Welcome to Part 2 of our 3 part progress series. You can find part 1 and part 3 here.
In 2019 we decided that we were going to focus on 3 main categories: Our health, our relationships, and our finances.
We already explained what our current progress is with our health journey.
Today we wanted to give an update on our relationships. Hang on, this is going to be a long post.
Here’s what we’ve been up to thus far:
Our Marriage:
If you’ve read our backstory, you know that due to life circumstances from 2014 to 2018 James worked at nights, either working a second job or going to grad school. For the majority of that time, James would head into work at 7:30 a.m. and not come home until after midnight. He worked really long hours to help our family during our financial disaster years, but it definitely took a toll on our marriage.
One thing we decided this year was to make spending quality time together a priority, both as a family and as a couple. We wanted to reconnect with each other and strengthen our marriage relationship. Here are a few things we’ve been intentional with this year with our marriage:
Weekly Date-Nights
We’ve gone on dates here and there throughout our marriage, but we’ve never actually intentionally tried to schedule in weekly date-nights. Partly because we started having babies within a few years and finding babysitters is a lot of work and can get expensive, and partly because we just never tried or made it a priority. We’ve also been on a debt-free journey since 2011, so our budget for date-nights has been limited.
This year we decided to give weekly-date-nights a try. In January we set aside Friday nights for scheduled date-nights, and put a babysitter on retainer for every Friday night. If we had an activity that was only on Saturdays, we would flip it – or sometimes do a cheap movie night date on a Tuesday. But the point is we intentionally made time for each other and put it on our calendar – EVERY WEEK.
Date-nights has definitely helped us reconnect in a way I hadn’t quite expected. There’s a lot more laughter, silliness, and we get out of our sweat-pants a lot more. We’ve been able to keep on-track with this goal and it’s been a huge blessing in our marriage.
Weekly Check-ins
Every Sunday or Monday night we try to sit down together and review how things are going. The majority of the time is going over our goals and finances, but we also spend time reviewing how things are going in our marriage. It’s an opportunity to make sure that we’re feeling happy with our relationship and discuss any concerns. We do our check-ins when kids are asleep, so often it feels like a date-night and is a nice chance to dream together and get feedback on ideas.
Our Family:
The kids saw less of James than I did, so we really wanted to make sure we spent as much quality time with our kids as we could. Some things we’ve tried to incorporate this year:
Family Night:
Every week, either on Sunday or Monday, we spend the night solely with our kids. We don’t work on extra projects, grading, etc. and solely focus on our kids. Sometimes the night is structured where we have it planned out (such as when we want to teach our kids something specific out of the scriptures or about budgeting), and sometimes it is just sitting on the couch, watching youtube videos about Disney world. Regardless of what we do, we both schedule one night where James and I both sign-off from our phones and work and just spend quality time together as a family.
One-on-One Time With the Kids:
With 4 kids, it’s extremely hard to find quiet one-on-one time with the kids. A few months ago we realized that we need to do better with giving our children individual attention. We decided that once a week each of our kids will have 15 extra minutes to hang out with mom and dad while everyone else goes to bed.
Just like anything else, a few basic rules make things run smoother: Kids who aren’t staying up need to go to bed when asked or they risk getting minutes taken away from their own special staying-up night. The child who is having one-on-one time also is required to head-to-bed after their fifteen minutes is up, or they also risk having time taken away from their staying-up-night the next week.
So far the kids haven’t broken those rules.
Establishing Family Traditions:
I’ve always been interested in family traditions because I’ve read that they have a very positive impact on family relationships. They can reinforce values, bring comfort and belonging, and form connections for those experiencing them.
We already have some family traditions revolving around holidays that I’m sure our kids could easily rattle off if questioned, we wanted to establish a few more traditions. A few ground rules include:
The tradition needs to be something we see ourselves enjoying doing long-term
The tradition needs to be enjoyable to us as parents too, not just the kids
The tradition needs to fit within our current budget
Brownie points if it doubles as a learning-experience
Some 2019 Traditions we’ve been working on this year:
Family Huddles
At meal times or after our nightly chores we’ve been trying to do a Family Huddle where we go over our 4 H’s.
Each of us takes a turn to tell the family:
H-appy – Something we felt happy about today
H-ard – Something that we struggled with that day
H-elping – How we helped someone today or how someone helped us
H -eavenly Father’s Love – How did we see God’s hand in our life or feel His love?
We also like to read a little bit from the scriptures (learning). This year we have been focusing on The New Testament in The Bible and learning about Jesus and His Disciples. It’s never too long, but we’ve been having some good gospel discussions with the kids. We always end our family huddles with a family prayer thanking God for helping us get so far with our goals and being safe as a family.
Movie Night
This is an evolving tradition. At first it was simply a night where we sat together as a family and watched a movie. But then rules started to be established, and it is seriously my favorite night of the week now. Why?
Because mom gets to choose the movie and there is no whining allowed.
We have watched good classics such as The Apple Dumpling Gang, The Princess Bride, The Emperor’s New Groove, Hot Lead and Cold Feet, Wild Hearts Can’t Be Broken, Swiss Family Robinson, and more! It brings back
Movie night also used to be accompanied with pizza night. I’d order a few cheap pizzas, and we would eat on the floor in the living room together on our blanket, vs around the table like we normally did. However, as James kindly pointed out, eating pizza every single week wasn’t really the healthiest of options so we’re still working out the kinks on still allowing me to take a break from cooking and just having a nice night off.
Annual Family Camping Trip
Ummm… is it a thing to WANT to be a camper, but not fully know HOW to do it?
If so – that’s us.
We’ve gone camping a total of three times in the past decade, and two of those three times were this summer.
We had our first overnight “test campout” with family in June.
Then we took the plunge and spent 2 nights camping in the middle of the wilderness at the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
It
Was
Amazing!
Camping has so many awesome learning opportunities, both for the kids and ourselves.
Our kids are still at that age where they LOVE the adventure of it all, and it’s surprisingly pretty cheap since we already had all the campout equipment thanks to past Christmases from family and James’ days working at Cabela’s. Camping is something we definitely are interested in continuing every summer.
Our Relationship With God
Just like reconnecting and building up our quality time with each other and our kids, we’ve also wanted to work on building up our faith and relationship with God and grow our faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ. There are so many questions, doubts, and uncertainties that tend to occur when living life, and we wanted to stop avoiding and start asking and doing.
Daily Prayer
I’ve been trying to make it a habit to say a quick morning prayer to start my day. It used to be a daily habit before I became a mom, and it’s something I’m working at re-establishing. It helps remind me that I’m not alone in this journey and starts my day off on a good foot.
Daily Devotionals
I’ve scheduled in twenty minutes of quiet time for personal scripture study. I do it after the big kids are away at school, and Annie snuggles up next to me and draws on her dry-erase board practicing letters while I study. We put on a timer so she knows she needs to be quiet for that time, and I write down any inspiration or thoughts that come to mind as I write in a little notebook. It helps to start my day that way and keeps things in perspective.
What Now?
Marriage – We are still hoping to continue doing our weekly date-nights, and be creative with a mix of date-nights out and date-nights in now that our date-night budget is slightly smaller while we are being more intense with our debt payoff journey.
Family – One thing we are trying to change is to find a healthier meal or snack to eat while watching our movie on family movie night.
How About You? Are you working on strengthening your marriage or relationships? What things are you currently doing to improve your relationships with those around you? We’d love to hear.
If you haven’t read it yet, don’t forget to check out part 1 of our 3 part series – Our 2019 Health Progress So Far!
