28 New Meals (Valentine's Day ideas!).

My book, For the Love of Our Husbands, was written over the course of 2009. Each week I would come up with a new challenge that I would work on in order to become a better wife. My last challenge of the year was to not stop the weekly challenges simply because my year long devotional ended. It is now 2013 and I still ask the Lord to show me areas where I need to challenge myself to improve; I have come to love His answers to those prayers. Over the years, there are a few challenges which have become annual activities that I look forward to completing. 28 New Meals is one of those annual challenges.

In 2010, I asked friends to send me some of their favorite recipes and I made one new meal every night for the entire month of February. My husband's love language is "acts of service" and I really enjoyed spending the entire month serving him. I called it our month long Valentine's Celebration. (On a personal note, that year I was struggling with being discontent in life and choosing to serve my husband in such a focused manner helped me see the gift of my family).

The last few years I have repeated this challenge during the month February. I love the planning and prep work that it requires of me. Plus, serving my husband all month long has proven to be very romantic! Having just had a baby this year, we are blessed with friends who have signed up to bring us meals during the month of February (which I am incredibly thankful for!), but on nights no one is bringing us food I will certainly be making a new meal to carry on the tradition! I am always interested in new recipes to try - so please feel free to share your favorites. I am also grateful for pinterest which makes discovering new recipes incredibly easy. For those of you who are interested in doing this challenge for your husband - you can look at my pinterest page! I "like" recipes I want to try, and the ones that I have made and enjoyed I pin to my "Dinners" board. Take a look and you might get some ideas! Perhaps making new dinners will be an excellent Valentine's gift for your husband!

On the topic of Valentine's Day gifts, what are your favorite gifts to give your husband? Each year, I order a certain type of frozen custard from Wisconsin that my husband really enjoys and have it shipped to our house. Clearly, for us, Valentine's day has a lot to do with food -ha. Some of my other favorite gifts from the past have included a burned cd with songs that reminded me of him (think old school mixed tape only better -ha), a mason jar filled with little hearts; on each heart I wrote something I loved about him, and tickets to a fun/fancy date.

my gifts from last Valentine's Day!

Last year, I wanted Jason's gifts to be things I would keep up with all year long. I printed off, "I Love You Because..." on some scrapbook paper and put it in a black frame. It is in our office and I write Jason little notes with a dry erase marker reasons that I love him. He has even reciprocated the act by leaving me little notes in return. I try to update his picture frame at least once a week. I also bought him a week long medicine sorter (you know, the thing your grandparents keep their pills in, ha). Each week, I leave him candy, a sweet note, or a Bible verse for every day. Both of those gifts were simple and fairly inexpensive, but I gave them to him with the motivation that I would need to make the effort to keep them in use all year long. I didn't want to simply give him one love note, but a year long of little love notes and encouragements This has worked well for our during this crazy season of life where it can be days before we actually get to talk to each other. It helps me to still express my love and not always be in "mommy mode".  I don't know what I am going to do for him yet this year, but I'm looking for something along the same lines where it gives all year long! (For those of you still looking for ideas, some of the Christmas ideas I posted last month could be altered for Valentine's Day :).

I know Valentine's Day is still a few weeks away, but it isn't too early to start planning and prepping (especially if you are doing something all month long). What plans do you have for your man?