As summer quickly approaches, I thought I’d re-share this popular post about how I help my kids spend time with God in the mornings. I hope you enjoy these ideas and if you create a #hellomornings basket for your children, tag me on instagram (inspiredtoaction) or share the link in the comments so I can “ohh and ahh” along with you.

Breakfast Time In My Home

This is the basket we keep on our breakfast table. It’s filled with Bibles, study books, journals, prayers sticks and conversation cards. Each morning at breakfast time, the kids eagerly sit down with their food, grab a Bible, a prayer stick and peacefully read and pray for 45 minutes.

Or not.

Maybe your kids do that, but in my house our mornings are a little more crazy (although it’s less crazy during the summer). My children are often reading other books as they sit down at the table. Imagine those kids that walk around with a book in their face as they attempt go about their day. That’s what 2/3 my children look like 95% of the time.

My other child is usually climbing on something. Possibly a sibling.

So now that we’ve established that there is nothing magical about my home, let’s move on to the topic of bribery.

How To Bribe Your Children

During the school year when the crazy is kicked up a notch, I often bribe my kids with hot chocolate to get them the table early enough to eat, read and pray.

That may sound awful or brilliant, but either way, it works like a charm.

Being that I’m pretty picky about sweets, my children get really excited about the hot cocoa and hurry through their morning routine to get to the table. They then sit down to have their “God Time” while they eat.

I like to think I’m creating really sweet memories (pun alert) for my children of the preciousness of early morning time with God.

What a better way to wake up than to a steaming cup of cocoa, a cozy mama hug and time with God?

The Nitty Gritty: So What’s In The Basket?

When I posted the picture of our basket on Instagram and Facebook yesterday, there were lots of questions about what is in the basket, so here is the basic run down of what is usually in there:

Jesus Calling – This is my youngest daughter’s favorite devotional.

One Year Devotions for Preschoolers – my kids have all really liked this book. It has a devotion, scripture passage and prayer for each day. When they were little, the loved the cute pictures and the rhyming prayers.

The Adventure Bible – This is a great kids study Bible. The format is incredibly fun for young readers and yet all the content is there – it’s the real Bible and not just a story Bible.

24 Family Ways – this is a wonderful family devotional from Sally and Clay Clarkson.

Sword Fighting – This is a kids devotional book by Karen Henley that was highly recommended to me. I don’t think it’s in print anymore, but you can find used copies on Amazon.

Resources from our church – we have an amazing church and they provide great resources for family and kids devotions, so we use those a lot as well. If your church doesn’t already provide that for kids, perhaps that’s something you could spearhead.

Prayer sticks – these are simply large popsicle sticks that the kids wrote on and decorated. They have the names of family and friends, our Compassion kids, leaders and various prayer topics. My children pull one or two out and pray for whatever is on the stick.

Perfection Isn’t The Goal, Faithfulness Is.

There are precious moments when my children share Bible verses that they feel God put on their heart that morning. Or funny times like when my youngest declared, “Mama! I’m gonna write a thank you note to Jesus! ….for pigs!”

Just as often, though, the kids rush through to get back to their American Girl book or to play a game of Angry Birds.

Perfection isn’t the goal. Faithfulness is.

As we make these morning times a routine, I’m praying and trusting that God is sowing truth, love and hope into their hearts.

What ideas, books and resources have you used to help your kids develop a habit of spending time with God? Click here to share your thoughts!

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links.

A quick note: My kids’ FAVORITE storybook Bible (The Jesus Storybook Bible) is on sale right now for Kindle for $1.99! I just bought our copy yesterday and saw that it’s still on sale today, so I wanted to make sure and let you all know. Click here to get it on Amazon.

Are you trying to figure out a solid routine for your mornings? Do you want to “maximize your mornings” but it’s just a whole lot harder than you’d thought it would be?

Sometimes it’s helpful to hear stories from other people in the midst of the journey. Angela emailed me recently with the things that have worked for her and there are 3 things I want you to notice in her story that I hope will help you too:

1. She kept tweaking – she had actually been trying to find a morning routine for a couple of years, but just hadn’t figured out something that worked for her. I think the key to her eventual success was that she just kept tweaking. She kept trying things until she found something that worked for her.

2. She found her jumpstart – It’s so helpful to have a “jumpstart” – that treat to look forward to when the alarm goes off. For me, it’s my cozy chair. For Angela, it was listening to worship music. For you, it might be a nice cup of coffee.

3. She looked for a solution, not a formula – I love that Angela knew that planning wasn’t something she needed to do in the mornings. It works for her to do that at night. She didn’t try to change what works just to fit into the routine I outline in the book. She wanted a solid morning routine and she pulled from my ideas and created her own solution that fits her life perfectly.

Angela’s Story

I found your ‘Maximize your Mornings’ book at that point and it has literally changed my life.

The night I read your book I decided to give it a shot. And, finally, something clicked! I think one thing that did was to listen to music to start. I am a huge music lover (and thanks for introducing me to Brooke Fraser!) and I love starting my mornings with praise music.

Anyway, here’s part of a blog post I wrote a couple of weeks later:

As I mentioned before, I made my way to this blog for a meal planning boot camp last week. While on her site, I saw that she had free downloadable ebooks. One is called ‘Maximize your Mornings.’ While I’ve bemoaned early rising in the past , it’s still something I have in my heart that I want to do. So I chose it as my first project for the year … and failed miserably. I tried to just set my alarm 5 minutes earlier each day. I see two problems with that:

1) When I get up 5 minutes earlier, so do my kids.
2) Getting up 5 minutes earlier doesn’t allow me to see any benefit from the earlier rising, since I only get an extra 5 minutes.

Now, I am an introvert by nature and I’ve always said I’m not a morning person. I think one of the reasons I don’t like mornings is I don’t like interacting with other people – especially demanding little people who all want something from me at the same time – first thing in the morning.

A day or so after I read the ‘Maximize your Mornings’ ebook, I decided to give it a shot. But, this time, I skipped the small changes bit. I set my alarm for 5:30, a good 2 hours earlier than I usually get up. Of course, I had to adjust my bedtime accordingly, so I set out what I would need for the next day and headed to bed by 10:30. I am fairly confident I need around 7 hours of sleep (that’s what I was getting before – I just went to bed after midnight).

Based on the book, with a few modifications, here is what I aim to do each morning before the kids get up around 7:30:

– breakfast
– time with God
– exercise
– shower / dressed

The book also suggests planning your day, but I do that before I go to bed the night before. That first morning I got out of bed without too much difficulty and went through my routine. And … I loved it!! It took a few days for my body to get used to the different schedule, but the rewards far outweigh any drawbacks I’ve found so far. It takes care of the two problems I mentioned above with the incremental changes (I have enough time to accomplish major parts of my day, and the kids are still fast asleep when I get up and seem to sleep through my morning times).

I can’t overstate what a difference this has made to the way I greet my children when they get up, which sets the tone for the day. I love getting up early (even this hardcore night owl!) and think it’s one of those ‘big’ changes that’s going to stick.

It’s now been almost 6 weeks since I started rising early, and those last two sentences still describe what a difference it’s made in my life.

I just love that! I hope Angela’s story inspires you as you journey towards a great morning routine. Remember: Keep tweaking, find your jumpstart, and focus on a solution instead of a formula.

What are your mornings like right now? Are they a struggle? If so, what is your biggest challenge? A success? If so, what keys have helped you? Click here to join the discussion!

It’s Spring Break ’round these parts (that’s Texan for “here”) and I’ve been busy creating fun little spaces for the kids (okay…and me).

I’m NOT a home decorator by any stretch of the imagination, but I do love creating cozy spots where my children can read and play. I’m less like Martha Stewart and more like a 7 year old kid who loves to build forts.

Game Corner
The first project was creating a fun little spot in the living room where they can play games and do puzzles (pictured above and below). All I did was move a few pieces of furniture and buy a couple cute stools for a table we already had. Voila. My kids played chess all day yesterday.

Sometimes they used rules, sometimes they made up their own.

Mom’s Office/Kids’ Cave

The second project was re-doing my closet/office. You may have read my previous posts about how I transformed my closet into a little office space “mom cave” (read about that here).

It has worked REALLY well for me, but it was still a little cramped and there wasn’t really room for all three of my kids to come in and hang out, which they do…often. I’d made little spots for them…aka “kid caves” but I wanted to make it more fun and cozy than just a cleared out space in the corner.

My closet is about 5×5. It’s small, but I was able to simplify my clothes onto one rack and rearrange things so that I have space for a desk, a little reading nook, and a small cushy bench.

My kids LOVE it.

My Office
On the right is my “office” where I do all my blogging, podcasting and destroying great songs with my lame guitar skills.

Kids Areas
On the right there is a little, cushiony bench (really two cushions wrapped in a blanket) with overhead lights (the stick-on kind). Two of my kids can sit here and read. Or one little, early rising, boy can stretch out and own the place until his sisters wake up.

In the far corner, there is a cozy little spot where my son usually reads. It has a fun cushion and a little light. He loves his little spot away from the girls.

The Best Part
On the back wall, I have a fun basket with coffees, teas, snacks and hot cocoa. The kids love to be the first one to get up in the morning and join me for a cup of cocoa. I admit, I kind of love it too.

Learning to Love Mornings

My favorite thing about the whole set up is that my kids have learned to love the mornings. They associate early mornings with quiet, connecting time with God and Mommy.

They keep their Bibles and journals in their little spots. (My son “reads” his Bible using the audio Bible on the YouVersion IOS app.)

P.S. Keeping It Real
Lest you think that my home is filled with chess playing, Bible reading children and I’m constantly keeping my home in a state of perfection, here is what my kitchen looked like the past couple of days while I was redecorating other spaces in my home.

And I’m sure the cocoa and the Mommy time are a bigger early morning draw than the reading of Nehemiah, but I figure…whatever it takes to build the habit.

Honestly, there are some mornings when the lure of a warm cup of tea and my cozy office chair are the only things that get me out of bed before the kids. When developing life changing habits, we need to pull out all the punches and do whatever it takes to make it happen.

Do you have any cozy spots in your home? Have you ever thought of creating one? Click here to share in the comments!