Our Morning Time takes place around our dining room table every morning. We have tea and breakfast together. We feed our bodies, hearts, minds and souls.  We do this every day.  Kids still squabble, there are still grumpy morning vibes (mostly from me) there are still messes and disappointments. Good or bad it all happens around our table where we gather for breakfast and morning time, every single day.

If someone had showed me a picture of our current morning time back in oh, circa 2011ish, I would have probably wept and asked, “What? How? When? HOW?!?!?!” Back then all the kids were teeny tiny and absolutely everywhere all at once. Back then I was the only person not wearing diapers. Back then I’d take 10 minutes to scramble eggs so my kids could throw it all on the floor and scream for cereal. Back then I was very much in survival mode thanks to my roaring case of PTSD. Back then the only consistent habit I had was exhaustion.

So how did we get here?

The simplest answer is probably my realization that my kids were and are capable human beings and that I did not have to do all this alone. We were homeschooling TOGETHER. I was homeschooling WITH my children. I was not in charge of whipping up magical environments for them every day. Nope. I was learning alongside them and each person had some element of beauty to add to the family experience of homeschooling. If we wanted peaceful, inspiring mornings, we would all have to get there together.

First there is the realistic part of morning time. Breakfast won’t make itself. How do we get kids to pitch in? Toddlers in their little “me do it” phase are the best place to start.

“ME DO IT!”  tiny person demands.

“Yes, you do it,” bigger person affirms.

Then you let them do it. Help them learn how to “Me do it” correctly. This will take time. Lots and lots of time. This will make a mess. Lots and lots of mess. Do it anyway.

Teach them how to make their bed and brush their teeth and have them do jumping jacks to get the blood flowing. Try not to plop them in front of the TV first thing in the morning, it will train their attention spans to become very very short and align their expectations towards entertainment instead of discovery and creation.

Ask them to carry napkins to the table. I know you can do it faster and better, ask them to do it anyway. When they’ve got that done move on to forks, then plates, then cups.

Missed the toddler phase? Its never too late. I really believe that. Have conversations, ask what your older children would like to learn about or enjoy in the mornings, or what they would like to learn to cook. Come up with a schedule together. Share the load!

Our biggest game changers? Teaching them how to unload the dishwasher from dinner the night before and teaching them how to make breakfast. Wow. Those two things changed our lives RADICALLY.  Younger kids set the table and engage in smaller prep work like chopping strawberries or pouring half and half into the creamer. Older kids commandeer the toaster or make skillet pancakes or scrambled eggs. I can have 10 minutes to myself to read my Bible and “look into the face of God before looking into the face of man.” I can walk out of my room and greet my boys who have already completed their Morning Top 5 (different for each child but its some combination of 1. Pray 2.Make Bed/Get Dressed 3. Brush Teeth/Wash Face 4. Exercise 5. Chores). Breakfast is well on its way to being finished and the table is set. We sit down and have our morning time together. The little one stays for about 20 minutes before drifting back to his room to play with his toy animals while the rest of us finish morning time (45 minutes-1 hr 15 minutes start to finish). When its done the boys carry the dishes to the sink and I load the empty dishwasher while they wipe the table and sweep under it. Then we all start music practice or math lessons and the day marches on. This whole scenario is made possible by children. It took YEARS of teeny tiny steps to get here.

If you are a Charlotte Mason mama you may have that quote about the mother that takes pains to endow her children with good habits ensuring smooth and easy days for herself blaring through your mind right now.

Confession? The longer I homeschool, the more I cringe when people pull that quote.

In some ways, YES, these good habits ensured a smoother start to our day, HOWEVER my kids are still human. They sometimes wake up grumpy. Hell, I wake up grumpy more often than not. My youngest child has SPD and there are some days when little man is just NOT having it. Smooth and easy days all the time? Nope. That will only happen in heaven. Good habits don’t make our days perfect, but they certainly give us a leg up on most problems and these good habits are S L O W L Y  becoming character which is the real goal, not just easier mornings. I am talking about character for myself by the way. Lets always start with ourselves.

I am not a morning person. There is no glossing over that fact.  If its 7AM and the limpkin outside my window is screaming, I’d rather shoot it than nature journal it. But that would be illegal because the little devils are protected by federal law (looked that up three days into their mating season last spring).  Morning Time is a holy mercy to our family because without all that peace and beauty, these kids have their sometimes grumpy mother to contend with. I value morning time because it fortifies, encourages, uplifts and inspires me right when I am at my worst, right when I need it most.

But….

If I had to make breakfast by myself every day AND clean dishes AND sweep AND get beds made and kids dressed AND all the other stuff….I wouldn’t be able to do it every day because I am not that girl. I’m just not. Having my boys unload the dishwasher and make breakfast is HUGE for me. It blesses me and they know it. I remember this later in the day they are at their worst and need mercy from me. I step in their gaps the way they step in mine. Breakfast and morning dishes are my gap.  Breakfast is half the battle of morning time. The other half is getting kids to sit down for morning time, more on that next time!

We get lots of requests for breakfast recipes. I’ve resisted because I am not great about measuring when I cook. If you are great with measuring, you will probably hate the next three minutes of your life. If my Tia Racky reads this she will be cringing the whole time. This is my best guess for these recipes. If I don’t list an exact amount its because I trust you to figure it out.

Without further ado, here are our FAVORITE kid-friendly recipes for Morning Time

1. The Skillet Pancake (cuz nobody has time to flip 20 small pancakes around here)
   10 minutes of Prep
   30 minutes Bake time
   Preheat 375 degrees

   1 Cup All Purpose Flour
   2 Tbsp Sugar
   2 Tsp Baking Powder
   1/2 Tsp salt
   3/4 C buttermilk or whole milk
   1 egg
   1 Tbsp melted butter

   Mix it, pour it into a cast iron skillet and let er’ bake till golden brown. Slice it up like a pie and serve warm

   Topping options: Chopped strawberries, blueberries, peaches, mangos, chocolate chops, maple syrup, honey, etc. Sky is the limit!

   My 9 year old LOVES making this one.

2. The Crossainwhich
   Prep Time 15 minutes
   Bake Time 20 minutes
   Preheat 375

   **This depends on your stance on packaged food. If you know how to make your own croissant dough, hats off to you! I buy the Immaculate Bakery dough whenever its on sale.

   Croissant dough
   Favorite cheese
   Sliced Ham

   Roll em’ up, cook em’, serve em’.

   The 5 year old is ENTHUSIASTIC about rolling these puppies up.

3. Parfait Factory
   Prep Time: 10-15 minutes

   Granola
   Whole Yogurt (Try for something low on sugar and high on probiotics)
   Chopped Fruit
   Honey

   We get a little assembly line going here. This is a crowd favorite the day after we go grocery shopping since the berries are still fresh. My eldest has been on a yogurt embargo since 2010 so he usually makes himself toast.

4. Gluten Free Souffles
   Prep Time: 15 minutes
   Cook Time: Depends on your oven!
   Preheat 375

   Muffin Tin
   Eggs
   Ham
   Spinach
   Cheese
   Favorite Seasonings (Ours is Trader Joe’s Everything But the Bagel Seasoning)

   Grease that tin! Drop in some chopped ham, a little bit o’ spinach and then drop in a whole egg or if your kids prefer scrambled (mine do) pour some whipped egg mixture into each hole. Sprinkle with cheese and bake! Kids love commandeering this one!

5. German Pancakes
   Prep Time: 10 minutes
   Cook Time: 30 minutes
   Preheat 350 degrees

   1 C milk
   1 C All Purpose Flour
   6 eggs beaten
   1/4 C butter
   Salt to taste
   1 tsp Vanilla
   pinch of cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top

   Pour the mixture into a dish and bake till golden and puffy and bubbly and amazing. Serve with honey or syrup or whipped cream and raspberries. Many thanks to our friends Justin and Victoria and their two sets of twin girls for introducing us to these.

6. The Hodge Podge
   Thats what I say when its every man for himself. More often than not we boil a bunch of eggs (my FAVORITE way to get a toddler to stay engaged with morning time is to give him a hands on breakfast like a boiled egg and a clementine, he peels while I read!).  Then we toast all the toast, chop up fruit and serve up some tea. With each kid grabbing something different, it eventually rounds out well. I know this is not technically a RECIPE, so think of it as a recipe for creativity. We don’t have to plan out every last detail. Spontaneity is a great gift on the first day of your period when the kids are wired and its raining all day long and your spouse is working late. This is when I call for the Hodge Podge morning time, a strong pot of tea and a healthy dose of Bear Grylls episodes afterwards.

   

If you have especially great eyesight and have spotted our favorite Keesh-Ways (Abuela’s way of pronouncing Quiche) in our Instagram stories or in pictures and are wondering why I didn’t share the recipe above, well, its not my recipe! It belongs to my friend Sally Clarkson. You can find that recipe in her book: The Life Giving Home. (Read her book no matter what because its FANTASTIC, but know that her rocking’ quiche recipe is in there and my kids love making it).

Remember friend, our kids can bring something to the table. Even if their range of abilities means their contribution is a smile and song, we can all add beauty to our mornings together. Get those kiddos cooking, picking flowers, singing hymns and listening to God’s word!

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You can find some helpful kitchen tools in one of our Christmas Guides for little chefs HERE  (Amzn affiliate links)