Celebrations

Celebrating JJ

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, News, Trip on April 11th, 2013 by jen – 1 Comment

We spent part of Spring Break in Birmingham visiting with my family. It was possibly the shortest time between visits with G'Mom and Grampa that the girls have ever had.

Family visit to AL

It's always fun to see what Grampa sees.

Grampa's glasses

JJ loved his first ride in the Cozy Coupe. Leah stopped to chat along his route.

Waving to his peeps

We went out to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack where the servers dance. Molly took that to mean that she should dance as well, and she spent much of the evening dancing and dancing and dancing.

Dinner and a show

The reason for our visit was to attend JJ's first birthday party.

Birthday cake

The birthday boy is a happy boy as he waits for the party to start.

Pre-party fun

So much fun

Got a balloon

Who needs cake? The icing is the good stuff.

Who needs cake?

Emmie loved sitting with Uncle Chad. And Leah's always wanting to share in Daddy's love.

Preschoolers and me

There's always time for reading with G'Mom.

Reading time

Leah loves "baby JJ."

Cousins

Grandma Dot came over for a post-party visit. Here she is with her four great-grandchildren.

Great grandkids

JJ loves playing with his trucks.

Truck

Molly was super sweet with JJ. Every time he was fussy, she was right there trying to cheer him up. She even sat with him a few times and played trucks with him.

Molly can play too

Celebrating Easter

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on April 6th, 2013 by jen – Be the first to comment

Molly's birthday weekend was also Easter weekend. The girls were excited to see what they got in their Easter basket. So excited that they made sure we were up a little early.

Easter morning

There were also some Easter presents from Aunt 'Chelle, Uncle J, Emmie, and JJ, including these fun eyes.

Presents from afar

We had a nice Easter service, a great lunch at Grams's, and some good family time. Happy Easter from The Sellers!

Happy Easter!

Now she’s really 6

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on April 5th, 2013 by jen – Be the first to comment

It's the morning of Molly's actual birthday. Molly's got on her birthday crown and it's time to open presents. Why is she hugging her sister so excitedly?

Sister hugs

A new umbrella! Leah picked it out herself, and Molly is thrilled with it.

A new umbrella

Molly requested to go to Red Robin (yum!) for her birthday dinner as they sing. Here she is eating her birthday dessert after the singing.

Birthday dinner

We then headed home with aunts, an almost uncle, Grams, and Grammy to have some more treats and open presents. Molly is really excited about this Hello Kitty karaoke machine from Aunt Caroline. Her mom and dad are slightly less excited…

Exciting present

Molly has not yet embarked on a sleepover, but she's now ready with this Hello Kitty sleeping bag from Aunt EA and (almost) Uncle Scott.

Sleeping bag

Birthday cake at her party, ice cream sundae at dinner, and now a cupcake as well. She's one happy 6 year old!

More treats

Molly’s 6th birthday

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on March 30th, 2013 by jen – Be the first to comment

There’s a birthday girl
that we all adore…
Who wants to get glamorous?
We’ll paint nails and more!

For the first time ever, we ventured out of our house for one of our kids' birthday parties. Molly had her 6th birthday party at our gym, which offers a number of different themed parties. Molly's choice - a Glamour Party. The first activity was to draw and decorate Molly.

Decorating

Then we moved on to becoming glamorous. Molly started by having her nails painted.

Nails

Leah started out at the makeup station. Nice eyeshadow.

Makeup

The girls also made picture frames, door hangers, and wands, covered with lots of glitter and stickers.

Frames

Molly's frame

Chad set up a small portrait studio to capture these glamorous girls, complete with a feather boa of course.

Glamour shots

Glamorous friends

Glamorous Molly

Becoming glamours must equal becoming silly too!

Silly girls

It was then time for pizza. Molly and many of the other girls ate their pizza like this, trying to avoid messing up their nails.

Pizza time

Finally, the girls gobbled up the cake. Note that Molly started using her spork (which is still in her hand), but ultimately decided that was too slow. So, she opted to just shove it into her face.

Cake time

The biggest reason for having the party outside our house was because we are prepping our house to put it on the market. That said, I couldn't resist being a little crafty and create a banner.

Crafty

I also made glamourous goodie bags, complete with brush/mirror compact, nail polish, rings, bracelets, and flower bobby pins for their hair.

Goodie bags

We didn't open presents at the party, but we opened them right after we got home. I think Molly's excited about this Barbie from Allison.

Opening presents

A nice thing this year is that Molly could read her own cards.

Reading cards

This disco ball from Kaylin was so funky we had to try it out immediately with an impromptu dance party to end a super fun day.

Groovy

Check out many more pictures from the party here.

A new year, a new uncle

Posted in Celebrations on January 1st, 2013 by jen – Be the first to comment

Chad's family picked up the tradition of doing Christmas Crackers when they lived in England. This year, EA's boyfriend Scott decided to utilize those crackers to give EA something special. Several of us were in on it (Chad was assigned photography duties). Here she is using all her might to pop her cracker. EA - you might want to start working out if a cracker is this strenuous ;).

Pop the cracker

Looks like whatever was in the cracker went flying and is now on the floor. Perhaps Scott will get down on his knee to pick it up.

Oops

"Is that what I think it is?"

A ring

"Will you marry me?"

Marry me

I think that's a yes.

Yes

It fits!

Putting it on

I think she likes it.

Looks good

The ring utilizes the stone from Grandmother's ring that EA inherited, but the design is custom.

Nice bling

Fancy engagement ring, brand new pearls, paper crown. That's how we roll in our family.

Happy bride-to-be

Awwww, isn't that sweet.

The happy couple

Santa Claus came to town

Posted in Celebrations, Family visits, Leah, Molly on December 31st, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

Santa brought the girls a bunch of dress up clothes. Leah immediately had to put on the wedding attire, including veil and heels, which she wore for the entire time opening presents.

The bride

Molly was excited to finally get to see Brave thanks to getting it on Blu-ray from her sister.

Brave

This looks like a big present.

A big present

It's a scooter!

A scooter

The girl's 1st cousin twice removed, Ann, restores very nice dolls and makes clothes for them. When Molly was younger, she gave her a very nice American Girl doll (also named Molly) which she continues to love. This Christmas, Leah got this very nice Madame Alexander doll, Wendy, along with a few very nice outfits to go along with her. It looks like she'll be a prominent figure in our house for years to come, too.

Wendy

After opening Wendy, I made the girls close their eyes for an unwrapped surprise gift. Matching doll nightgowns!

Festive sleepwear

After finishing opening presents at our house, we headed to Grams and Pop's house to open presents there. This music box from Aunt EA was a big hit for Leah, and we've been hearing It's a Small World over and over since she opened it.

Music box

We always open one present at a time, going around the room from youngest to oldest. So, Leah spent a lot of time waiting patiently for her turn to open another.

Waiting patiently

There were lots and lots of dress up clothes this Christmas - for the girls, for their dolls, and even for Molly's bear.

Bear shoes

Grammy was in town to partake of the Christmas festivities too.

Nice bag, Grammy

EA's boyfriend, Scott, loves all things bacon. So when I saw this recipe for Candied Bacon Fudge I had to make it for him. It got thumbs up from all who tasted it. Chad even said it was the best chocolate-bacon combo he's had!

For the love of bacon

Grams is shocked at the ceramic trivet with custom artwork created by Molly we gave her.

Wow

The blanket I made got a thumbs up from Pop.

Thumbs up

Of course, Minnie Mouse is always a hit.

Minnie Mouse Pillow Pet

The one gift Molly kept talking about getting were these Unusual Unicorn Stompeez Slippers. When you walk in them, the eyes pop up due to the force of your foot pushing air from the bottom up into the eyes.

Fancy slippers

Nice pearls Aunt EA (given by her boyfriend Scott).

Oooh, pretty

For Pop, EA (with help from several of us) put together a video montage of pictures throughout his life.

Emotional moment

After seeing the video, the girls wanted to see some of Pop's Navy stuff, including his sword.

Nice sword

The girls tried on some of Pop's Navy hats. Before Chad took this picture, Aunt Caroline told them to make the biggest smiles they could. She apparently has not learned that you don't tell little kids that, as it will inevitably result in these faces.

Smiling Naval officers

Commander Sellers and Aunt Caroline got in on the hat fun as well.

Nice hats

Christmas is coming

Posted in Celebrations, Family visits, Leah, Molly on December 30th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

Our Christmas visitors were flying to see us, so the girls decided to make their own plane to go for a flight as well. Of course, there are lots of passengers on the plane.

Ready for take off

As always, G'Mom and Grampa arrived with lots and lots of new books to read.

New books

Even though the girls made Christmas cookies with Grams, Molly insisted we make some at home too. She wanted to decorate them with icing, which she proved to be very good at.

Decorating cookies

I may have had just as much fun decorating!

Mom decorating too

Leah has heard Molly singing Gloria so many times that she knows it now too. So when the carol was sung at our Christmas Eve service, Leah knew just what to sing.

Singing Gloria

Per tradition, we opened one gift on Christmas Eve. The girls got these fancy snow boots from Grammy, which came in handy since it snowed on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Eve presents

I think the boots go very well with Molly's smocked dress.

Perfect match

The girls had fun tracking Santa as he circled the globe on G'Mom's iPhone.

Tracking Santa

The girls were excited to pick out the perfect cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. They were also thrilled to finally wear the Christmas nightgowns I made for them.

Cookies, carrots, and new nightgowns

Editor's note: The title of this post was inspired by the song Christmas Is Coming on Laurie Berkner's new Christmas album. We are huge fans of Laurie Berkner and her new album does not disappoint!

A peak into our Thanksgiving

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on December 3rd, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

We spent Thanksgiving day at Chad's parents' with all the family. Leah sported her new dress for the occasion. After I completed the first Fall outfits for the girls, I decided Leah needed a new Fall dress too. She's looking very trendy and oh so cute!

A new owl dress

Leah is a very opinionated 3-year-old and can show a huge range of emotion in a short time. This was 4 seconds after the previous shot.

So opinionated

A shot of the whole Sellers clan (plus one who has not yet gone through the initiation ceremony).

Thanksgiving family

Molly made finger puppets at school, so for our after lunch entertainment, she and Aunt Caroline put on a show for us.

Finger puppets

Thankful Feast

Posted in Celebrations, School, Sewing on November 20th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

The kindergarten classes at Molly's school have a Thankful Feast every year which they invite their families to come to school for. There was a good turnout, including our whole family.

Thankful Feast

Molly's friend Catherine - not sure what this expression was.

Catherine

Kaylin's giving three cheers for the Thankful Feast!

Yeah for Kaylin

After the feast, the kids went back to class for 30 minutes. We were invited to stay if we liked. Leah immediately jumped into the class (Ms. Colella said it was ok). Here she is dancing around the circle, loving being a kindergartner for a few minutes.

An extra (smaller) kindergartner

I had made the girls new Fall outfits earlier in the week, which they requested to wear to the Thankful Feast. Molly's Music box jumper was my first Oliver + S pattern. Leah's skort was the same Isabella pattern I made for her birthday. She loves the shorts underneath!

Fall outfits

Halloween festivities

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on November 3rd, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

Molly's school had a Parade of Words for the kids on Halloween day. Each child was asked to describe their costume with a specific word. Kindergarteners described with nouns. Other grades described their costumes with adjectives, adverbs, verbs and phrases. It was a creative way to add a little education into the holiday festivities.

Parade of Words

The kindergarten team dressed up as a box of crayons. What's your favorite color? Ours is orange! Yay Ms. Colella!

What's your favorite color?

As always, our first stop is to Trick-or-Treat at Grams and Pop's house. The girls love the full size candy bars there.

First stop

The girls were happy to take a picture with Grams and Pop before heading on to Keira and Maya's neighborhood for Trick-or-Treating. Molly is Rapunzel and Leah is Strawberry Shortcake.

Happy start

Molly and Matilda were both Rapunzel from the movie Tangled. Note the important difference though. Molly will quickly point out that she is Rapunzel from the end of the movie (when her hair is short and brown), while Matilda is from earlier in the movie when she still has very long blonde hair.

Rapunzel x2

Rapunzels are joined by Merida and Strawberry Shortcake (who's not technically a princess, but pretends to be one when she wears the crown Leah has on). Add in Izzy and Optimus Prime, and we've got the whole gang.

The whole gang

I think they may be excited to get started.

Let's go!

Molly and Simon were typically out front. We had to keep slowing them down so the others could keep up.

Leaders

Leah definitely liked getting some candy.

Happy girl

Leah took her time to pick out exactly the piece of candy she wanted at each house, which often meant she was struggling to keep up with the bigger kids who'd grab and go.

Picky

Of course, every now and then you need to inspect your loot!

Inspecting her loot

Back at Keira and Maya's house, the girls inspected what they received and picked out 2 pieces of candy to eat that night.

Got plenty

Molly chose this huge gummy Lifesaver, but had a bit of trouble actually biting through it.

Now that's chewy

After sugaring up, all the kids had fun attacking the giant Frankenstein, though Leah looks to be too excited to participate.

Attack!

Pile on