Hello again!  Here I am with my recap of last month!  I know we’re halfway through March, but better late than never!  Seems to be the story of my life lately.  I honestly can’t tell if the month of February went fast or slow??  Gryffin started his new daycare – talk about a challenging transition.  The first day was awful!  I don’t think he’s ever cried so hard before, which of course made me cry too (I at least made it out the door before I lost it).  It seriously took everything in us not to turn around and go back to get him.  Honestly, it felt like I was dropping him off for the first time.  My husband and I both were contemplating just quitting our jobs right then and there.  Thankfully it only took about a week for Gryffin to adjust at Julie’s daycare.  We love Julie.  We loved her from the first day we met her.  She runs an in-home daycare with 2 other ladies.  There are 12 kids total (including her after school kids) and there are 2 other babies Gryffin’s age.  It’s evident that she loves each of her kids and she genuinely cares about the parents as well.

Mikey and I also celebrated our 10 year anniversary, which brings me to the goals for this month!

Goals 

Since Valentines Day was just 2 days before our anniversary I thought it would be fun to celebrate both days this year instead of just our anniversary.  Also, with a baby, our date nights have been almost none-existent and I knew we needed to do something about that.  So here is what I planned for this month.

~ February: Be – Loving 

1. Celebrate Valentines Day & our anniversary
2. Reestablish date night

Book of the month: The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman

* Here is the breakdown and details on how I did.

1.1 – Celebrate Valentines Day  Fail.  Valentines day landed in the middle of the week and it was Gryffin’s first week at daycare, which meant Gryffin wasn’t sleeping well at all and I was beyond exhausted. Thankfully Mikey was in agreement that we would skip it this year.  There’s always next year and we felt that our anniversary was more important.

Mikey still ended up surprising me with a stuffed animal though, so I will be making up for that!

Solution: Try again next year!  Also, since I didn’t get him anything for V day I plan on getting him an Easter basket this year – which we’ve never done in the past for each other. 

1.2 – Celebrate Our Anniversary  Thankfully we planned for this in advance…sort of.  Our anniversary was on Saturday, February 16th, and I took the Friday before off of work so we could have a day together while Gryffin was at daycare.  In addition, we also planned for my brother to watch Gryffin for the afternoon on Saturday so we could go see a movie.

So what was our big plan for Friday?  We went got our taxes done (insert hand to forehead emoji here)!  Honestly, it was just so much easier to do without a squirmy 10 month old.  We then went to HuHot Mongolian Grill, which is one of our favorite restaurants and then just came home and relaxed.  We were seriously laughing though, because over the years we talked about going on an exotic trip or doing something super fun for our 10 year anniversary.  Funny how having a baby changes things, but we wouldn’t trade it for the world!  We hadn’t had a relax together day with just the two of us since we had Gryffin, so honestly, even with getting our taxes done it was glorious.

What about Saturday?  Gryffin ended up getting sick with a cold so we rescheduled our movie date.

2- Reestablish Date night  We ended up going on two dates within a month, which is just so rare.  The first one was the Friday we got to spend together to celebrate our anniversary.  The second was when my brother watched Gryffin a different weekend.  The original plan was to go to a movie, but since we couldn’t agree on a movie we went furniture shopping instead and then out to dinner at Mackenzie River Grill.  We both love to shop and eat so we were happy.

The hard part about date nights at this stage in life is that it’s just not really possible for us to have a date night very often.  We’ll go out just the two of us when we’re able, but we don’t have family or friends that are available very often, so that makes it difficult.  For now our date nights look like an evening at home, eating brownies on the couch and playing Mario Kart, and we’re ok with that.

Solution: Keep doing what we can.

Book of the Month: The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  To be honest, this book hadn’t been at the top of my to-read list.  I had heard about the 5 love languages and I knew what they were, so I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the time reading something I thought seemed pretty straight forward to me.  After searching for what I should read this month I went ahead and downloaded the audio book anyway. Guys, I am so glad I listened to this book.  Yes, I did know what the 5 love languages were, but I didn’t fully understand them until I read this book.  I ended up learning more about myself as well.  One thing I really appreciated about this book was that there was no threat of “you better do this or else…” type of thing.  I ended this book knowing what ways I can improve my marriage and help Mikey feel more loved.  I’m sorry if that sounds ridiculously cheesy – it’s just that it felt like a lightbulb had gone off and I finally understood.

Stay tuned for the March update!  Let’s just say spring cleaning is *suppose* to be happening around here!  :)

Hope you all had a wonderful February and are having a great March!