An At-Home Dinner Date Idea for Two (Or the Whole Family!)

Do you have any big plans for Valentines Day tomorrow? Both girls are going to be in school, so Jamie and I are going to take advantage of the free time and work out together at 9Round (he tried it out with me last week and loved it) followed by a brunch date at one of our local favorites, The Chef. 🙂 Sounds perfect to me!

The girls have parties at school, so I’m sure they’ll be tickled to get home and sort through all of their Valentines with us. I’m sure we’ll probably cook a casual dinner at home and call it a day. We’ve never had any kind of expectations to do anything special for Valentines Day, which is a-okay with me. Just having him around makes me a happy girl.

If you don’t have a sitter scheduled and are planning to do dinner at home tomorrow with your whole family, here’s a sweet (albeit quite cheesy!) idea that’ll be sure to make everyone smile and feel loved!

At Home Date Night Idea

A couple years ago I got this crazy idea to do something fun with Hadley and make Jamie a surprise fancy at-home dinner for no reason at all (my sister swore I was doing this as a cute way to tell Jamie I was pregnant, but then she remembered that I am her sister after all and am just a little spontaneous/crazy sometimes!)

I planned, shopped for, and cooked the meal, set the table, lit the candles, dimmed the lights, and put on some fun music. I asked Jamie for his ETA, and then Hadley and I put on nice dresses (me in a black cocktail dress and Hadley in a red velvet dress from Christmas). We even put on shoes! Ha. 🙂 I remember how much she loved getting fancy with Mommy!

Jamie walked in, smiled, but had no clue what was going on. Hadley was so cute twirling around in her dress in front of him! When I told him that it was a “just because” upscale at-home dinner, he was in awe. We ate the best meal, and he went on and on about how it was the best surprise ever. I admittedly felt like a big dork the whole time because this ultra cheesy stuff usually isn’t my jam, but honestly, it was so much fun.

So! I’ve now shared one of my silliest secret memories with high hopes that maybe this fun idea is what you’ll decide to do to turn your Valentines Day into a special, memorable one the whole family can be involved in. 🙂

If you enjoy cooking, I’m sure you could probably come up with your own menu, but if you typically loathe cooking but really want to knock your spouse’s socks off, here’s a mega quick way you could whip together a nice meal.

1. Mix together a bagged salad kit ahead of time (an hour or two) and chill in the refrigerator in a serving bowl.
2. Bake some brownies from a box and set on the counter until dessert time!
3. Set out butter on the table and put rolls in the oven to bake.
4. Season and cook steaks on the stovetop.
5. While steaks cook, grab two steamable bags from the freezer and cook them one after the other. I’d suggest some Birds Eye steamable potatoes and Birds Eve steamable vegetables.

Easy, easy, easy! So if you want to go fancy and cook from scratch, knock yourself out! If you want to do this but would rather not spend the entire day in the kitchen, use the suggestion above. 🙂 Enjoy!

Let’s chat!

Are you and your loved ones doing anything to make Valentines Day a little bit special this year?

Would you ever do something cheesy like this, or do you think I’m crazy? 🙂