Marriage is hard work. Add some children to the mix and it’s even harder. But, if you are your spouse are happy and loving towards each other then your children will be happier. If you are comfortable leaving your children with a babysitter have a date night once a week or once a month- whatever works for you- just make sure you have some alone time together. Get yourself looking nice for your date just like you did when you were actually dating. Use some make up and the best day creams and get your hair styled. If possible take a nice getaway together once in awhile. Don’t forget your international travel insurance if you travel abroad. If you do not leave your children with a babysitter you can always wait for the kids to go to bed before and then enjoy each others company. Have a romantic candle lit dinner, watch a romantic movie, give each other back rubs, or just sit together and hold hands or cuddle.

You know what would make me really happy?  A surprise bouquet of roses from my hubby.  You know- just to say I’m thinking about you and I love you.  Honestly the chances of that happening are pretty slim.  But, if he did do something like that I would never forget it! ukf8001axx

I knew that the color of roses have various meanings, but I learned several new meanings today.  I am still going to stick with red for my favorite color roses because it means “I love you.”  But if my hubby were to give me any color roses I would be thrilled!

Some days it’s hard to remember to even speak to your spouse, let alone try to make time for some romance. Here are a few things you can do for your hubby to remind him that he is still important to you:

1. Aim for giving him a compliment every day. Tell him how nice he looks, what a great dad you think he is, how thankful you are that he works hard, etc. Just come up with something nice to say to him everyday.
2. Send him an email, a text-message or an IM just to say hi or I love you.
3. Give him a card and write a nice note in it about how much he means to you.
4. Buy him tickets to see a favorite sporting event.
5. Let him watch whatever he wants on TV without any complaining from you.
6. Give him a nice back rub without expecting one in return.
7. Leave him a little note in his car telling him how much you appreciate him.
8. Cuddle under the electric blanket.
9. Listen to him when he talks to you. Stop whatever you are doing and just listen.

Now we all know that marriage is hard work.  It is hard to live with someone all of the time and to get along with them most of the time.  Then add children to the mix and marriage is even harder.  My husband and I have always had a pretty good marriage.  We’ve had our ups and downs like most people, but we do pretty well together.

One thing we have always done is had occasional weekend getaways.  Even when we did not have children it was good for us to get away from the same old stuff once in a while and just enjoy each others company.  Now that we have a child we do not do weekend getaways very often.  In fact, she is 2 1/2 years old and we just had our first getaway.  But it was great- great for us, great for her, great for her grandparents who watched her, just plain great!

I encourage every married couple to take a weekend getaway once in a while; you’ll be glad you did!

So what are your plans for Valentine’s Day?  For us- we’ll probably be sitting at home like we do every weekend.  A few weeks ago we went out and celebrated Valentine’s Day.  We were with my parents so they were able to babysit our daughter so it was our only chance to go out.  I do have a special little dessert planned that I am going to make for my husband and daughter.  And then after my daughter is in bed maybe I’ll put on a little sexy lingerie for my husband.  I never do stuff like that even though he likes it.  He’ll be shocked for sure if I do!

My husband has everything he needs and most of the stuff he wants.  I never know what to get for him when it comes time to buy him gifts.  Like tomorrow is Valentine’s Day and I didn’t get him anything.  Well, technically we went away for Valentine’s Day a couple of weeks ago and that was our gift to each other.  But, you know what I mean.  He has all of the little technical things guys like- lap top, flat screen TV, DVD player, PlayStation, Wii, Palm Pilot, etc.  The only thing I can think of that he doesn’t have is  a Rackmount lcd.  I guess I’ll have to look into that for his next gift receiving occasion- father’s day.  I have time to plan but I really should get started!

This weekend my husband and I are going to go out of town for the first time since we had our daughter.  Honestly I’m a bit worried about it.  She is staying with my parents and I know she’ll be fine.  Actually I know she’ll be fine during the day, it’s the night time I’m worried about.  I’ve never left her for more than a few hours and I’ve only done that a few times. So this is going to be tough.

But, I know this is good for my marriage.  My husband and I are still a couple even though we have a child.  It’s important for us to get some time just to ourselves.  I don’t know what we’ll do.  Probably sit around and wonder what our daughter is doing.  But I think it’s important and we need to do it.

Lately I have been feeling like I am really missing my hubby.  It’s crazy because we both work from home, so we are basically together 24 hours a day 7 days a week.  Although that is not really the case because I spend most of my day with our toddler and my hubby usually works during those hours.  I work while our toddler naps and when she goes to bed.  Sometimes in the evenings my hubby plays with our toddler while I get some more work done.  What it all comes down to is that it seems like I never spend any time with him and I miss him.

So, I was thinking today back to when we were first married and we used to take trips together.  We took our first cruise to the Bahamas.  We weren’t sure how we would like it so we took a short trip.  Both of us felt pretty sea sick but we loved the trip anyways.  So, we started looking into Caribbean cruises and decided to take a longer Caribbean cruise, but we had motion sickness patches this time.  It was a fabulous time.  We participated in one fun activity after another.  We had lots of laughs and lots of fun.  And while I would never give up the life we have now, I just wish we could still take the time to do things together again.  And of course, I love our toddler more than anything, but it would be nice to occasionally go out with just my hubby.

So you’re a mom, right?  You know who some of your best supporters are?  Other moms.  So I have a great suggestion for you.  If you are looking for some other moms to talk to, get advice from, give advice to, complain or brag to, etc. I have a place you will want to check out.  TheMomBlogs have started a forum for moms to use to talk to each other.  So go ahead and check it out- you’ll be sure to make some new friends.