Backyard Picnic!

There's something fun about picnics. Maybe it's the packing of food in a cute picnic basket. Or perhaps it's the the act of spreading out a favorite blanket and sitting on it with loved ones. Or eating fun, portable food. Maybe it's even the word picnic. Pick-nick. It's a fun word to say. Whatever the reason- I love picnics. Jason and I used to go on picnics often when we were dating and first married.  We don't go on them nearly often enough now that we have kids. Occasionally we'll pack up a cooler and head out to a nearby lake, sometimes eating right there on the boat in the middle of the lake. Those are fun days and sometimes its simple moments like those that really seem to bring our family together.

I didn't have school this past Tuesday and wanted to do something fun with my boys. My mom had recently given us an old picnic basket and I'd been looking for an excuse to use it.

Hayden & Jarrett were excited and helped me back the basket. We even made sugar cookies that morning & the boys thought we needed to pack a whole dozen for the picnic. I had originally planned on taking them to a park to eat, but they wanted to go swimming in the backyard after we ate, so we decided to toss a blanket out under the shade tree behind our house. It didn't matter to them that we were only three feet from the patio, it was a picnic all the same to them.

I noticed the boys were unusually kind to each other- sharing their food, not bickering. They were even taking their time eating, rather than rushing through lunch so they could get back to playing. After they finished eating they took turns pushing each other on a little swing that hangs from the tree. It was such a sweet moment. Sitting there in the shade on a quilt made by my mother, watching my two boys play on the swing, I couldn't help but think "This is the life. These are the moments I live for."

We went swimming after lunch, the boys running back & forth between the pool & picnic basket to get a snack. When Jason came home from work that day the first thing they told him was that mommy took them on a picnic. I think the boys enjoyed our backyard lunch just as much as I did, so I see many more picnics in our future.