night

 Any night is a great night with Chinese food right!?  A couple of weeks ago I prepared this Chinese Date for my husband and myself, inspiration coming from the Love Actually blog, and it was great! Fantastic food and cultural entertainment make this date really special!

Prep:

No using table and chairs for this date, bring it to the floor on a rug or mat if you can find one.  Find any and all oriental decor to set the mood for dinner, focusing on red, gold, and black colors.  I found bamboo place mats at Walmart, red napkins and red plate at the Dollar Store, free chopsticks at our local Mandarin Restaurant, and red candles and Chinese decor at Family Dollar.  It is really fun setting up this date and what's even better is that you don't have to spend much money!  Discount stores have plenty of decorating options.

Food:

You can definitely try your hand at cooking your own Chinese cuisine (we used Schwan's frozen food - I love their chicken egg rolls!) or you can make it easier on yourself and just order take out!  Eating together with chopsticks is a must for this date!  And, don't forget fortune cookies,  maybe slipping in your own creative fortune in it to see how the night will turn out!

Entertainment:

After dinner, we watched Kung Fu Panda 2, but any movie set in China would work perfectly, there are tons of options!  After dark it would be so romantic to light a Chinese Wish Lantern and watch it float up in the night sky!  I purchased (here) and surprised my husband with a Wish Lantern for us, but it's pretty windy where we live, and we decided to wait until winter to light it (when there is snow on the ground), since we live by many fields and trees.  Basically it's best to light one up in a huge concrete or dirt area, just in case, so it doesn't start a fire if the wind knocks it over or it malfunctions.  But I hear people do it for weddings and special occasions and I imagine it's beautiful! We are just extra cautious!  Anyway, have fun re-creating this unique date!

 (please use responsibly, and check your local laws regarding the use of these lanterns)

Happy loving,
Rachelle