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.

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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....