How to Do Personal Devotions With a Baby and Toddler

How to Do Personal Devotions With a Baby and Toddler

by | Faith

How to Do Personal Devotions With a Baby and Toddler

Disclosure

Every mom dreams of uninterrupted morning coffees, and peaceful time spent journalling or praying or being in the Word. Any mom with littles knows that this is not something easy to come by. In this phase of my life, my mornings are often spent with children in my hands rather than my Bible. I needed to find a more creative way for how to do personal devotions with a baby and toddler. 

how to do devotions when you have a baby and toddler

I didn’t even know where to start, as personal devotions was not something I was taught growing up. I knew I wanted to include Bible reading, prayer, and journalling. That felt like a lot to bite off in one chunk so I went back to baby steps and found a simple goal: read the Bible.

Did you know that if you read to 15 minutes of the Bible a day you can get through the whole Bible in a year? I learned that from an excellent book I read a while back. (Seriously one of the best books I’ve read on living a Christian life and that I referance often but I lent my copy out years ago and I miss it terribly and should really buy another copy!) If you are anything like me, that sounds way less intimidating than looking at that big fat Bible thinking, “I know I should read it but when can I find the time?”

So the first step to personal devotions was set: Read the Bible for 15 minutes each day

It was so easy and I felt great and mostly rocked it!

But then…

Quote Sample

The last few days I have been suffering from a terrible headache. I believe it was a side effect of mastitis and it even got to the point that, out of desperation, I took two extra strength acetaminophen, which I haven’t needed to take in… years and years. (In retrospect, I could have tried the peppermint essential oil that I have sitting in my cupboard). It helped take the edge off but the pain was still there. It hindered my ability to keep up with housework, play with the kids, and was made significantly worse when I read and write.

The thing about being a mom is that I don’t get any sick days. So now I am behind on my housework and haven’t spent as much time outside with the boys as normal.

I am also behind on my Bible reading.

I might as well be perfectly honest and tell you I was about two weeks behind anyway. I had recently given another pep talk to myself and seriously been trying to catch up though. I didn’t want to get even further behind!

My normal reading time had been in the rocking chair while nursing the baby down for his nap. (I use the term “nap” very loosely here because sleep is very challenging with him.) I held him a little longer than I needed too so I could read two days at a time. He had just started to get into the rhythm of napping at a semi-regular time but even the kids were thrown off by Mama’s sickness.

Once I got out of the rhythm of reading regularly I knew it would be tough to start up again

After a couple of days I reminded myself that the Bible app on my smartphone that I use to keep track of my reading plan has a wonderful feature: a British man with a soothing voice reads it out loud to you!

So I recommitted.

This left me with no excuse to get behind, even on mornings when my hands are busy with little ones.

Then I wanted to find a way to listen while keeping my toddler’s hands busy. He needs my constant attention and interaction.

Typical toddler stuff.

So I grabbed his crayons and coloring book and he and I colored and listened. It wasn’t ideal for me because I kept getting interrupted by my toddler asking me for my crayon or what color he should make something but at least we were both getting some scripture in our heads. It is a good thing the baby was napping or I would also have been distracted by picking crayon out of his teeth.

I had been looking for a simple way to get more Bible reading in with my boys and now I think I found it. So I thank God for showing me another way to make His Word a part of our daily lives. I have a feeling we will be doing a whole lot more coloring in the future.
Do you have an favorite ways to get your devotions in with little ones? Please leave a comment below as I’m always open to new ideas!

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Easy Meal Plan: How Spaghetti Saves my Sanity

Easy Meal Plan: How Spaghetti Saves my Sanity

by | Homemaking

Easy Meal Plan: How Spaghetti Saves my Sanity

Disclosure

I hate to cook.

 

Well, hate may be a bit strong….. or not. I truly don’t enjoy cooking. I try to like it, really I do! I don’t mind baking (perhaps because the end result is so much tastier!) but I don’t enjoy cooking dinner every night. Now that poses a problem because my husband works in the barn all day it wouldn’t be fair for him to make dinner every night and, in spite of the fact that I am very good at budgeting, we cannot afford a cook. So I suck it up and head to the kitchen every day between 5pm and 6pm to work through my super easy meal plan.
Most mothers will be able to relate when I say that, on a nearly daily basis, someone flicks the  “Crazy Switch” at my house at about 5pm. My kids seem to need a full-time mom (read “referee”) at this point which leave me very little time (read “sanity”) to be a good little Suzy Homemaker and have dinner on the table by the time Papa Bear gets in from work.


I am so blessed that my husband understands this and has no expectation of dinner on the table at 6pm every night. He’s just happy if there is enough food in the house for him to be able to eat at some point in the evening!

 

 

So to prepare myself for all of this, I meal plan. Sort of. I read a really amazing book (Sidetracked Home Executives) that helped me set up a simple quasi-meal plan. It works perfectly for my scatterbrained self. Here is the jist of it:

 

Pick a “theme” for the meal for every day then just build your meals around that. That way you can look at the day of the week and know instinctively that it is taco Tuesday or fish stick Friday and half of your meal is already planned.

Here’s how I worked my plan and some of the ways I made it work for my schedule (I grab the meat out of the freezer during our morning High 5 time so it is mostly thawed by supper.)

Mondays: 

This is my heavy housekeeping day and our day to begin pushing our daily rhythm again after a more relaxed weekend so I don’t usually feel like making a fancy meal (well, I never really feel like it but Mondays especially) so I make spaghetti every week.  It is simple and relatively healthy. Ground beef (scramble-fried and strained), spaghetti sauce, and whole wheat noodles. If I’m feeling really energetic, I chop up some carrots or zucchini to throw into it or sometimes even corn. Peas would taste good too. I’m not allowed to do peas. My hubby despises peas. To make Mondays even easier, last year I taught my 11yo to make this so he is often on dinner duty on Monday evenings.

Tuesdays:

I did all the housework yesterday (yeah right! At least I attempted to) so learning cards and daily rhythm go a little smoother than Mondays. This is pork chop night. Just seasoning salt or I put some premade pork rub seasoning on them and throw them in the oven on my baking stone. Add a simple salad and some steamed rice. (I always make rice in my rice cooker. Way easier than on the stove or in the microwave!) Sometimes I switch it up and put a pork loin in the crock pot with the pork rub. But pork, salad, and rice. My 8yo wanted to learn how to cook a meal to so he is working on perfect this. The chops are easy peasy but can I just say that salad is way yummier when someone else chops the lettuce?

Wednesday:

This is not usually a learning card day so I plan for a morning of margin. Once a month my older boys have a community class so I plan this morning to do errands with the younger 3. We also try to plan any play dates on this day. By the time we are home I want something brainless and quick. This is ground beef night. So simple meatballs (1lb ground beef, 1/4 cup chia seeds, sprinkling of seasoning salt, throw poorly shaped blobs onto baking stone at 375 until they’re done) with boiled potatoes and steamed veggie (with grated cheese), or burritos (scramblefry ground beef with some taco seasoning and grated carrot and/or bell pepper, put in a wrap with lettuce, cheese, cucumber and ranch dressing).

Thursdays: 

I’m in the office this morning so Adam is on Daddy duty and either helps the kids move through their learning cards or takes them to the shop to help fix or do maintenance on farm equipment. This is chicken night. This is one of my favorite nights. Usually just Italian chicken. (Frozen chicken breasts, sliced potatoes and frozen beans. Drizzle with melted butter and Italian seasoning. Cover and pop in the oven at 375 for an hourish.) When the kids get bored of that, I’ll make some chicken Parmesan in the crock pot (frozen chicken, jar of pasta sauce, a cup or so of Parmesan cheese on low for 5-6 hours) with steamed rice. Sometimes I throw in a salad but other times I figure the tomatoes in the sauce counts as a vegetable. 

Fridays:

Frozen dinner night. WOOT! Or hubby cooks, or we do leftovers. Pizza, premade meals (LOVE The Big Cook). Every Mama needs a weekly night out (of the kitchen).

Saturdays:

Usually a blitz clean of the house with hubby’s help. Somehow he manages to make the kids excited about helping out. Perhaps it is the reward of Minecraft time with Dad afterwards. Every once in a while we throw in a trip to the city. This is either leftovers or frozen fish sticks with rice and steamed veggies (with grated cheese on top of course. Cheese makes everything better).

 

Sundays:

French toast casserole, roast or take out. Often my husband wants to have a bigger meal for lunch after church so he helps cook or prep before church. If we have fresh buns then we may make sloppy joes. 

If any of these nights I feel like trying something new or have energy to work in the kitchen a bit longer, I’ll stick with the theme but give myself flexibility on exactly what I make. For example, some Wednesdays I make homemade honey garlic sauce for the meatballs. I usually make enough for 3-4 meals and freeze some because it is a family favorite but a more involved process. Or on chicken night I may make fettuccine alfredo sauce (from a bag) and mix the sauce and chopped chicken with pasta and steamed veggies. These things require more hands on time and result in more dishes so they are a special treat.

So there you have it. My super easy meal plan that allows me to be creative if I feel like it or means I don’t have to think about dinner when I don’t want to. If I didn’t cook spaghetti every week I would go crazy. Maybe one day Adam will be able to take over the cooking (he actually enjoys it! He’s a keeper!) but for now I keep things simple and predictable. Supper time is much easier if a plan is in place. Plus it helps you plan your grocery list too!

 

If you meal plan, how do you do it? Are you a month at a time kind of planner or week by week?
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Taking Steps to Live a Better Life

Taking Steps to Live a Better Life

by | Personal Development

In the midst of Pinterest, Facebook fan pages and all of the really great blogs and articles out there, it is very easy to get overwhelmed and intimidated when it comes to making lifestyle changes. It seems like everyone else is living the lifestyle that you want and, if they can do it, why can’t you? I think it is fair to say that we read all these great ideas, see all these projects ideas, organizational techniques, and recipes, and we don’t know where to begin. So we don’t ever begin. We don’t ever move ahead.There are many areas that I want to change for my family. I’ll give you a partial list:
Food:
  • Make bread weekly (from flour I grow and grind myself)
  • Make yogurt weekly
  • Make cheese quarterly
  • Make butter monthly
  • Cook healthy dinners from scratch
  • Raise chickens for the eggs
  • Tap trees to make maple syrup
  • Homemade vanilla coffee creamer
  • Homemade pasta
  • Make freezer meals monthly
  • Well stocked pantry so I can do one-a-month shopping instead of weekly
Garden:
  • Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Herbs: garlic, basil, thyme, rosemary, ginger, chives, calendula, motherwort, St Johns Wort, chamomille, mint, lavander, plantain, comfy, lemongrass, hyssop
  • Lettuce
  • Cucumber
  • Broccoli
  • Cauliflour
  • Strawberries
  • Raspberries
  • Apple trees
Home:
  • Always clean enough to have company over
  • Decorated and matching furniture
  • Declutter – clothes, toys, books, and kitchen stuff
  • Wood burning fireplace
  • Organized bookshelves
  • Chemical free cleaning and body care (toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo etc)
  • Line dry laundry
  • Build my dream home for my family
Christian Living:
  • Attend church every week
  • Read the Bible through every year
  • Keep a prayer/miracles journal
  • Have a Bible study journal
  • Study scripture with my family
  • Memorize passages regularly
  • Have regular a family worship time
Education:
  • Read daily something to expand my mind in a subject of interest
  • Read daily to my children
  • Write and publish a book (or two)
  • Learn a few languages
Business:
  • Meet my sling sales goals every month
  • Do 1-2 trade shows per year
  • Get 1000 followers on my blog by the time I write/publish my book
  • Get the farm to the point that Adam can take regular days off
Family:
  • Two weekends of camping every year
  • One family “field trip” per month
  • One date with Adam per month
  • Institute a weekly family games night
  • Crafts with the kids weekly
That is a long list. And that is not even the complete list! If I look at my complete list I can get very overwhelmed. I think that if I actually was doing everything on my list then even I would not want to read my blog! The reality is that I’m more like you: big dreams that I haven’t followed through on.
Instead of focusing on what I’m not doing, I’m going to fill you in on a little secret. This secret revolutionized the way that I look at my life goals. And now for the cliff hanger: I’m going to put it in another post because this one is getting too long. Stay tuned!
In the meantime, I have a challenge for you: Grab a pen and piece of paper. Make your own list. Break it into different areas of your life and list (in as much detail as possible) how you want those areas to look and what you want to accomplish in those areas.

Java

by | Homemaking

There is something satisfying about drinking my morning coffee from a pretty cup. It’s even better when I can drink it hot. Hot coffee seems like such a novelty to me.
I am not one of those people that needs to drink my coffee before I get my day started. My day starts the instant my little ones and I awake. They hit the ground running and I find it is best if I follow suit. I use it more as a reward for when I’m done my first couple tasks in the morning. I clean for a couple hours (with frequent interruptions to referee or wipe bums) and then I get to sit down with my coffee and sometimes a good book, sometimes Facebook or Pinterest, or sometimes a stack of Magic School Bus books with two children in my lap.
I’m used to drinking lukewarm coffee. I have even been known to stick it in the microwave to reheat (yes, I do realize microwaves are not optimal for health so if you have another quick way to warm it up I’m all ears). I used to put it in a spill proof thermos cup so I could have hot coffee all day long and not have to worry about the kids knocking it over. Then I realized that I just really look forward to my 5 minute intervals of sitting on the couch, sipping my coffee, pretending that I am in a quaint Parisian coffee house listening to Bach and reading a really great historical romance novel.
My daily “me time” consists of a pretty mug, lukewarm coffee that is heavily laden with French vanilla creamer and the tumult of two little boys, that I absolutely adore, playing with their trucks and loaders. Peace and quiet will come one day and, on that day, I’ll be glad I appreciated the noise while it lasted.
Curriculum or Not?

Curriculum or Not?

by | Motherhood

My son is heading into that age that people will start asking about schooling choices. I was asked last year if we were planning to send Caleb to preschool. I said that we weren’t because he could play just as well at home or at a friend’s house. The response, “Well I guess he can just go to kindergarten in a year or two.” This was from someone who knows (or should know after being told multiple times) that we are going to homeschool our children.

This conversation has popped into my mind a few times over the last few months as Caleb has recently turned four and therefore he is technically eligible to be enrolled in kindergarten in a year. Which isn’t going to happen of course but our intentions will become a lot more apparent and concrete when the actual time comes to not enroll him. This means we will have a lot more explaining to do and questions to answer about our choices.
I don’t plan to write at this point about how we came to the conclusion that we feel like we should educate our children at home, or even our goals for our childrens’ education. What I want to talk about is the “how.”
I have been sitting on the couch the last few days with a sick baby (or toddler as I suppose he is technically called now). We have basically sat on the couch snuggling and nursing. It is times like these that I’m glad I have a laptop! I have been reading reviews after review on homeschooling curricula. There are some really amazing programs out there and I wish I could try them all. I learned about all the different methods and I just know that it will be a lot of fun. I may be a bit of a nerd because I wish I could do them all just to expand my own knowledge base. I get excited abut trying to figure out which one we should buy.
Then I look at my oldest son.
He loves to snuggle up on my lap with a story. He loves to play outside. He loves to help his daddy work on the farm. He loves to play games or do anything that involves interacting with people. He does not typically enjoy sitting at a table with crayons or a pencil. He only occasionally enjoys doing something “crafty” like playdough or cutting or stickers. After adding my son’s personality into the picture, I couldn’t find one single curriculum or plan that suits him.
I also evaluated the educational beliefs and practices that I apply to myself.
I am interested in birth and breastfeeding. A couple years ago I read about 10-15 different books (textbooks and other reference books) an numerous online and magazine articles on these two topics alone. As I studied and educated myself on these two topics I also learned about attachment parenting; the family bed; the science/biology/chemistry of a woman’s body during pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, and mothering; the history of those topics and how it affects us today; and the way that other culture currently and historically birth and raise children. I did a “unit study” on those topics by reading “living books” and taking a lot of notes that I sometimes formed into essays/letters about what I had learned. In short: I “unschooled” myself. I had an interest in something and wanted to apply it to my life so I sought out the answers.
If unschooling works for me, why would I deny my child the opportunity to learn for himself by attempting to teach him things that don’t matter and don’t apply? He will learn about what interests him when he is ready to learn it. At that point I can encourage and assist him in figuring out how to learn it. My only goal as his mother and teacher at this point is to direct him to the Lord. Everything comes back to God. If he knows and trusts the Lord, what more does he truly need?
Matthew 6:33 “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own”
The only “curriculum” we are going to make a point to study is the Bible. Seek the Lord and He will lead. And we are not going to worry about how our sons will learn how to live in His world because they will learn all they need by simply living in His world.
Though I’m a nerd and I need to admit something. I think I am going to buy a curriculum for Adam and myself to go through. He has actually agreed! It is one that is based on the Word and teaches you how to use the Bible as the basis for all your studies. Adam and I are looking forward to reading about history and science in a way that we have never seen it approached before. Going to pray about it a bit more to make sure that the purchase is led by God and not my own excitement.
Disclaimer: I understand that unschooling (or even homeschooling for that matter) is not for everyone. I do not judge you for choosing to do what you feel is best for your family so please don’t judge/criticize me for doing what I feel is best for my family. The most important thing is to follow God’s leading.
Where is God leading you? What do you feel is the best education solution for your family and why?

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