I love picnics, and since having kids I find every summer we seem to picnic more and more.  The kids love eating finger foods outside and I love not having a huge mess to clean up at home!

With the warm weather here I’ve been thinking of ways to make picnics even better.  Today’s list is of great ideas to make having a picnic easy, fun and safe.

1.   This is such a cute and clever idea, turn a six pack container into a convenient condiment holder for summer picnics.
2.  This is a great project to waterproof your picnic blanket.  Now, you can enjoy your picnic (even if it rained the night before) and not worry about getting your bottom wet.
3.  Add a little bit of extra fun and whimsy to your picnic by customizing the picnic plates.  This website offers templates for a beach themed picnic, but the possibilities are endless.  Personally, I like the idea of a teddy bear picnic.
4.  Sometimes food can get squished when you are trying to fit all your goodies into the picnic basket.  That’s why I love this pressed picnic sandwich, which actually tastes better when it is pressed.
5.  With the beautiful summer weather, it is nice to be able to spend more time outdoors.  But it can be difficult to indulge in a spontaneous picnic if you are not prepared.  Here is a list of all the non-food essentials that you can have ready to go in your picnic container of choice.
6.  Picnics are fun, getting sick afterwards isn’t.  Here is a great site to keep your picnic safe and sanitary.
7.  Space is usually a precious commodity in your picnic container.  Freeze some of your picnic drinks so they can also keep your food cool.
8.  As much as I love ice cream, it is not the ideal picnic food.  Fruit cones are a great dessert alternative that be assembled at a picnic with all your favourite fruits.  Ideal for kids and adults.
9.  Eating outside means fresh air, sunshine and bugs!  Keep uninvited guests off your food with these simple and ingenious food guards.
10.  These adorable bird sandwiches would be great at any meal, but I think they are perfect for picnics.  Have fun with your food and create some edible animals.
11.  I think kids will eat anything as long as it is on a stick.  This cool idea for a sandwich on a stick is a great way to add some veggies (that your kids will actually eat) to your picnic.
12.  You may remember this from your own childhood; using twizzlers as drinking straws.  This classic idea is a great way to have fun and reduce waste at your picnic.

My oldest niece turned seven in May and constantly has us in stitches with the grown up things she says.

The other day my sister-in-law was telling me a story about how she was getting dressed to go out and my niece came in the room and insisted she try on one of her mom’s frilly bras.  When she had it on my sister-in-law thought it was so funny to see her parading around that she told her to go and show her dad.

“No way” was the immediate response.

My sister-in-law didn’t understand why she wouldn’t do her little fashion show for her dad.  When she asked her, my niece said very seriously, “would you want your father to see you in your bra?”

Good point.

I had the amazing opportunity to write a guest post – I Had No Idea!  A First Time Mom’s Revelations – as part of the Real Moms, Real Views big baby shower event. Now that my kids are both past babyhood, I wanted to share the continuation of the story. What happens when that moist, poop-filled little drooler becomes a… T-O-D-D-L-E-R. There are so many things I wasn’t prepared for. So many things I don’t think I could ever prepare for. It would be sticky. If moist was the name of the game with babies – waking up in a puddle of breastmilk, constant spitup, poop that defies gravity and shoots up the back to their neck – with toddlers it is STICKY. I don’t even know sometimes how my kids manage to get so sticky. It’s as though their skin excreets sugar, I swear. They will get out of the bath and within half an hour they are covered again. Which of course means pint sized handprints on every surface in my home.

Going out without them would feel like I forgot something. So many times I have gone out without my kids (actually, not that many at all, but every time I do manage to get out) and suddenly I freeze in the middle of wherever I am and go into full panic mode because I can’t see my kids.  Then I get a grip and realize they are at Grandma’s and I feel like an idiot.  But that is part of being a mom, it’s a constant state of that feeling you get when you realize you left your purse in a restaurant.

My own phrases would annoy the heck out of me. I didn’t even know I had phrases until I started hearing them repeated back to me a hundred times a day by my toddlers. Invariably whenever they start I always complain to my Mom or husband about where they learned those annoying phrases. And my Mom or husband (who CLAIM to love me) take great pleasure in pointing out that they learned them from me.

That it would be full contact. When I hear new moms complain about their aching backs from carrying a baby everywhere I snicker, “just wait until you have a 30 pounder who refuses to put on his rubber boots” I think with a twisted sense of satisfaction. Misery loves company. Much of parenting a toddler is a full contact sport. Wrestling them in to the clothes… trying to force them to bend at the middle and sit in their car seat… the bruises and scrapes… I perpetually look like I just went 10 rounds with the heavweight champ.

That other parents would become my rivals. Maybe rivals is too strong of a word, but there is definitely a competition between myself and other parents that I never expected. At birthday parties we’re checking out each other’s cakes to see who made the best one. We try to be sly about quizzing our kid’s friends to see if they know their alphabet yet. How we define our success or failure as a parent suddenly depends on how we are doing against our biggest competitors.  It’s not keeping up with the Jones’, it’s outparenting the Jones’!

But despite all of this, I still wouldn’t change it for the world.

I don’t believe what my mother used to say “never play with your food”.  I think part of getting kids excited about food is to let them experience it with all of their senses.

I love to cook and bake with both of my kids.  Since they were old enough to stand up on a chair at the counter they’ve been helping pour in ingredients, stir and of course lick the bowl!

A fun craft/snack we make sometimes is paintable cookies.  They are a simple sugar cookie that the kids get to paint with food coloring before they’re baked.  Throw in some fun shaped cookie cutters and you’ve got yourself a great time.

Here are some pictures from a cookie painting session we did with friends…

Paintable Cookies Recipe

1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 tbsp orange juice
2 tbsp grated orange rind
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

* Cream together butter and sugar in a large bowl until fluffy.  Add the beaten egg followed by the orange juice and orange rind.
* In a smaller bowl, stir together flour, baking powder and salt.
* Add dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and beat well.
* Chill the dough and then roll out to about 1/8″ thickness and cut shapes.
* Paint with a mixture of water and food coloring.
* Bake painted cookies at 375F for about 8 minutes or until they are set and slightly brown around the edges.

Enjoy!

My husband’s cousin is having a baby and this weekend as I was packing up some of our baby gear to take to her (sniff!) I got thinking about how much fun she’ll have decorating her little ones nursery.

A child’s very first room is a great space to have fun and be creative!  These are some wonderful ideas I found around the web for unique nursery art.  

1.   Kids love picture books, but somehow they also manage to rip them.  This is an ingenious way to reuse ripped or treasured picture books (or really any images that you like) to decorate a nursery.
2.  This project is recommended as a gift for teachers, but I think it is a great, personalized way of decorating a nursery.  Use crayons to create initials. I love the way this is presented in a nice frame.
3.  Expand the idea of initials to writing out your child’s full name.  This is a really versatile and customizable project from Martha Stewart and it looks so cute!
4. Remember those old wooden letters?  They are charming, but sometimes they can look dated.  This site provides some neat ways to use these blocks for a new generation.
5. These are so gorgeous and you are only limited by your imagination.  Use an easy paper piercing technique to create wall art for the nursery. You can even use a template, so this project is great for people who don’t think of themselves as artistic.
6. This is great for people who are truly not creative, or just don’t have the time to make decorations.  You might want to consider buying these wonderful decals.  Check out the website and be inspired.
7.  I think a growth chart is one of the definitive items necessary to complete a child’s room.  This project provides step by step instructions for a wooden growth chart that will be durable enough to fully chart your child’s growth.
8. This is an easy way to decorate a nursery, especially for people who love words and reading.  This site provides novel ideas for decorating a room with alphabet flash cards.
9.  Making picture frames for your child’s nursery can be both easy and inexpensive; this great DIY will show you how.
10. As the site describes it, art in an instant!  And you probably already have everything you need to complete this project.  I love the big impact for so little effort.
11.  This may be a little hard to see because it is a yellow sun on a yellow wall, but it is a brilliant project nonetheless.  It is as simple as using pins and yarn to create a sun motif on your child’s nursery wall.
12.  This one takes a little forethought, but it is such a fun project!  This website provides step by step instructions to create your very own belly cast. A wonderful way to commemorate your pregnancy and decorate the nursery.

It was a busy weekend of playing with the kids, planting our vegetable garden and enjoying time with friends and family at not one but two BBQs.

We could have really used Monday off to recouperate!  Needless to say we were all tired and a little bit grumpy. 

Around 2pm my husband (who works from home) came down for a snack and to grumble about how hard it was to focus on work.  He admitted he was just coasting through the day.

As I looked around the house and at my two small children I realized that as an at-home mom I can never really “coast through my day”.  It reminded me of a great joke I was emailed a long time ago.

Hope you enjoy it…