Project 52 - a photo date and others

We have missed more dates. And we had a few that weren't really post worthy. Like watching the federal election count where they didn't get a result (that was a few weeks ago and we only just found out who our Prime Minister is this week!). There was also a date where we researched and booked our accommodation for our road trip holiday that is coming up which finished with me dozing beside Tim at the computer. :-)

This date we decided to do a photo date and try to make it fun since we have been pretty average on the date front for so long.

I made some speech and thought bubble props out of board and covered it with clear book contact. We used white board markers to write on it.

We both had different ideas on what we should write and I think we got around the wrong way in some of the pictures, but it was still fun.

Had to add this last one in. Excuse us for kissing on my blog :-)

Go to Simply Modern Mom to see more Project 52 date nights.

Project 52 - Who's counting anyway?

We aren't counting that's for sure! We have not had much in the way of dates over the last... probably almost 2 months. I have been sick. The kids have been sick. The winter is really taking it out of me. We have managed to sit slumped on the couch together here and there. Brought each other a cup of tea. Random nice moments.

After a yummy Sunday roast at my parents place, we left the kids with Mum and Dad for an hour. We needed to go to the local shopping centre for a few things. While we were there we stopped to share a thickshake. This is a choc mint thickshake from Wendy's. Tim's weakness. I will admit... mine too now.

It was nice to sit and not have kids wanting our attention. We talked and did some people watching. And then about 15 minutes later...

It was finished and we went back to get the kids.

Check out Simply Modern Mom for more Project 52 dates.

Project 52 - 3 more dates

I am not keeping up with the posting of the dates so here are three together.

Date 22 -
During the week I had been sick and Ellamay was quite sick too. And it was Esther and Ellamay's 6th birthday so I was blank on date planning. We ended up watching a favourite movie again (the same as we watched for Date 5). We gave each other foot massages and talked.

Date 23 -
I was still trying to shake this cold and was feeling pretty overwhelmed after a tough couple of weeks. Tim started us off by drawing more houses and talking houses again. It quickly turned into time for me to have a cry and talk through all the stuff that had been happening. Tim is so wonderful and it helps to talk out things with him.

Date 24 -
Our latest date was short and sweet (ha). We made honeycomb. Yum. Tim did the stirring and I did the recipe reading, not there is much to read out. We used this recipe. While we made the honeycomb there was a Bond movie on the TV in the background. I am not a Bond fan, but Tim wanted to watch it. It was quite funny though. It was one of the older ones and terribly predictable.

Let's hope this week I can think up something good and actually post it on here a bit quicker!

Check out Simply Modern Mom for more date night stories.

Project 52 - 21st date - A home

I think technically it was my turn to come up with a date this week but I have been feeling lousy with a cold so Tim took on the job. I would like to just take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Tim for being such a huge darling and helping me out so much for the past week while the kids and I have been sick.

This week we continued on the theme from last week's date on house talk. We wrote a wish list of things we wanted to have in a new home. We want it to be a home though and not a dream. We tried to be reasonable and only included things we thought were achievable.

It was good to sit down and write out what is important to us in any future house. We have talked about it so much but never actually committed to paper things that we wanted. We both knew that we wanted a bigger and better kitchen but had not really spoken about the appliances. We are both interested in building a home that is friendly to the environment and our finances. Things like a grey water system for the garden and it needs to be solar passive. The garden is important but it needs to be low maintenance where possible. We would really like a useful outdoor area with BBQ and seating on a deck. And with 3 girls, a second bathroom is going to be important. That is just a few things.

Next date, hopefully I will be feeling better and can come up with something. It must be nearly time for another photo booth date like we did here and here.

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Project 52 - 20th date - Model house building

There has been a lot of dreaming, planning and talking about houses here lately. We have a small house on a big block and our house is feeling smaller as the kids get bigger.

This week's date, planned by Tim, was constructing a model of one 'dream' house we have been talking about. Tim has been scribbling out plans and drawing different pictures of houses for years. It is a great stress relief for him. And, even though I might be biased, he draws such great pictures.

We have a pile of scrap photo mat board, that I buy in bundles for $1 from a picture framers in town. It has been used for lots of different projects and now we can add model house to the list. Tim worked out the measurements to scale for the house. He cut it all to size in the afternoon ready for our date.

That night, Tim glued all the pieces together and we chatted about things that had been happening and a little about the box house. We didn't really talk a lot but it was still a fun date. I like to see Tim's creativity. And it is fun to think of a time when all these drawings, plans and now a model might actually become reality.

The model didn't get finished. That's okay. It's easier to tweak the design when it's not finished. I hope Tim will finish it soon. It is such a cool idea to have a model of what we want our house to look like.

Go here and see some more dates.

Project 52 - 18th and 19th date - Cupcakes and a hot bath.

Our 18th date - I am going to say we had a two part date this week. On Saturday night, it was Tim's turn to plan. I don't think he had come up with anything. I suggested we make some banana cake or something because we had a bunch of bananas in the fruit bowl that needed to be used.

Once the kids had (finally) settled and were all asleep, we got to it. We have never made this banana cupcake recipe before but it was super easy and really yummy. It was fun to bake with Tim. The cupcakes sunk a little in the middle which I think was either that we used margarine instead of butter or because I am still trying to work out our ovens temperature settings (we have had for 12 months! I should know by now). It didn't matter anyway because we made the cream cheese frosting and it just meant there was more frosting on top - yum!

On Sunday, we had roast lunch at my parents house, which has become a Sunday tradition for us (thanks Mum). After lunch, we left the kids with my parents and Tim and I went out to the shopping centre to pick up another course of antibiotics for Amelia. While we waited for it to be ready, we went and shared a choc mint thick shake and just enjoyed a bit of time. It's been quite a while since we could be out together like that. Not exactly the most romantic of settings, but it was gold anyway!

Our 19th date - We had been through a rough week. We had both been dealing with issues separately and together. The date started off with me needing a cry on Tim's shoulder. He decided to run me a nice hot bath and he sat a small plastic stool and talked to me while I soaked. It was the first chance we had all week to sit and just talk about nothing much. Those are my favourite conversations after a hard week.

Go over here to see the date night's other people have had this week.

Project 52 - 16th and 17th date

The 16th date - I had come up with a few different ideas of what to do for date night. Unfortunately, the things I had hoped to do didn't work out for this date. I will save them up for next time. We were so worn out by the time it got to date time anyway it didn't matter. We had spent our Saturday working outside in the yard and chasing after kids.

I would like to say that we did something as exciting as the light painting from our 15th date, but we didn't. We spent the date with a cup of tea and watching more of Grand Designs on DVD as we did on our fourth date. It is such a great series. The personalities on it can be a bit frustrating at times. It is quite inspiring though because one day we dream of building our own grand design (of some description).

The 17th date - We have had such a crazy couple of weeks... Back down to Melbourne for a clinic visit with Amelia at the big building and our 10th wedding anniversary! And of course it was Mother's day on Sunday. So our date night, Saturday night, ended up being spent with my in-laws in town, to celebrate Mother's day.

We had pizza and sat around and talked and had a relaxing time. Amazingly, the kids were well behaved even though it was night time and was quite late by the time we got home. It's pretty rare these days that all of Tim's family are in the one place at the one time. And it's pretty rare that we go out at night, even with the kids in tow.

Our 10th wedding anniversary - I would love to say that we had a "real date" for this but we didn't. We had a steak dinner with our little darlings at home. Tim gave me a bunch of flowers and I made him a little book of why I love him. Life has turned out a lot differently to the way I imagined it would be by 2010 but I wouldn't have it any other way. (Love you, Tim)

If you would like to see more of Project 52 click over to here.

Project 52 - 15th date - Light painting

Date night this week was a bit more photography fun. I remembered seeing last year, about light painting on a blog that I read regularly. I followed the link to the youtube video but it had been removed, but I found this one here instead. It gives simple instructions on what to do. Here are the things we used.

One torch we covered in red cellophane. (I think really the torches could have used fresh batteries too!) We set the camera up on my tripod and used the "fireworks" setting on the camera. We turned off all the lights and off we went!

This was lots of fun. I had hoped to do it outside but it has got wet and cold here so it wasn't a good idea. One thing I would suggest to anyone else doing this is to make sure that there is nothing around on the floor! I walked out to the back part of our house, without turning on all the lights and tripped on a pair of boots that the kids had so carefully tidied before they went to bed.

We laughed a lot and it was cool to see what we could make. After we had run out of ideas, we watched a couple of youtube videos about light painting.

To find out more about Project 52 check out Simply Modern Mom for details.

Project 52 - 14th - Cake decorating

It was my date this week. I had just made some Chocolate Mud Cakes during the day and really wanted to get them finished so we could take them to town the next day for our families. So our date was covering the cakes in ganache and decorating them.

I showed Tim what to do and he put the crumb coats on both cakes. He did it like he was rendering something. Funny how people are different. I've never seen it as rendering before but I guess it is.

I put the top coats on.

While I worked on that, Tim got my sewing machine out and serviced it. I have been trying to get him to do that for a while now.

Then we mixed up some ganache with food colouring and put it in a click top bag with the corner snipped to pipe some decorations. Tim decided we should make a "14" cake in celebration of our 14th date.

And I did some basic flowers on the other cake.

It was midnight by the time we were done. I had hoped it would be a fun thing, but it was a last minute idea and I really needed to have the cakes covered with ganache already, so we could just have some fun with different kinds of decorating. It was good to share the time together though. Also, we changed our date from Friday night to Saturday night in hopes we won't be so exhausted. We will see how that works for us.

Catch up with everyone else in Project 52 here.

Just wanted to mention that I am having trouble commenting on other people's dates. Not sure why. I will have to investigate that one. Everyone is doing really well though.

Project 52 - 13th - NCIS

Friday night crept up on us this week. We had hardly even mentioned the date night during the week let alone tried to work out who's turn it was.

We are big NCIS fans and there was a re-run on the TV so we decided to watch that. Tim had been watching episodes that hadn't screened in Australia of NCIS on YouTube earlier in the week so we sat and watch an episode on there too. Perhaps it was the time of night, but we seemed to laugh our way through them. You know, more than we usually would at the little jokes on there.

Anyway, as usual, couch time is down time for us. We managed a little bit of conversation in between and my favourite part was just sitting with Tim. We are rarely still so date nights are always so good just to be still together.

We worked out it is my turn to come up with the dates so I had better get thinking!

Go to Simply Modern Mom for more on Project 52.

Project 52 - 11th and 12th dates

Week 11 wasn't so much a date as it was about being in the same house. The last months over summer have been crazy busy. Tim has been doing fire training and working long hours so we have had very limited time. Our date was supposed to be on Friday night but Tim was going away for a weekend of fire training up in a national park near Mildura. We tried for Thursday night. Tim was home late from work though and then he needed to pack because he was leaving for to catch the plane early. So we collected up things he needed and did washing.

Good Friday was our 12th date. We had been busy in town at the Easter Fair with the kids during the day and so by the time it got to date time of night we were slumped on the couch having a cup of tea. I was stitching like crazy trying to finish some Easter hair clips for the kids to wear to the family lunch we were going to on Easter Saturday. I guess you could call it a date. Really though, the whole weekend was a date for me. Having Tim home all weekend spending time with me and with the girls was the best. As I said before, Tim has been so busy, it was a real treat to have him home.

If I had to say my favourite part of the weekend though, on Good Friday, we had fish and chips for tea at the Botanical Gardens. The kids played happily and we sat on the picnic blanket and enjoyed being together. And Tim was a hero dad because he pushed his girls on the swings.

Go to Simply Modern Mom for more Project 52 Date Nights.

Project 52 - The tenth date - Photos

This week we set up our photo booth again and took heaps of silly pictures. It was so much fun. We have had that many crazy weeks lately, we were determined to get our 'funny' back again.

Tim and I having fizzy drinks in our grown up crystal glasses. :)

It was Crazy Hair Day on Friday at the school, so Tim had been wearing an afro wig during the day. It became another prop for our photos.

The photo below is my favourite. We look so daggy! I love it!

Laughing together has always been really important to us. In fact, we wrote it into our wedding vows. It was so refreshing to laugh about all these silly photos. It is really pushing myself out of my comfort zone though. I am mostly quite a shy person. So I feel like a real dork posing. But... this really was so much fun, it was easy to forget myself for a bit. Tim enjoyed being silly too. One of the things that caught my attention about Tim when we first met, was how much fun he was. He can always make me laugh.

Check out Project 52 over at Simply Modern Mom to see what others have done for this week's dates.

Project 52 - The nineth date

This week was a talking date. No extras. Well, aside from a jar of jelly lollies :) and a cuppa.

Life has been hectic (as usual). It had been a particularly 'turbulent' week at work for Tim, with some major restructuring going on. Add a few issues with the kids, the fact that we hadn't had a chance to talk much and you get a recipe for stress.

So we sat down and just talked. Talked about the week and work and kids and home improvements and even managed a few laughs in between.

I am really loving this time each week. I know our Friday night is going to be about us. I like that. We haven't been able to do much in the way of extras along the way for one reason and another. That is okay though. I just like that it is about Glenyce and Tim for those couple of hours a week.

I am looking forward to when it gets darker, earlier at night as winter gets closer here. It usually means the kids will sleep earlier and we might be able to do some different things for date nights. I have high hopes of another photo shoot in the next couple of weeks.

Check out Project 52 over here.

Project 52 - The eighth date

This week's date, over a cup of tea, we looked through a shoe box full of memories and letters from when we started going out and through our engagement.

This is one of our first 'dates'. No, that is not Tim on the Harley with me. He paid for me to go on a harley ride. It was one of my dreams. I had to hold onto some random guy... not quite what I had in mind. :)

Some of the first movies we saw together before we were actually going out.. I won a bet and Tim had to take me to 2 movies. He threw the results. :)

A certificate my sister made for us because we were bugging her so much being in love. Something that people find funny to know about us is that Tim and I were next door neighbours. We still lived at home with our parents and siblings when we started going out (and right through our engagement). Needless to say, my sister got over us being around all the time.

I had to get my wisdom teeth taken out not long after we started going out and I got a dozen roses for my trouble. This is the card I got. Funny. :)

As much fun as it was remembering where we have come from and what we did back then we are glad to be in this moment. We are going to be celebrating our ten year wedding anniversary in May. We are pretty proud of that. Life has certainly been a roller coaster ride, but the life we have now is more than we could have dreamed back then.

Check out other Project 52 date over here.

Project 52 - The seventh date

It was my turn this week to come up with our date. At the start of the week I had great ideas of a candle lit supper outside under the stars. I would make a nice plate of berries, maybe some chocolate and some nice sparkling grape juice. It would be very romantic and a chance sit back and relax in a different setting. We would forget about what had been going on inside of our house for a time and talk about everything and anything.

This week has been another rotten week though. Tim's hours were terrible. Between work and fire brigade stuff, he was worn out. We hardly got to talk all week. I got offended by a few insignificant moments. And I held a grudge. I was angry with him.

So, Friday night came and I wanted to skip the date. I had stuff I could be doing. I went through the motions, prepared the food as I had planned but only sat on the couch. Tim always knows when things aren't good. I wasn't hiding it well though. I cried. I talked. Tim listened. We got it sorted. I apologised for being a cranky woman. Tim was sorry for the way the week had gone.

In the end, our date was a good way to vent, catch up, move on and have that much needed time.

I hope this next week goes better and our next date will go smoother. I wonder how everyone else did this week for their Project 52 date?

Project 52 - The fifth date and the sixth date

The fifth date - I had another headache. I have been getting a lot lately. We decided to continue on with the date anyway. Since I was feeling so... dull again, we decided to watch a movie. Another DVD Tim had gotten for his birthday. The Dish. A fantastic movie. (Check out this trailer on YouTube) We laughed out loud for the first half and then I got a bit dozy by the end. I should clarify though, we have seen it quite a few times. It wasn't the movie that was dull.

The sixth date - It's now my turn to come up with the dates for the next month. I was really struggling to settle on a plan. The last couple of weeks I have been struggling to keep up with everything. It's been so busy chasing after kids and school activities, and endless fighting to get kids to go to sleep at night, not to mention the contant house work stuff. We had a trip down to the big building with Amelia and Tim's work hours have been long of late.

After all that, I decided that it was about time I did something for Tim. He does so much for me. I gave Tim a back massage. Tim is a sales rep and is in his truck for many hours a day. He also does a lot of lifting so he is always happy to get a massage. So it was him that got dozy for a change! He talked all about work and the fire brigade and the kids and our house and anything. I tried to listen. Sometimes (often) I like to say my piece too and it becomes me talking and Tim listening. So I tried to stay quiet.

That about covers it. I had hoped by this stage in Project 52 that things would have settled into some kind of date night routine... as in it would be easier to make the date time work, but it hasn't. I guess it's really about making time for this - even when it's hard to. I have a few ideas for the next dates so I hope I can get sorted a bit better for the seventh.

Project 52 - The fourth date

Our date for this week was hardly a date at all. It very nearly didn't take place. I had been up during the previous night with Amelia as she had been sick. And I was feeling fairly average myself. Tim was really excited to take some more photos to start the date... but I really didn't feel like having my photo taken.

I got into my pajamas (first rule broken) and curled up on the couch. We ended up watching the DVD set I gave Tim for his birthday this week, Grand Designs. It's a great British TV series with all these fantastic homes that people are building. We really enjoy watching it. (TV - Second rule broken).

Tim got us a cold drink and he watched, I dozed. We were together though and we did manage a bit of conversation. And I do like when we get to talk.

(Just in case you are interested, the cake is meant to be an arc welder. Tim is an amazing welder. He has made steel furniture and mirrors. He is very creative and clever. You can see a picture of his outdoor chairs here.)

These date nights are fun. Life certainly does do it's best to get in the way of us though! Check out the latest Project 52 Dates here.

Project 52 - The third date

This week's Project 52 date was a homemade photo session.

I am not great at photography. (It is on my list of resolutions for this year but let's just say that this side project to Project 52 is going to be a learning process too.)

We clamped a muslin backdrop (which I got for Christmas a couple of years ago and have never used) to the kitchen curtain rod. Tim got a halogen lamp from the shed (next time I think we might need to diffuse that). We fiddled around with the camera settings til we got something kind of right. I had bought some funny glasses from a discount store and we tried to get smiley.

We had our usual problems, kids not settling and we were both tired. Tim particularly. He had gotten home late from an overnight trip away for work. We found though that once we were organised and because we had to pose happy - we got happy.

I am so grateful that Tim was willing to do this. It ended up being lots of fun. A chance to be silly together. And we don't do that much anymore. We miss that. We don't get our photo taken together often so I hope we can do this regularly. Some serious and some silly pictures.

We are enjoying our dates. I look forward to Friday nights. I know that we can steal a bit of time for us.

Check out other date nights at Simply Modern Mom.

Project 52 - The second date

Friday night, date night was late again. Like last week the kids were still awake at 9.30pm our start time. I think we should perhaps just change to 10pm start. We would hope that the kids would have finally ran out of steam by then! Friday was a 42 degree day and an extreme fire day too. Who wants to sleep with heat like that?!

We finally had everyone settled and just sat down on the couch to our drink and chocolate when Amelia woke up crying. It took about 15 minutes for me to get her back to sleep. The plan went out the window then.

I was ready to admit defeat and go to bed at that point. I have been struggling with a migraine all week and was really feeling pretty average. Tim offered me a shoulder and neck massage though so how could I refuse that? Tim talked through his day at work while I tried to stay awake (fairly common for me). It had been a stressful day. I am glad to hear about what goes on in his day. It's good to hear what goes on in the world outside our home. And it's so much easier to listen when the kids aren't around.

To top off the night, Tim offered to get up to the kids for the night so I could take a strong pill to help my head. Now that is romance.

Next week, I hope to have the photo booth pictures I have been planning. That was another thing we planned that just didn't work out again.

It was great that even though we couldn't have what we originally hoped for, we still had a nice time. It was still an hour together that we might not have sat down for before.

Have a look at what others are doing for their Project 52 dates at Simply Modern Mom.

Project 52 - The first date

Our date was on Friday night. It was supposed to happened between 9.30 - 10.30pm but due to the fact that our kids were still not settled, we started about half an hour late.

This month is Tim's turn to come up with the dates. Friday night we had to write a list of the things we loved/liked about each other and then talk about it. It was good. Writing down things like that seemed to come easy to Tim but for me, I was really struggling. I think Tim was worrying that I didn't have a long enough list. I just found that after such a long day being Mum, it was hard to even stay awake. (I get little sleep at the best of times and unfortunately it catches up with me.)

It was fantastic to sit and spend some time just remembering why we love each. And talking and being silly together.

We ate Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate with Popping Candy inside, which was very funny to us, and drank Pepsi and just had fun.

The photo at the top is actually one of us from 1999 when we had just started going out. It was taken in a photo booth at a train station and it is one of my favourites.

Plans for next date... Not sure what Tim is planning yet. My part of it is to make a photo booth set up so we can take our photo together. I want it to be something we do each date. I hope we will get a bit more organised for our next date. But hey, give us a break. This was our first date.

I am looking forward to getting some more ideas from all the other people who are signing up to do Project 52 as well.