Breakfast and Devotional Time

I have been trying to spice up our breakfast routine by decorating the food, cutting up fruit in fun shapes, and trying new things. The girls have really enjoyed it and it has made it much easier for them to sit while I do our morning devotions. I love our morning routine, once we are all seated I read to them from different children's devotionals and as they get older they are interacting more with the material. My goal is to get Claire and Grace familiar with scripture, bible stories, hymns, and even church history. It is refreshing to me to start my day proclaiming the excellencies of our Lord and teaching my sweet children about our precious creator. My favorite devotional is still, My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt. Claire and Grace love the stories and this has been a great way to get Claire memorizing scripture. We have done this one a number of times and it is wonderful to hear her little voice speaking truth and wisdom from the bible. Right now for morning devotions we are reading one story from, God is Great: A Toddler's Bible Storybook by Carolyn Larsen, and one page from The Church History ABCs by Stephen Nichols and Ned Bustard. I also like going through the Big Picture Story Bible, I will do that one again after we have finished up the 2 books we are working on now.

My sweet mother in law gets me so many great devotional tools to use with the girls. Thanks to her we had a great time doing seasonal devotions during Christmas time and Easter time. At Christmas time we went through Christmas Carols for a Kid's Heart by Bobbie Wolgemuth and Joni Eareckson Tada and Claire loved learning all the Christmas hymns. In addition to singing a Christmas hymn she learned about the history behind the hymn. At Easter time we read Benjamin's Box by Melody Carlson and did that along side the Resurrection Eggs. Both girls LOVED this and I'm looking forward to doing it again next Easter. The other Easter book we read was The First Easter by Carol Heyer and the girls loved all the pictures in this book.

Finally, I just started adding in one more thing to our morning devotional time and that is, catechism questions. We are only doing a few questions a day and reviewing ones we have already gone over. Claire has caught on quick and the other day Gracie answered the first question of, 'Who made you?' In her little voice she looked at me and said, 'God made me'. We are only on question 6 and I think I might be reviewing these for awhile with Claire. Here are the first 6 questions in the catechism:
1. Who made you? God made me
2.What else did God make? God made all things
3. Why did God make you and all things? For His own glory
4. How can you glorify God? By loving Him and doing what He commands.
5. Why ought you to glorify God? Because He made me and takes care of me.
6. Are there more gods than one? There is only one God.

So here are some pictures of the girls eating their 'fun' breakfast foods

Cream of Wheat with blueberries and heart shaped watermelon

They loved the watermelon hearts

Gracie is my big fruit eater

Mango, banana, blueberry smoothies

Yum!

What a sweetheart