It's OVER

We made it through MEA week. On Thursday we had an official friend day...we had people over from outside the neighborhood. That was fun. It was a beautiful day so for the most part they played outside.
Adriana, Emily and Alexis enjoyed picking raspberries and playing on the path
In the afternoon, Emily and Maria climbed trees

This picture might need some explaining. Hidden in the mess of the basement..if you look carefully you will find three video game obsessed boys. It think the character in the game was outside. Does that count for going outside? Me thinks not. Oh well.

Friday. I am going to have to name it "Parenting Outside the Box." I will let you in on a little secret. Sometimes these three do not get along. They yell, scream, hit and just plain cannot figure out how to get along. I can yell back at them to get along..doesn't work very well. I can calmly tell them to get along..doesn't work all the time. I can separate them...works for a while, but then they have to cross paths at some point.

So, Friday morning was one of those times. Whatever the reason, it was just not very peaceful at the Apple Valley household. I decided that we needed to "practice being a family" all morning. I stopped WW3 and told them we were going to play games with each other until I see people having fun and getting along.
We actually started with the game Sorry. I think that is a fun game. It was probably not the smartest game to start our little experiment. Some hurt feelings..but we ended that one better than we started. We then moved to Zingo, and ended with Twister. By the end, we were all having fun and had a great afternoon. I am going to have to try this "games 'til we have evidence of peace" again.