This post brought to you by Breyers Gelato Indulgences . All opinions are 100% mine.
Even though we are making an effort to prioritize having dates with each other, my husband and I still struggle to book a sitter and hit the town very often for fun. Part of the problem is the expense (spending $100 on a night out is shockingly easy to do, as it turns out.
But let me just keep it real: the cost of a date night is only part of the struggle. The other part is the timing of social acceptable date nights. I cannot for the life of me tell you the last time I was out at 11pm. I also can’t tell you the last time I was sitting down for dinner at 7pm. You guys, we eat at 5pm ON THE DOT at my house. The kids are in bed between 6:30-7pm. I am often asleep by 8:30. Not working my way toward the bed, friends, but working my way through a REM cycle. So when Tim and I leave the house at 6pm for a date night, we are straight up ready to be back home by 9. Yes, it’s boring, and maybe a little sad, but it’s just the season of life we are in.
SO….I’ve been realizing that we need to do a better job of capitalizing on the time between when our kids go down and when I am ready for bed. There are a lot of great date night ideas for home (and a lot of super cheesy ones, let’s just be honest), but so many of them require you to make elaborate meals or do stuff like erect a giant sheet in your backyard to watch movies on while eating a tray full of homemade chocolate treats. I mean, all of that sounds awesome unless you are the one who has to put it together. By the time I’d have something like this set up and ready to go, I’d be OVER it and just want to go to bed!
Friends, it doesn’t have to be that hard. And just because it doesn’t take you hours to put together doesn’t mean it won’t be really fun. Take a moment to think about something you really enjoy doing together that is really low key. For us, we LOVE to watch Parenthood. So I created a SUPER easy date night at home that centered on watching a few episodes of our favorite show and indulging in yummy food that we DIDN’T have to make!
To give the room the whole “Parenthood” vibe, all I did was string up some lights and light a few candles. This is reminescent of Camille and Zeek’s backyard. It took all of 5 minutes to do, I promise.
While we were reading stories to the kids just before bed, I had a take and bake pizza going in the oven for us. We skipped the 5pm dinner for ourselves for a change (though not for the kids!) and had something special set aside just for us to eat. It was really fun to not have to share it, help small children eat it, or scarf it down after it was cold, as these are al normal things we have to do at dinner time. And I like the take and bake idea because you don’t even have to go pick it up. Of course, delivery would also be an option. But this was just $8.99 at a warehouse club store. It was a great value!
I did have one surprise for Tim as part of the date, and that was the dessert tray that I had planned. I spent 0 minutes baking or otherwise preparing for this, but I knew it was going to go over VERY well!
I purchased all 4 flavors of Breyers Gelato Indulgences for us to get to enjoy. They happened to be on sale this week at my grocery store, so this was the big splurge, at $20. And of course, we had massive amounts of leftovers, so it really was quite an excellent buy!
After we were finished with our pizza, I brought all the flavors up and it seriously felt like such a treat. I mean, just look!
I have 3 favorite flavors (out of 4…I know…), and the one I reach for just depends on my mood. My least favorite, just to simplify things, is the Triple Chocolate, BUT you need to know that I just don’t love cold chocolate. I don’t know what’s wrong me, either. Tim and both girls go after this container of gelato like rabid dogs, so I think it is safe to say that if you like chocolate, you will love it!
Our date night at home fit us to a T, friends. We got to enjoy a show that we both genuinely love, we ate really yummy pizza and only had to turn the oven on and off to make that happen, and then we were spoiled rotten by Breyers Gelato Indulgences. These taste, in my opinion, every bit as rich and creamy as gelato you would expect to find at a specialty ice cream store. It was so fun having as much as we wanted of each flavor. I definitely recommend going the tasting route for your date night at home; such a simple way to make the evening feel in every way like a special treat.
Do you ever do date night at home? I’d love to hear about your ideas that make for a fun evening without too much work on your part! And do you have a favorite flavor of Breyers Gelato Indulgences? If you haven’t tried it, yet, you are gonna need to get on that, friend. This stuff is LEGIT!
