If your kids are still at home this may well prove to be one of the most impactful things you can do both for your kids and your wife. Your kids will learn to love this attention and consistency, but you will probably find your wife is grateful you are investing time in your kids too. Our wives are so linked to the children that she feels everything you do to them.  If you lose your patience and get angry with them she will feel like you did that to her.  If you go out of your way to spend time with them, wrestling on the floor, attending their school functions, coloring with them at the table... she will feel like you are investing in her relationship too. 

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In our family I unfortunately didn't start this until High School.  But I would pick Grace up from school every Tuesday (I think) and take her out for a quick bite to eat over lunch.  For Malachi, Heather would often buy McDonalds and Malachi and she would sit in the parking lot and eat.  

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A great friend of mine takes his daughter out for sushi every pay day.  So their date is every other week, but it is an opportunity to do something the rest of the family doesn't like.

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If your kids are smaller, take them to the park, and if possible do it one on one.  All of your kids will love the attention from their dad, and really being looking forward to the time you spend together.  

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Another good variation of this:

Make a habit of sitting on the end of your kids bed every night.  If you have two kids this should be easy, but if you have more than two you will have to rotate who get's what night.  My wife was far better at this than I was (and I wish I could go back and redo it).  She would sit on Grace's bed every night and just let her talk.  Somedays they would talk for a few minutes and then sit in silence for 10-15, or maybe they would talk for hours.  What she discovered was that in the beginning the kids would talk about barbies or video games, (as her eyes would glass over and fight falling asleep), but then one night everything changed. Our daughter looked at her and said "mom, there's a boy I really like, what do you think?" You see Heather had build up enough relational equity and proved herself as a safe person to share with by all the long hours and night spent sitting on Grace's bed.  This open channel proved to be a life saver when heartbreak or temptations came.  It is tough being a child today, and if you will begin today investing time every night in your kids lives, you might just find someday in the future the dark days are near as dark for them.

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