Rise & Shine Challenge - Day 1

Hey guys!
I am so excited to be participating in a 10 day Rise & Shine Challenge from The Abundant Mama. This challenge is all about helping yourself to wake up earlier and get the most out of mornings, something that I'm trying really hard to work on lately!

I just finished working on the Marvelous Mornings mini series from The Peaceful Mom. While I got some great tips from that series and was really able to start getting the ball rolling on figuring out my mornings, I'm even more excited about the Rise & Shine Challenge because I think it makes such a difference to be able to follow a community that is actively going through the challenge together!

In fact, I heard about the challenge through my favorite blogger, Money Saving Mom, and Crystal there has set a goal to blog through the challenge, so I can't wait to follow through this with Crystal and the MSM community. I've also committed myself to blogging through the Rise & Shine Challenge, so I hope that you'll follow along with me!

You can sign up for the FREE challenge here, and each day's focus will be emailed to you every morning.

As for a quick recap on how my focus on mornings have been going so far, I'll be honest and tell ya that I haven't exactly been sticking to my early morning plans! My goal has been to wake up at 6 every morning, and be in bed by 10 every night. Of course with two littles in the house, things don't always go according to plan! So I've kind of been flip flopping the past week between getting myself prepped at night, and waking up early enough to get my day planned. I kind of play it by ear based on how each day goes, and I actually think I prefer it that way, rather than sticking to a strict planned schedule. I've still been getting everything I need to done, so I guess it's working!

But I'm hoping that this new challenge will give me the opportunity to take everything another step further and give me some new ideas and things to focus on for making my mornings better. With Cavin starting a short preschool class this week, I'm going to need a new routine in place!

So anyway, on to Day 1 of the Rise & Shine Challenge! 
Today's challenge asked us to think about three things: What do you want your ideal mornings to feel like? How do you want them to flow? And what sounds do you want to hear?

I want my mornings to feel relaxed and unrushed. I don't like feeling like I have too much on my plate in the morning, and I prefer to mostly take the time to get organized and plan out my day.

The flow of my "ideal morning" would probably include waking up in time to plan my day (including checking into my home management binder, making sure things are picked up, dishes are done, and everything is ready for when the boys wake up), get in some morning yoga, shower and get ready, and drink some coffee while reading a book or completing a daily bible study.
But unfortunately, with Cavin waking up between 6 and 6:30 every morning, I'd have to be up by 5 or 5:30 in order to accomplish all of that. And if I'm being real, I am just not ready to commit to being up that early! I need too much sleep to be waking up that early, and while I've been working on getting to bed earlier lately, I just can't make it work to get to bed early enough to have that kind of wake up time.


So for now, I'm sticking with a 6am wake up. This gives me at least a few minutes in the morning to get myself going, grab a cup of water (I like starting the day with a cup of water, and then moving on to the coffee!), and start planning my day. One of my favorite tips from the Marvelous Mornings mini series was starting the day with a "Brain Dump", where you take a sheet of paper and just write out every random thought, plan, idea that you have, and then organize them into a plan for the day.

I'll then get each of the kids situated as they wake up, and since they are *usually* in good moods in the morning, I'll still have time after they're awake to finish up whatever else I need to do. Of course for those days where they aren't so happy in the morning, I'll have to think of something else!


What does your ideal morning look and sound like? If you're interested in helping your mornings be better and focusing on waking up earlier, head on over to The Abundant Mama and sign up for the challenge!