Toys.

"Pick up your toys." That is the first sentence that starts a battle.  There is lots of whining and then yelling and I end up picking up most of the toys.  After reading the wonderful book Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne I decided to slowly make changes to the play room.    

Basket of toys.

Simplicity Parenting suggests that a toy rotation, leaving some toys to play and the rest up out of sight, will help with the overwhelming feeling of cleaning up ALL the toys.  Then you rotate the two sets of toys every month or so.  I have loved this plan of action. This creates a small amount of toys that is manageable at clean up time. And the every other month the girls get to play with "new" toys.

Also an important part of play is pretend.  So in our play room I have set up a kitchen set.  

A dollhouse.

A few dollhouse toys.

And finally the art in the mundane life of picking up, sorting and shuffling toys...A hamster texting his friends.

I found this on the kitchen table and was told not to disturb he is texting his friends...Oh brother!