A Pretty Picnic

Marriage is hard. It gets even harder when children come into the picture. Once children come along, it is very easy to put our focus on the children, simply because they need us so much. But the best gift we can give our children is to love our spouse and make them our #1 priority. This takes a conscience commitment and effort to spend time alone with our spouse and remember that he is our first priority before the children.

Rebekah over at A Bit Of Sunshine (one of my favorite blogs) knows this truth and has made the commitment to have a special date night with her husband once a month – at home. “Dinner At 8” is her way of being intentional with her marriage and she threw out the challenge to her readers as well. Each month there is a theme to follow for your date and for July the theme was “A Pretty Picnic.” I was excited to accept the challenge and take my husband on a romantic picnic - in our backyard!  Here are some photos of the fun

After we put the littles to bed, I sent my husband away while I raced to prepare our picnic. 

I placed a card table under our plum tree.

What's a picnic without yummy food?  I tried to make some of our favorite snacks.

Our menu: Balsamic Watermelon Skewers (recipe on the right), prosciutto wrapped asparagus, prosciutto and melon (my husband loves prosciutto!!), herb toast, a cheese plate with French pickles, rosemary almonds, and herb goat cheese,

and some curry chicken salad with pretzel bread.

As it got dark, our little plum lanterns (DIY project) lit up so beautifully!

And so did our table.

We topped off the evening with ice cream bon bons and I have to say, it was the best date we've been on in a very long time!  Thanks Rebekah for the wonderful encouragement to date my husband!

I encourage you all to do the same.

I'm also linking up with The Simple Things because truly, a simple picnic at home with my husband was something that made me smile all weekend!