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The girls wanted to have bunk beds from an early age, and we always told them they could when Molly was 6 (that’s the Federal guideline for sleeping on the top bunk). When we moved to our new house shortly after Molly turned 6, they got their wish. When Leah turned 6 not long ago, she requested a swap. After a few trial nights, she and Molly agreed to permanently switch. Here they are ready to sleep on their first night in their new beds. Please excuse their very messy room.

They’ve done great the past couple weeks since making the switch and show no sign of wanting to switch back.

Molly participated in an after school Lego robotics program, and I volunteered as the parent helper. The program was run by Bricks for Kidz (which we love), and was awesome. We used the Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits and software. Here’s Molly building a jumping spider.

Molly’s program this week used a proximity sensor to detect when something came close to the spider, then activated the robotic arm to make it jump at that thing. The first time it jumped, she was a bit shocked. Sorry for the heavy vignette, but I did not get permission to post a picture of her partner.

In October, we flew to Memphis to visit G’Mom and Grampa. Aunt ‘Chelle, Uncle J, Emmie, and JJ drove up to meet us there for a family weekend.

Our first night in Memphis, the girls requested to read The Book with No Pictures at bedtime. Emmie had never read it, and the girls were excited to share the hilarity with her.

The hospital Grampa works at was holding the Pumpkin Run while we were in town, and we decided to join in the fun. It included a 5K, a 400m kids fun run, and a costume contest. Molly and Leah had to wear last year’s costumes as this year’s costumes were not ready yet.

The event wasn’t just a run. They had lots of things to do, including this inflatable obstacle course.

The kids were ready to run. Well, at least the girls were.

Emmie is fast - she was the first of our family to finish the race.

Molly finished strong.

And Leah was close behind.

All the kids got medals.

Here are the runners/walkers for the 5K. Aunt ‘Chelle and Uncle J were kind enough to stay with the kids so the rest of us could run/walk.

I managed to run my best 5K in a long time thanks to the relatively flat course. I came in under 26 minutes, which isn’t that fast, but isn’t super slow either.

Bob ran as well (more on that later), and Jen and Susan walked together. Jen and Susan thought about stopping at the 2 mile mark, but decided to push through to walk the entire 5K.

They were greeted at the finish line by a waiting little girl.

And here’s all of us after the race.

Our family won our category in the costume contest. Yet another victory for the Super Sellers.

G’Mom won 3rd place in her age category.

A congratulatory hug for G’Mom.

Grampa won 3rd place for his age group as well.

Grampa got a hug for his victory as well.

The kids ate a lot of pizza while we were in Memphis, which they were very happy about. Here they are eating pizza for lunch on Saturday. They’d already had pizza for dinner the night before, and at the race earlier that morning.

Memphis is known for its barbecue, and the Commissary is one of the best places to get it. It doesn’t have a lot of room, and you’ll have to wait a while for a table, but it’s so good. I’ve been cutting back on my calories, so I saved as many as possible (including those from the 5K that morning) to allow me to really enjoy this meal. Those were some delicious calories (1,548 by my count).

On Sunday morning, the kids were all enlisted to ring the hour at the start of the church service.

G’Mom and Grampa’s bell choir played a couple songs during the church service.

Here’s all of us after church.

And then it wasn’t long until we were back at the airport headed home. Thanks to G’Mom and Grampa for hosting us.

Still catching up on posts that never got posted - here’s one from September. For Leah’s birthday, she got the Lego kit for Cinderella’s castle. As soon as she had a few free hours, she built it.

646 pieces is nothing for this Lego expert.

Also back in August, we attended the annual Back to School Picnic - this time with two students in the family. A good time was had by all.

Molly was excited to participate in the hula hoop contest. She did well, though it wasn’t her best showing.

The photo booth is always a hit attraction. Molly and Jordan showed off their normal school apparel in their picture.

The big event in August was Aunt Caroline’s wedding. Sorry for the delay in blogging about it.

Caroline and Charles chose to have the wedding in St. Mary’s, Maryland, where they had gone to college. That’s about a two hour drive from where we live. The ceremony was held outdoors in history St. Mary’s City. Unfortunately, it was a bit damp for the rehearsal (but not for the ceremony itself, thankfully).

The rehearsal dinner was held in Solomon’s Island at The Lighthouse.

Molly was excited to see what her dessert would be.

The morning of the wedding, Crystal drove down to do everyone’s hair (well, not mine). She even helped a little bit with the girls’ hair.

The bride and groom took pictures before the wedding.

Here are the four of us all ready to do our part in the wedding. Jen is a bridesmaid, the girls are pinwheel girls (more on that later), and I am the musician. And yes, I wore a hat. I’ve learned that it’s necessary with a lack of hair up top during outdoor events. Plus it fit the entire vibe of the wedding.

Caroline surprised me by asking me to serve as the music for the wedding. She gave me a couple songs to learn, and I did my best.

Mother of the bride

Jen the bridesmaid. All the bridesmaids picked their own navy blue dresses. So, Jen of course made her own.

The girls were pinwheel girls (instead of flower girls). Pinwheels were used throughout the wedding and reception in place of flowers. Also, note the cute dresses the girls are wearing. Jen made them too.

If you know Caroline, you can guess that the ceremony was a bit more comical than your average wedding.

Married

Our side of the family

The four of us

Rather than have a cake, Caroline and Charles decided to have a tower of donuts. So, instead of feeding each other cake, they fed each other donuts.

No surprise - Molly and Leah were first in line to eat some donuts.

The entertainment at the reception after the ceremony was fun as well, including some frisbee.

And of course finishing the fun with some bubbles

Thanks to Noe Todovorich Photography for many of the pictures here. I took several of these, but I was a bit busy most of the time.

There are a bunch of things I’ve failed to post about here. I’ve meant to catch up on them for some time, but failed. Today I’ll try to start to catch up.

Back in August, the girls hit another karate milestone. Leah completed yet another unit at karate, so it was time for another stripe ceremony. Leah led the class in some jumping jacks during warm up exercises.

Here she is showing off some of her skills (punching, blocking, kicking).

The preschool class even got to try out using pads, though they still didn’t make contact.

Here she is getting her stripe.

She’s now got 3 stripes on her belt. And that’s all she’ll have for a while, as she’s decided to take a break from karate. With kindergarten starting, we’ve limited her to two activities. She chose gymnastics and tennis for now, so no karate for her this Fall.

Once Leah was done, it was time for Molly’s belt test, and she’s grinning with excitement.

A minute later, she’s serious and ready to go.

Here she is doing her Elbow Kata.

Sensei even hits them in the stomach to test their strength.

Molly’s getting better at sparring.

She earned her blue stripe (half way to a blue belt).

Here she is with her yellow belt with blue stripe. And she’s not stopping there. Her sister may be taking a break from karate, but Molly plans to continue with it for the foreseeable future.

In preparation for Halloween, Jen got the girls some giant pumpkins, that we tried to carve at a party. We had some difficulties with tools there, though. Leah elected to paint her pumpkin, but Molly brought hers home to try again.

The biggest preparation for Halloween is of course the costumes, though. Thanks to Jen, these are always awesome.

Since our trip to Callaway Gardens this summer, Molly has been in love with owls. So, she of course wanted to be one for Halloween. Jen planned to make these feathers and attach them to a hoodie, but she couldn’t find a girls brown hoodie. So, she just made the hoodie. She also made the mask, the skirt, and the leggings.

Also note the pumpkin Molly carved in the background. Yes, it’s an owl as well.

Leah had a lot of trouble picking a costume, but eventually decided to be Mittens Fluff ’n Stuff, one of the Lalaloopsy girls. Jen made the wig, shirt, leggings, socks, and vest. She was going to make a skirt until Leah reminded her she already owned a perfect skirt (though Jen did add the waistband to it). Jen and Leah together sewed the pet polar bear accessory.

The pumpkin in the back was painted by Leah as well.

These were all the costumes this year. The girls wanted to pick their own costumes rather than do a family costume. So, Jen and I went without costumes.

As usual, the elementary school has a costume parade. Leah enjoyed her first time dressing up and marching at school. She especially loved that her costume included a toy, which meant she could have that toy at school all day.

Molly of course marched as well. No surprise she was in line behind Jordan.

On Halloween day, trick-or-treating started early on Halloween with a trip to visit Grams.

Thanks Grams from some happy trick-or-treaters.

As we’ve done before, we gathered with some of the neighborhood kids to go trick-or-treating. This year we gathered a bit earlier to get a head start.

We stuck with Jordan, Haley, and Madison again as we visited house after house gathering candy.

To close it out, here’s Molly’s lit-up owl jack-o'-lantern after a long night of greeting our trick-or-treaters.