The men in my life.  Kole is holding his remote control.  He uses it to make the “diggers” move.

The door to this room is down the hall a bit.  Right before the french doors that open to the back porch.

 Well.  More than three if you count the “friends” who were along for the ride.  :)  Kenny took the girls camping (they go once a month with a group of dads and daughters) so it was just my little boyfriend and I left at home (the only boyfriend Kenny is cool with).

I know!  I’ll make a list!  Nothing like a good to-do list and time to actually tackle it.  Not a long list, but each to-do was a major time sucker.  Plus I did still have my little man to tend to who is known to be a bit of a to-do list sabotager.  :)  But despite his best efforts, I managed to cross off most of my list (and a few things not listed!) which has left me starting the week both tired and happy.  There was also a lot of train assembling, pillow fort building, and Peppa Pig watching that went on but I didn’t take a ton of pictures.  Time was of the essence!  Here are a few I did snap…

Quick fridge clean out.  I’m wishing I would have taken a “before” because it was so bad.  Not a lot of upkeep lately on my part and my organized spaces were falling fast.  After a good 45 minutes we were back in business.

Summer essentials I keep in a bucket for easy access (I added sunscreen after I took this picture).  This is next to our beach bags so if we are heading to the beach or pool I can have us ready in no time.  Well.  Not no time.  It still takes us some time.  Nothing happens at light speed with three children.  But now we can be ready in less time!  And less is more if you ask me.  But you didn’t ask me so I’ll stop rambling now.  At least about this picture.

When I cleaned out our van (our van requires a major clean out before I can even take it to the car wash!) I realized that our front console was a mess.  I emptied it only to find three umbrellas.  THREE!  And it doesn’t even rain here that much.  Funny.  So I rounded up all of our umbrellas that were living in random places throughout the car and the house and grouped them together in this green bucket I had on hand.  Now when it does rain we will be ready in no time!  Well.  Not no time.  But less time.

Our bougainvillea vine over the garage is looking stunning as always but I have to say that while this vine and I were once in love, we have now become mortal enemies.  I decided this as I swept out my garage for the 3,267th time this year.  I also decided that I can’t plant one over the garage in my new house like I thought I would.  Bummer!  As beautiful as it is, it is just way too high maintenance.  These lovely little pink flowers blow off and end up everywhere.  I will have to find a better spot for one in the new place.

There are a couple of things left to accomplish whenever I find a minute.  Girls’ bathroom cupboards are in need of some tweaking and as you can see on my list – I didn’t organize blog posts for the week.   Nothing new there.  Oh well!  I’m a better fly by the seat of my pants kind of blogger anyway.  :)

In between organizing spurts both days my little buddy and I went to the park.  I got a run in and he got  some swing/slide/sand time.  Win win!  We both enjoyed the fresh air.

 He also “helped” me prepare meals.  The two of us had a fabulous time together but after two full days of “where my Ellie go?”  “where my Addie go?”  “where my daddy go?” we were both ready to see our campers again.

Hello friends.  :)  It’s Spring.  I know.  But I’m about to share Fall pictures with y’all anyway.  (I don’t usually say “y’all.”  Ok – when I lived in Virginia I said “y’all” attempting to blend in better.  I had so much fun saying to my 4th graders “y’all listen up now!”  Ha!  K.  Why am I talking about this?  I’m tired and clearly need to keep this post short.)  Anyway!  Back to the pictures.  My cute friend Josie took these of our family last November during our Christmas card photo shoot in my mom’s backyard.  We played in the leaves in between posed shots to loosen up a bit!

Happy Friday everyone!  First things first – the Stella and Dot giveaway!  Winner is… Shannon in PA!  (Chosen by the random number generator)

Shannon said:

Hi, Erin! 
I have only heard good things about S&D jewelry and would love to win the necklace! It’d be great as an everyday staple in my wardrobe!
Thanks for considering me.
Shannon in PA

Congratulations Shannon!  E-mail me (address is on my sidebar) and I’ll have the necklace sent your way!

So!  I have about 5,784 pictures that I need to sort through and organize and post but I can’t tonight!  We have an early morning meeting with several people at the new house tomorrow (all of our bathroom tile is arriving!) and I have a lot of stuff to go over tonight to get ready for it.  So until next week (when I attempt to post 5,784 pictures) I am going to leave you with a re-run of my “Sibling Love” post since a few people have stopped by from our little news appearance looking for it.  I should have re-posted it sooner!  Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

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Hi friends!  Today I am finally addressing a question that has popped up so many times.  Questions that are all similar to these:

How do you raise your girls to be so sweet to each other?  Is there anything you did in particular when they were really little that ensured they would be so close and get along so well?

Your girls are darling!  Do they fight with each other?  How do you help them be such good friends?

If you’ve read my blog for a while you know that my two girls are thick as thieves.  I have loved getting  asked this question because it has really made me stop and think – what am I doing that has helped to create such a great relationship between my girls?  My girls have completely different personalities (as most siblings do!) and yes – they do fight (as all siblings do!).  Obviously it helps that they are close in age and share a lot of the same interests, but I do think that there are things you can do as a parent to help foster and encourage loving relationships between your kids.  Here are a few things I’ve done that I believe has helped my girls become the inseparable duo that they are today.  :)

1-  Keep a low key schedule with lots of down time for your kids to play with each other.  As much as I love to socialize and to be out and about, I also crave down time every day.  I love to be home with all of my kids home with me.  Quiet family time.  I need it so that I can stay on top of my house and things that are important to me.  My kids need it so that they can spend quality, uninterrupted time together.  No TV.  No play dates.  No running around from one activity to another.  Just time at home to be creative and play.  My girls spend SO much time at home with each other.  They have become each other’s best friend simply because I have given them no other option!  :)

2 – Teach your children how special sibling relationships are.  I tell my girls all the time how lucky they are to have each other.   Another way that I reinforce this is through my scrapbooks and photo albums.  For Valentines day a couple of years ago I made my girls a photo book called “Sisters” (you can see the whole book here). 

This book is so simple and was easy to make.  Just pictures of them and little tidbits about how close they are and all of the things they love to do together.  We read this book often and it is a constant reminder to them of how special their relationship is.  This is one example of a visual way to teach siblings that they are lucky to have each other.  We also talk about our relationships.  Sometimes at dinner I’ll ask my kids random questions about their day and about each other.  For example:  “Ellie – what is one thing you love about Addison?” … oh I love that about her too!”  or “Addison, did you get to see Ellie at school today? … I bet that was fun!”

3 – When your kids do fight, teach them how to compromise and work it out together.  We talk A LOT about compromise at our house.  I am always saying to my girls “what can we do that will be fair for everyone?”  or “How can you two work this out together?”  Then I give them a chance to come up with the answer.  Often with a little prompting, I can get them to solve their own disagreements.  If not, I quickly solve things for them by saying that if they don’t stop fighting we will be done playing and move on to our chores or bedtime.  If they are fighting over a certain toy, I tell them that if they can’t work something out that is fair, the toy will be taken away and neither of them will get to play with it.  That usually does the job.  :)

4 – Use behavior charts to help encourage positive attitudes towards each other and no fighting.  Not long ago I shared my star behavior charts which have always been a huge motivator for my girls to have positive attitudes towards each other and to not fight.  Having something set up like this where siblings are rewarded for being kind to each other and not fighting is a great way to encourage your kids to get along.

5 – Give positive praise when you see your kids getting along and being kind to each other.  This one is HUGE!  Positive reinforcement is such a powerful tool.  I look for opportunities all the time to praise my girls for getting along or being kind to each other.  I’ll say things like “Ellie, I love the way you are playing so nicely with Addison and letting her use your doll.  What a good big sister you are.”  Or “Addison, that was such a sweet thing to say to Ellie.  I bet that made her feel so happy!”  Comments like this always make my girls smile.  They feel special and proud of themselves and it encourages them to continue to do nice things for each other in the future.