Thursday, November 20, 2014

Bibles, Bedtime Routine, and Junie B!

We started having a more in depth bedtime routine with Olivia around the age of 15 months.  It has evolved a little as she gets older, but the general elements stay the same.  We do the usual change in pj's, potty and brush teeth thing.  Then we read a Bible story, sing a song, pray, and do hugs and kisses.

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Someone gifted us this Bible (not sure who, it was a mystery box from Amazon!) when she was a baby.  It's cute and has little rhyming stories in it.  She use to carry it around calling it her Bible and we would read it every night.

But she quickly grew out of that one.  It's small and short and we were re-reading it in it's entirety multiple times a week.  Around 18 months she started showing interest in her ABC's, so we switched to this one.  Again, it was simple but age appropriate.

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Around the same time we added this one into the mix as well.  She definitely had her favorites, but we tried to just stick with one story a night.

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We had another Bible similar to the toddler storybook, and we were rotating between the three Bibles on a regular basis.  Around her birthday I decided that it was time to start doing a more practical approach.  I got this devotional.  It follows the same 4 kids through the whole book.  The lessons are short, but both Michael and I have been impressed with how relateable they have been to our situations and Olivia's day to day life.  She enjoys the stories and it gives us a place to reinforce or even introduce topics and lessons that we want to instill in her.

I've heard amazing things about the Jesus Storybook Bible.  It was a little above her when I was looking last, but I think it will be our next devotional.  What about you?  Have any good ones for the little guys?

Aside from the Bible story, song and prayer--we were reading her a book each night as well.  Then she went through a crazy book phase and we were reading dozens of books a day, so a bedtime story didn't seem necessary.  We are back to reading a bedtime story, but we've moved on to chapter books!  Reading aloud is so good for kids, and they can comprehend more than most give credit for.
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I think I have almost all of the Junie B books, so we started there.  I had to edit some of it, because I don't necessarily want Olivia using words like "stupid" or "dumb".  BUT she is LOVING them.  We read the first and moved on to the second.  I just ended up bringing up the first box set at that point.  Olivia was amazed and is in heaven.  She keeps quoting parts about "I just like B and that's all" and saying "I just love Junie B."  I've read them all already, but this is a first go around with Michael and he is getting a kick out of them too.

Now if we could just get her to stopping picking the same exact song every night....

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