The topic of this post, as you may have noticed, is mornings! I don't know about you, but I am deeply opposed to early morning activity. I don't like early morning workouts or early morning quiet times or early morning chores or tasks. I have always been a night owl. Even if I get little sleep, I get a surge of energy around 9pm, and I rarely go to bed before midnight. While I do greatly enjoy this time to hang out with Ryan or be productive, it becomes a problem during the school year because it makes it hard for me to get up in plenty of time to get the girls off to school.
One of my resolutions this year is to do a better job at mornings. Meaning, I need to get up so that the girls have plenty of time to eat and get ready without me rushing them. So much of the morning stress stems from me hurrying them along. They are slow, to my credit, but I am learning that I simply cannot make them move faster. At least not at this age. All the rushing and badgering does nothing except stress me out and make them frantic. So, since school starts at 8:40, I have to make sure we are all up by 7:30 or so. This, unfortunately, means that I really need to go to be by 11-11:30. Booooo.
One new addition to our school mornings this year is essential oils! I'm so excited to include this in our routine, especially as cold and flu season approaches. I'm planning on using our immunity roller with thieves in it on the girls feet/spine each morning to support strong immune systems. I'm also excited so see how this whole emotional support side of oils cuts it during the dire time that is 10 minutes before we get out the door. Someone is always crying. Someone is always lagging. Someone is always looking for something. I am ALWAYS stressed. I'm gonna use stress away and/or peace and calming in the diffuser and topically to hopefully take that down a notch. My reaction is usually the biggest problem in the mornings because it fuels their reactions. Likewise, it can be the biggest solution too! If I keep my calm, they are much better to deal with--usually. Ha!
Another thing I want to improve about mornings is better breakfasts. I've gotten pretty lazy about breakfast choices. They usually have toast or cereal and smoothies and/or fruit. Since they have SUCH a short lunch at school, I am determined to pack plenty of calories and nutrients into their breakfasts to make up for the lame lunch. Sophie is a super slow eater. They have 20 minutes to eat, including standing in line for food if they buy their lunch. Even when I pack her lunch, she always comes home with more than half her food left. I digress. Anyway, tonight, the girls and I perused Pinterest to find some healthy breakfast ideas. They aren't big egg eaters, and Ryan is pushing us all toward a totally vegan diet anyway, so I didn't look for those kinds of breakfast ideas. Here's a few things we found.
These look cool! I introduced these as monster muffins instead of spinach muffins. Haha! I might change the sugar amount in these, but otherwise, pretty healthy.
http://www.messforless.net/spinach-muffin-recipe-food-fun-friday/
We made theses tonight, and the girls approved! I don't have a donut maker, but we just baked them in the oven in donut shapes.
I didn't know how enthusiastic they'd be about these, but they all said they'd like to try it.
Yum!
Gonna try making this with coconut cream instead of yogurt.
This is one I can get on board with. Super simple. Even better with Nutella!
I love that these have chickpeas in them! Extra protein is always good. By the way, this girl's blog is AMAZING. I discovered it a few years ago. She has healthy versions of all kinds of desserts and they are actually good!
These look yummy! And sounds like they'd be a great toddler/baby food too!
If anyone has any tips they'd like to share to help our mornings run smoother, please send them my way!!
