Instant Summer Picnics

Source: hoyasmeg

One thing I love doing in the summer is taking a picnic lunch to the park, the pool, the benches outside the library, a museum...you get the idea. My son absolutely loves doing this. Sometimes I'll go ahead and pack our lunch, then surprise him right before we leave for our picnic. Other times, I'll ask him where he'd like to eat our lunch, and he sometimes surprises me with a fun, different idea (i.e., the park where he had his birthday party a year ago). However, packing lunch for 3 would be a chore if I didn't have a few key items in place beforehand. 

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Find a New Playground

Briles Takes Pictures

Less than a week after wearing scarves, hats and mittens for some outdoor fun, we had a glorious 80-degree day. (That's what we get for living in the Midwest!) We have a park and playground a block from our house, but my instinct on this beautiful day was to take it up a level and head to a park we haven't visited in a while.  [...]

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Detour TOWARD the Construction Zone

Photo by Martin Burns

My long-time route to work and the babysitter's house had to change because of construction on two roads, and a massive construction project on a site as big as a city block. I avoid it like the plague.  But today, I thought I'd give the little boy in the backseat a treat. Great move.  [...]

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Downtown Chicago with a 2-Year-Old

I put all of the Chicago museum free days on my calendar long ago, and we finally made a trip downtown to visit Shedd Aquarium.  We rode a train, followed buy two buses.  The whole process sounds like something that might be a big pain (including the "missed nap" part), but it was completely worth it!

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Jump in that mud puddle!

I'm not one of those people who is deathly afraid of dirt; I'm just lazy.  Too lazy, most days, to give an extra bath or pull out the stain pre-treater.  But I've done a 180 lately, even encouraging my little guy to dig in the dirt and splash in the mud puddles. And it turns out, we've both been having a blast...

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