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.

These images make me excited for future decorating!  And they remind me to not go quite so overboard with a certain color theme in my next house.  If only I had a bit more yellow and aqua!  Ha!  Live and Learn.

Happy Friday everyone!  Ok.  So you know I’m not much of a giveaway person.  But when Lindsay (a darling mom of four and blog reader) contacted me and mentioned Stella and Dot I was tempted.  Because I really like Stella and Dot jewelry.  Then when she mentioned that if I host an on-line show a portion of the proceeds will go to a charity or cause of my choice I said YES PLEASE!  So cute Lindsay sent me a necklace…

And it just seems to go with every scoop/v-neck top I have.  I love the simplicity of it on its own for every day.  It would also be perfect for layering with other necklaces.  Right now I have my eye on the Together Forever necklace – so cute to wear the two together!  I know this necklace will become a staple for me.  And I want to give one away to one of you!  Leave a comment if you are interested.

I also have an on-line Stella and Dot trunk show open.  Spring is such a busy time of time year with Mother’s Day, Graduations, birthdays, baby showers (I buy more gifts during April/May than any other time of year!).  This is a perfect solution for gifts.  And it never  hurts to pick up a little something for yourself while you’re at it.  :)  Aside from the Together Forever necklace I mentioned, here are a few other items I have my eye on right now:

A percentage of the proceeds from my trunk show will go towards Autism Research.  Which I’m thrilled about.  Also, the month of April is Autism Awareness month and Stella & Dot is donating 20% of retail sales from their Autism Awareness Collection to support the HollyRod Foundation.  There is a guaranteed $10,000 donation which is amazing!  This collection will be open starting April 1st.

Shopping and giving.  Two of my favorite things!  So leave a comment with your name and city to enter the giveaway and check out the fun jewelry in my trunk show.  And while you’re at it, have a fabulous Easter weekend!

We kept a few books on the shelves.  El’s favorites that have been read over and over.  Junie B. Jones, Ivy and Bean, Little House on the Prairie,

and my favorite – the Beverly Cleary collection.  Speaking of books El loves, she is currently obsessed with the Thea Stilton series.  Very fun for 6-12 age girls!  Ad is loving The Boxcar Children.  Nothing like great children’s literature.

So that’s it!  Not a major makeover, but it feels SO good to have all of our books boxed up and ready to move.  It also feels amazing to walk into El’s room and not cringe!  Organization just calms the mind, doesn’t it!?  I can’t wait to start tackling spaces in the new house.  I keep trying to convince Kenny that when the new house is finished we should keep living in our current house and I’ll just pop up to the new house to clean and organize and decorate it for a few hours each day.  Once in a while he and the kids can come and visit.  But only if they take their shoes off and don’t touch a thing.  

Popping in with a few recent pics of the latest progress!

 We are adding a fun detail on the treads going up.  I’m excited to see how it looks when it’s all finished!

Kole of course spent the day in his happy place watching the “digger” again.  Oh the time we’ve spent watching the digger!  Just doesn’t seem to get old.  :)

Someone asked about my ceiling/door size when I shared this pic of my mudroom last week:

She mentioned that my dutch door was so big it made the door into my mudroom look like a little hobbit door.  That made me laugh!

That door isn’t the entrance into the room, it’s storage under the staircase (a hobbit door with a purpose).  Thought I better clear that up in case anyone else thought that too!  I’m short, but not that short.  :)

And choosing the look/style for my inside window trim.  My finish carpenter put this together for me to make sure he knew what I wanted.  Aside from adding a wider shelf right below the window it’s perfect!  I may have squealed.  :)  This is a peek of my mudroom.

This is the scene I see from my kitchen every day.  Six chairs at the table yet all three of my kids always end up parked together on one.  Some sort of barbie, polly pocket, or stuffed animal living on the table along with our food.  And leftover toast (from breakfast) and pasta (from lunch) which leads me to believe that on this day the breakfast dishes weren’t cleaned up before the lunch dishes.  This wouldn’t have been the case six months ago but currently mom is busy so the bar is set pretty low.

My hutch in its current state.  It’s a bit boring to me.  Fine for now but I’m so excited to mix things up in the new house!  I have so many fun decor ideas floating around in my head.

At my mom’s last time we were visiting.  Kole is always sitting on Kenny’s lap trying to be like him on his phone or laptop.  Or in this case, grandpa’s calculator.

My dad gave Kole the watch he is wearing and Kole is obsessed with it!  He wears it all the time.  Calls it his “cuckoo clock.”  It’s so adorable that I just can’t bring myself to tell him it’s really called a watch.