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.

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.

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.