Quiet Time for Moms

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I'm sure a few of you saw the title of this post and just groaned. Maybe you even tossed in an eye roll for good measure. I can relate. Here I am a mom in my early 40s and I still struggle with being consistent in my quiet time with the Lord. Yes, I know how important it is. Yes, I know I should do it first thing in the morning before the rest of the day gets away from me. I certainly know it's the most important thing I can do each every day. And I always seem to make time for all my other tasks each day.

But let's be honest. It's hard to get in the routine. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you all the things you should be doing. I simply want to encourage you to find a way that works best for you. 

Oftentimes as a young mom I would hear people say to get up before your children. That way you could have your quiet time when the little ones weren't being loud and vying for attention. However, if like me you are so not a morning person but birthed a child who is a morning person, you know how difficult that can be. I would have had to be up at about four in the morning in order to beat my middle son out of bed each and every day. He arrived in the world that way and at age 13, he's still the first one out of bed every morning. As a sleep deprived young mom of three active boys, there was no way I could have been up that early every day and been able to function adequately.

I remember trying one time to get up before my early bird child. I thought if I could get up around 6am, I would have time to exercise and do my quiet time before 7am. My middle kiddo was about 4 or 5 at the time. I placed a Thomas sticker on his clock on the number seven and told him that when the little hand reached that number, he could get up in the morning. 

The very next day around 6:30am I heard loud wailing coming from his bedroom which he happened to share with his two year old brother who was also now awake. The problem? "Mom, the hands are never going to get to Thomas!!" <sigh> So I understand the difficulty, ladies, I really do.

So here are some practical tips that you may find helpful.

• Use naptime to your advantage. Yes, it's very tempting to clean the house or chill on the computer during that time, but take a few minutes and give those to the Lord first. If your children have outgrown naps, I recommend implementing a quiet time for them as well. Have them in their rooms looking at books or playing quietly on their beds. Remember, children model what they see. Make sure they have a picture Bible to look at and begin teaching them how to do their own quiet time. 
• While mornings are best, if you are a night owl like me, you may find giving the Lord some time in the evening is what works best. Just make it consistent. I would also recommend not doing an evening quiet time while laying in bed. That always ends with me snoozing!
• Find a Bible study to attend. I was very blessed when my boys were young to be able to participate in a wonderful mom Bible study. We took turns in the nursery watching the children so all the rest could enjoy some mom time and study time. Being accountable each week to others for having done my homework helped me to find the time each day to complete it. 
• Mothers of Preschoolers or MOPS is a fantastic support group for moms of young ones. There is typically a book that is read and discussed each year. There is typically a nursery and MOPPETS for the children to participate in as well. I was active in my MOPS group for a few years when my youngest was small and I have some very found memories of that time and made some lasting friends as well.
• Proverbs31 Ministries leads online an Bible study if the thought of getting out of the house with lots of little ones is daunting. In fact, their next study starts on this Monday, September 22nd. They will be going through Lysa TerKeurst's new book, The Best Yes. 
• Include your children in your study. Read out loud from the Bible while you have lunch and then discuss what you just read. Do you have very young ones? Read a picture Bible and then talk with them about what you just read.

There is no right way to do a quiet time. The most important thing to remember is to make the time to just do it. Give your best to the Lord first and the rest of the day should go just a bit easier.

Lisa is a wife to Bob. They just began their 21st year of marriage. She is also a mom to three boys (ironic, no?). Her oldest will soon be 18 but still has one more year at home. Her middle son is 13 and her youngest is 10. She also stays busy by homeschooling her children and watching a two-year old (a boy of course) full-time as well as other assorted children as the need arises for family and friends. She is very active in her local and state homeschooling community. She is also a very avid reader, enjoys writing, loves dancing at Zumba class, and checking Facebook a little too often. Lisa strives daily to become more Christ-like. She is reminded often of the Lord's mercy and grace and is thankful that He is so gracious to extend to her on a much needed basis. She lives in Maine on her own piece of "no-where land" with her family.

Tot Time Fun

When I was home educating just one child, it was relatively easy to do so. I only had to focus on him and we managed to get most of our schoolwork done during his little brother's nap time. However, younger siblings tend to grow, more arrived, and then I even began to babysit for two little girls younger than mine by a couple of years.

Out of necessity I started to put together busy bags for the younger crew. These were activities that once they reached the age of about three, they could pull out to do on their own. Under the age of three, they were able to do most of the activities with direct supervision. All had an educational bent such as learning letters or numbers or working on motor skills. They also served the purpose of keeping little hands and minds occupied while I worked with the older boys. 

I had quite a stash of activities when my youngest was four and I had the extra two little girls. Miss L is pictured above. She was 18 months old and was putting blunt toothpicks into a spice container through the small holes. She loved this and it kept her occupied for quite some time as well as helped her to develop fine motor skills. 

During our school day I would rotate activities as well as "stations." Since I had two small toddlers in a small house, one would sit at the table and work on the activities while the other would play in a playpen with some toys.

My youngest at about age 3 working on his cutting skills.

All my activity bags were stored in a large basket. They were saved for school time only, but you could certainly use them whenever it best suited you. By saving them for a special time, it helped to keep interest in them high.

If you have friends with young children, one really fun thing I did was to participate in an activity bag swap. Twelve is a good number to have in such a swap. Each person picks an activity and creates 12 bags of the same activity. The host then collects all the bags from everyone and swaps it out so everyone gets back 12 different bags (their own plus 11 different ones). I did mine through the mail, but it would be even easier to put something together with a group of local friends.

Below I have listed some of my favorite resources as well as a couple new finds that look great! I am now babysitting a sweet two-year-old. Since we have just started back our school year, I need to come up with some more activities to keep him occupied during our learning time.

*None of these links are affiliate links - just provided for ease of finding info.

• Tot School - lots of ideas for creating tot time activities
• The Toddler's Busy Book - games and activities for children ages 1-1/2 to 3
• The Preschooler's Busy Book - games and activities for children ages 3-6
• Trish Kuffner is the author of the above books and has quite a few more.
• The original Activity Bag - they have lots of different books you can purchase. Each comes with how to put together the bags include printable instructions. They even offer a free coordinator ebook for anyone who plans to put together a swap. 
• A huge Pinterest board of ideas
• Walking By the Way - a great blog with lots of ideas listed 

Lisa is a wife to Bob. They just began their 21st year of marriage. She is also a mom to three boys (ironic, no?). Her oldest will soon be 18 but still has one more year at home. Her middle son is 13 and her youngest is 10. She also stays busy by homeschooling her children and watching a two-year old (a boy of course) full-time as well as other assorted children as the need arises for family and friends. She is very active in her local and state homeschooling community. She is also a very avid reader, enjoys writing, loves dancing at Zumba class, and checking Facebook a little too often. Lisa strives daily to become more Christ-like. She is reminded often of the Lord's mercy and grace and is thankful that He is so gracious to extend to her on a much needed basis. She lives in Maine on her own piece of "no-where land" with her family.

Calm Corners of Your Home

I love my home. It's nothing special and we really stretched ourselves to buy it. We can't afford to renovate it, but are gradually picking off jobs that need doing,one by one. This process has taken 10 years,so far.

Because so much of my home is in a state of disrepair, I found that the only way to keep loving my home was to have little corners of it, which make me happy.

When I am too tired to work and need to relax,or sit and think,or just read my Bible and pray, I have a little corner or other in most rooms where I can look and see something which I think it beautiful. I think it was William Morris who said, 'Have nothing in your home which you do not believe to be beautiful or know to be useful.'

Well, the old carpet in our bedroom was neither useful nor beautiful. Ugly and worn, it was becoming a trip hazard and had to go. Now we have mats on the floor and are camping out without a bedframe until we can afford to buy a new carpet. It could take another few months.

 In the meantime, I delight in my calm, pretty corners.

When you are knee deep in nappies and toddlers, having one spot in the house which you believe to be beautiful can be really important for your peace of mind, Dear Daughter. It may be one uncluttered shelf, one picture on a painted wall, a vase of flowers on your kitchen windowsill.

Find somewhere. Make it your own. Soon, the peaceful corners could expand into whole rooms! You never know!

Recipe: Watergate Salad

Today I thought I would share a family favorite recipe that I grew up with and now we enjoy in my family. It is a simple dish that is easy to make with young children and that they enjoy. In fact, my daughter has now taken over preparing this dish any time we have a family gathering or need to take a dish to a pot luck.

Watergate Salad

1 small package of instant pistachio pudding mix

1 can (15 or 20oz) crushed pineapple, undrained

1 tub (9oz) thawed frozen whipped topping

1 cup miniature marshmallows

optional: 1/2 cup chopped nuts 

optional: 1/2 cup marachino cherries

Mix pudding with pineapple, stir in remaining ingredients. Chill until serving. 

Alex mixing the Watergate for Thanksgiving dinner.

Jen

Family Ministry

My advice to you, Dear Daughter, is to choose a family ministry when your children are very small and work, serving the Lord together, at this ministry throughout their childhoods.

Ask the Lord's help in determining where He wants you to serve and bear in mind advice from those who know you about what your gifts and callings are. Then, commit the work to the Lord and follow.

You may have a heart for the homeless and make it your family's mission to provide for them. Maybe you and your husband love to work with children? Perhaps your family ministry is to run children's outreach events together.

It's important to pick something in which your children can be included. Often, churches call parents to important evening meetings, which involve leaving children behind with baby-sitters. This never seemed right to me. Such work can never be as important as your primary ministry - to your children. Families don't need to separate in order to serve God. In fact, when they work together as a team, they demonstrate God's faithfulness to them, as a family, in a unique way.

We chose music, since my husband was a musician and I had been, long ago, a singer. We invested in music for the children, paying for lessons, giving thought and time to their musical development, encouraging a love of musical worship, going to worship music training events and conferences together as a family, eventually serving together on Sunday mornings and at outreach concerts in the evening in our own band, Life-Songs.

Of course, there will be times when the children resist a little; perhaps your teens will need to express themselves in some other way, outside the family ministry. That's okay. The skills and compassion you have helped them develop will be used by God elsewhere.

It's starts like this.

 

Janna, my granddaughter, with her instruments, joining in a family music session.

 and it progresses to something like this...

Team Stewart leading worship on a Sunday morning.

You will be blessed by serving together, Dear Daughter!

Paperbag scrapbook concept books

This is a simple project that you can do with your children that can not only teach them simple concepts, but make memories at the same time. I made this book with my oldest daughter when she was young. It was fun to go through family pictures and remember good times. It was also a fun project to work on together.

You can make any kind of scrapbook you want with this method. We chose to make it a family number book. Each page has a picture with a different number of people in it. As you can see here, it starts with one person. My daughter, Jessica, who helped make the book gets that spot. The next page has two people. And so on. There are only five people in our immediate family so, as we progressed from 6-10, we expanded it to include grandparents, cousins and so on and widened the circle of relations. You could do it to include friends as well.

To make a number book to include 10 numbers you will need:

3 small paper lunch bags
hole punch
ribbon
scrapbooking paper
scrapbooking glue or adhesive stickers
pictures with groups from 1-10
number stickers
letter stickers (optional)

Fold the bags in half and punch holes in the "spine".
Stack the bags together to make a book and tie with small pieces of ribbon.
After you have chosen your pictures, find coordinating scraps of scrapbooking paper to add a colorful back ground for your pictures.
Glue your paper and pictures to each page.
We used whimsical number stickers to number each page, but you could just write them if you want.
We also used some fun letter stickers to add a title to the front cover and "The End" on the back. You could write it if you want.

We just happened to have a fun picture from a children's museum that had the numbers 123 in it to make a fun picture for the cover.

You can use the same method to make other concept books such as ABC, opposites, etc. We used pictures that we already had, but it would be fun to take pictures with your child just for the book. That way the concept is being learned both in the taking of the pictures, making the book and reading it afterwards.

Have fun!

Jen

Laying a good foundation

In Matthew we are told to build our house on a rock so that when the storms come we have a good foundation. Proverbs teaches us to train up our children in the way they should go so when they are old they will not depart from it. An important part of raising our children is to help them lay that strong foundation, train them to know, love and serve the Lord Jesus at an early age so that when they are older and on their own they have that strong foundation already built and can lean on it. There are no guarantees in this life. God has no grandchildren. And there are no magic formulas. But with out good faith education as a child, it is harder for our children to navigate through the stormy times of living in this world. Our children have a better chance of accepting Christ and loving and serving Him if they are introduced to Him at an early age.

We have used many different methods to give our children this good foundation, church, family Bible Studies, Biblically centered curriculum, etc. It is good to model and live this faith at home. It's also good for them to have positive role models outside the home.

One tool we have used to help us build this foundation in our children is Awana Clubs. Our children started when they were 3 years old, learning simple truths and scripture and now as teens they are digging deeper and serving right along side the adults, training up the younger kids. Awana is an international organization whose goal is to train children to know, love and serve Jesus. They model their age 2-18 clubs on the life of Joseph and teach children the principles of respect, wisdom, and grace. At the youth age, their focus is on teaching the young people that their destiny is in following the call and will of God  and to trust God's sovereignty in all things. They make club nights fun and exciting to come to so that it draws kids in, but scripture memory and service are also very key.

Awana may not be for every family. But for ours it has been a huge blessing. My kids have grown up, since they were very little, learning and loving the Word, getting good strong Biblical teaching, learning to serve and having a lot of fun and meeting kids who are being raised with the same principles. My children love to serve and I enjoy getting to serve with them each week. They enjoy working with the younger clubbers and they have a lot of fun with their friends. I love that they have a place that they look forward to going to that is a positive place with good friends. I pray that this foundation will last through out their lives and help them to grow into strong adults ready to weather any storm.

Awana also has many resources to help families to train their children at home, including books, games and Awana at Home curriculum. Just last year they even started offering their materials through Awana Homeschool so that families can do the same books that church clubs offer in their homeschools.

If you are interested in learning more about Awana, visit Awana.org

My kids with their Grand Prix cars. 

Alex as a Student Leader
with one of her Cubbies.

Awards night. Awards won for all their hard work learning the Word. 

Alex as a Cubbie.