How to Plan a Kid-Friendly Picnic

The weather has been so amazing lately, and it’s the perfect excuse to spend the day outdoors with my kids. I always bring snacks when we go to the park in case my kids get hungry, but on special weekends I like to plan a more formal picnic menu that will allow us to spend most of the day outside. Wondering how to plan a kid-friendly picnic lunch? Here are my best tips to make it memorable!

This post is sponsored by Enjoy Life Foods, all opinions are my own. 

How to Plan a Kid-Friendly Picnic

The Menu

First, I create the menu. Planning ahead is key so that I can go shopping to make sure we have all of the necessary ingredients and supplies.  I find finger foods to be the easiest when eating outdoors, so I often have fruit, veggies, little sandwiches and something fun for dessert.

This time I made one large platter of strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, heart-shaped sandwiches, carrots, green beans and roasted red pepper hummus for dipping. I used a mini heart cookie cutter to cut out the heart shapes.

Cookies and Milk

For dessert, I decided to go with a cookies and milk theme (non-dairy of course) and my kids were SO excited! They love Enjoy Life’s soft and crunchy cookies, which are always a life saver for last minute play date and school party needs, so I promised to include them. The hardest part was choosing a flavor since they’re all seriously so good!

To make our picnic extra festive, I thought it would be fun to get little plastic cups for the milk and knew that the soft-baked chocolate chip cookies would fit perfectly on the sides of the glasses. The inspiration came from the little slices of lemons, limes and oranges that I see on the sides of glasses all the time, and I thought why not use a cookie instead? The result was totally adorable, and so was the priceless look of joy that both of my kids had when they saw the cookies and milk tray.

Location, location, location

I love choosing locations that have lots of things to do, that way you can enjoy your food but also play and have a home base to go back and forth. The playground, park, and beach all work really well for picnics.

We had our picnic at a local park that has a nice playground and a large open field. I found a great tree that had some nice shade under it to have our picnic lunch. Obviously, my kids ate the cookies first because they couldn’t help themselves, and I decided to let them go for it and eat the rest of the food next. We had so much fun at our picnic and the kids were nice and exhausted after running around the playground for hours. It was a really great family fun day.

About Enjoy Life

Enjoy Life’s entire line of products is gluten free, non-GMO and free of the top 14 allergens. We first discovered them when my daughter was two and had been diagnosed with a whole host of food allergies prior to her celiac disease diagnosis. It was such a relief to be able to find a company we could trust and be able to buy anything from snack bars to cookies to baking mixes to make our life easier. With so many kids having food allergies these days, I believe that Enjoy Life’s cookies, chewy bars, grain and seed bars, and snack foods should always be stocked at schools to make sure no child is left out unnecessarily.

I have always focused on reminding both of my kids that just because we can’t eat gluten or dairy, doesn’t mean that we have to live without. In fact, I try to show them the opposite all the time by cooking with them at home and companies like Enjoy Life make that easier. They’re such incredible supporters of the celiac and food allergy communities that they turned all of their product packaging teal this year to show their support and make it easier to spot them on the shelves.  If you’re already a huge fan or if you want to try their yummy products, take advantage of the 15% off sale that’s going on now through June 8. To get the discount,  shop here and enter one-time promotional code ENJOYCM at checkout.

Picnic Supplies

Here’s a list of the supplies that we brought to our picnic. When you plan your picnic, feel free to change it up with your favorite foods and toys so that it meets your family’s needs.

• Fruit
• Vegetables
• Sandwiches
• Dessert
• Drinks
• Picnic Blanket or large sheet
• Plastic forks, spoons, knives
• Napkins and wet wipes if you have little ones that get messy like I do!
• Toys (bubble wands, soccer ball, bikes, etc)
• Sunscreen
• Sunglasses
• Hats

I hope you have all of the tips you need now to plan the perfect kid-friendly picnic. If you have more tips, I’d love to hear about them in the comments.

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