Early to bed, Early to Rise

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man (or Mom) healthy, wealthy, and wise. 

I have always known this is true but in recent years have struggled to get up early enough to be really at my best in the early morning. 

Today I planned to wake up at 5am but the Spirit woke me up at 4:45, so I got up, got dressed, studied, journaled and was ready and alert for scripture study with my husband and son at 6am, then scripture study with the three girls at 7:30am with breakfast, packing lunches, and getting clothes laid out/kids dressed in between. 

We had a very nice time together talking about and drawing our testimonies as plants (inspired by the Friend this month!), and as I watched the girls dance their way to the bus stop taking their lovely lights with them I might have cried a little. 

What a blessing they are and how much work it is to maintain a family, and yet that hard work and sacrifice is what makes them precious to us. 

I'm grateful for this "new" plan which, if we let it will transform both how our days look and how we are. #ComeFollowMe.

I normally have a few different Come Follow Me Lessons each day depending on who is awake and which ages are around to teach. I love that it's so easy to adapt lessons to all ages.  This is the way I adapted our lesson on testimony for my 2 and 1 year olds.  I started with singing a Primary song and I was amazed at how excited they both got at hearing me sing to them.  They were wide awake and attentive and smiling at me to see what I would do next!  I grabbed a poinsettia and Val and I talked about what it takes for us to help the plant grow.  I invited him to water the plant while we talked.

At one point, he said, "Jesus will come back one day?" Following his lead, I said yes, "would you like to see a picture of Jesus?"  We looked at this picture of the Savior in Come Follow Me manual and he immediately started pointing out Christ's facial features (eyes, nose, ears, lips, etc.) and point to his own.  This was so sweet and made it easy to talk about and help my son relate to His Savior.