Date Night for Two!

If you had been wandering through Safeway last night, you might have turned an inquisitive eye towards us as others were doing. Nate and I were enjoying our “date night” in the grocery store (not doing a stitch of “grocery shopping”) with Jonathan in tow! We felt like first time parents with our super cute little guy as were laughing our way through the store taking time to stop and laugh at cards we had no intention of buying, joking with each other about what we thought was “needed”, wondering, rather loudly, at the rotisserie chicken discarded in the middle of the cooking gadgets and raiding the clearance section. It was a wonderful evening!

What made it so great? I think it is because my guy has set that night aside to spend time with me, listen to me, do silly things like have a date in Safeway with me and I love it! He is such a hard worker, coming home from work most days and going to work on the house. It has been a challenge for me to give up that time and let him work without constantly badgering him to come and talk with me but I know it is necessary so I continue to try and do it cheerfully even though I don’t always succeed. The payoff is our wonderful night out when he listens and I talk... and talk... and talk... and talk... I am not saying I do my part of supporting his work excellently or that he is an angel but that in each of us giving we have found a wonderful time to refresh that seems to make up for all the evenings of work!

So early in out date night routine, we ran into a problem. We found out pretty fast that the only thing we really thought was good date material was going to a movie, having a treat and or going to Walmart. Now Walmart for a date is truly sad in my opinion. It certainly doesn’t rank very high on my list of favorite places but it did fill a need when it was Christmas shopping time so we spent some time there. We also tried out Baskin Robbins which left us feeling ill and not so great the next morning. Movies didn’t work out as there were usually no good ones or none we really wanted to see and how much chattering can a girl do in front of a large movie screen? Not much! Lately we have racked our brains in search of more enjoyable dates that don’t break the bank, leave us feeling ill, or bypass the point of it all. Here is a list of our ideas.

We took a walk on the beach about a month ago which turned out to be a great idea! The tide was high so we didn’t have much beach to walk on and the horseshoe crabs were there in great quantities making us wonder why they are protected. Overall, it was a wonderful time chattering and enjoying the fresh ocean breeze. Total cost: A wee bit of gas. Success at original purpose of date night: Great!

Another evening we decided to drive out to the shore, park in the rain and listen to an audio book on Romans together. This doesn’t sound too awfully romantic especially if you add in the fussy little one who was working on cutting teeth but it was important to both of us and a wonderful time to talk about God. As a woman I believe Nate is my spiritual head and so to have an opportunity to listen to his opinions and learn with him was very valuable! Total cost: A wee bit of gas. Success at original purpose of date night: Great!

Now, I can’t remember where this last idea for date night came from but it was a big hit around our house! I think it was the kids who first came up with the idea to turn our living room into a restaurant for the night. They busied themselves around the house making menus and printing them out, setting up the front desk where we would wait to be seated, setting a table complete with a restaurant style white table cloth, planning uniforms for the wait staff, and preparing all the dishes, appetizers and desserts. I called Nate in the afternoon and told him I had made reservations for 6:00 at a local restaurant I heard had really good, healthy food. He was quite happy and came home expecting to change and take me out. Instead, I ran out and hopped in his truck before he could pull into the garage and directed him on a five minute loop around the neighborhood. When we returned he had a pretty good idea what was up and we thoroughly enjoyed our dinner served by our giggling wait staff in their sharp uniforms. What fun! Cost: Nothing! Success at original purpose of date night: Great!

So, if you happen upon us in Safeway laughing our heads off at silly things with a baby in tow just smile and take your husband or wife out for a night to look silly and laugh too! It is worth it and so much fun!

Successful Creativity

Oh my!  It has been a long time since I posted anything!  I knew it had been a while but didn't realize how long.  Oh well, I guess that means life has been full and busy!

Now, on to the topic at hand. For years I have been using cloth diapers for my little guys.  I tried a variety of different diapers, covers, and all-in-ones before settling with fantastic prefolds and wool diaper covers.  Over the years I have knitted and crocheted various diaper covers, all the while deciding which patters and pattern features I like and dislike. I have run across some great patterns that make fantastic covers but there still seemed to be a void in the market.

If you head out to any department store and wander through the baby section in search of a shirt without snaps at the bottom (onesie style), you will quickly find that they are few and far between.  I would guess that about 90% of baby tops are made to snap over the diaper and by so doing keep the shirt from coming up and leaving the little one's cute belly exposed.  I like shirts with snaps as I like my little ones to look at least somewhat put together. :-)  However, I have not been able to use most of these shirts as they do not work well with wool diaper covers.  I can't put the cotton shirt snaps up against the wet diaper or the whole shirt will eventually get wet and if I put the snaps over the wool diaper cover (which I have done lots!), it looks like his underwear is showing.

Necessity is the mother of invention, right?  Well, I decided it was time to create my own wool diaper cover pattern - one that would both cover the diaper and also allow him to wear shirts with snaps.  I thought about it while I laid in bed, I thought about while I tried to finish the other knitting projects in progress, I thought about it as I diapered him, I definitely thought about it as I looked at all the cute snapping shirts I have sitting on his shelf.

It took quite some time and pages of notes but I finally finished his first Sneaky Soaker!  It works wonderfully!  I am so very excited to now have wool pants that allow him to wear snapping shirts! I hope to add different sizes and styles to the pattern but for now I am super happy with the finished product!  Yay!