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Aunt EA's boyfriend, Scott, brought the girls two pumpkins, so we took advantage of a hurricane day on Tuesday and carved them.

Leah was a bit more hesitant to get her hands (or spoon!) dirty to scoop out the seeds.

After the girls bailed on the pumpkin carving, I worked on their designs. Molly insisted on keeping them inside so the bugs wouldn't get them, so we had a few friends watching over our dinner.

Leah had lots of presents and a yummy cupcake at her party on Saturday, but her actual birthday was Sunday. So, we kept on celebrating!

I made Leah a super hero cape. I think that face means she likes it?

She couldn't wait to see what's in this box from Grandaddy and Betty.

It's an Uglydoll. Looks pretty funny to me too.

Despite all the great presents, the thing she couldn't stop playing with all day was this card from Aunt EA. It has a pop up cake inside and sings "IIIIIt's aaaaaaa paper cake. A really big paper cake…"

If you didn't get the idea from the video, Leah loves the whole candles/singing part of her birthday.

Since I did all the baking on Saturday, I picked up cupcakes and pastries from Linda's Bakery for dessert. They did not disappoint! Molly inhaled her cupcake, but some large portions of it missed her mouth and ended up on her face.

We celebrated Leah's 3rd birthday this weekend with a Strawberry Shortcake party. I made the girls new outfits for the birthday party. The birthday girl as Strawberry Shortcake, and big sister as Lemon Meringue.

As the kids arrived, many took a turn at the bean bag toss. Chad and I worked together to make this - I drew it, he cut, I painted.

There were also coloring pages of Strawberry Shortcake and her friends.

After completing the coloring, everyone gathered in the den for some fun activities. First, I read the kids a Strawberry Shortcake book.

Next, they played a game of pin the stem on the strawberry. Leah didn't want her eyes covered, so we told her she had to shut them. She did a great job until she opened them a couple feet from the wall.

Next up - making chocolate dipped strawberries with sprinkles. The hardest part was resisting eating them immediately and waiting an hour for them to dry.

Emmie, is there a little bit of strawberry inside that chocolate?

Lunch was inspired by Strawberry Shortcake and her friends. The menu included Strawberry Shortcake kabobs, blueberry muffins, lemonade chex mix, orange jell-o slices, and raspberries & cream yogurt.

After eating, it was time to open presents. First, the kids had to clean up the toys they'd been playing with. Rather than helping, Leah thought her job was to tell everyone to clean up. Here she is saying "clean up, guys" with a stern face.

There were a couple themes to this year's gifts - Minnie Mouse and Strawberry Shortcake. This was a Minnie Mouse purse and pair of glasses.

She loved this Strawberry Shortcake dress. She had to put it on immediately and was not happy when she had to take it off. Later in the day when Molly and Emmie were playing outside, Leah declined to join them because she knew it would mean taking off her new outfit.

Then on to dessert - strawberry cupcakes with strawberry decorations. What could be better?

Time to dig into the yummy cupcakes and chocolate covered strawberries.

The birthday girl, all dressed up! She loved every bit of her party.

Believe it or not, Leah is now 3. There will be more here regarding the festivities celebrating the occasion, but for now here's the critical candle moment filled with pure joy.

Ten years ago, we became Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sellers. It's been a wonderful decade and we hope for many decades more!

We already took our big tenth anniversary trip, but last night we had a nice date night to celebrate. Thanks to Aunt Caroline for playing with girls while we were out.

It was a perfect evening to wear my new "fancy" dress, as the girls deemed it. After many years of sewing for Molly and Leah (and their friends!), I finally sewed a dress for myself. I felt like a real seamstress too. I first made a muslin dress to test the fit of the pattern, then made adjustments before moving on to the real fabric.

We decided to take the girls to see fireworks on the 4th of July for the first time. It meant staying up way past bedtime (which is normally not something we do in our house), but we threw caution to the wind and headed out. We joined Simon, Matilda, Keira, and Maya (as well as their parents) at UMBC to see the Catonsville fireworks.

We brought blankets, chairs, and snacks for pre-show fun on the UMBC field. This picture was taken before the sprinklers on the field came on and sent people running for cover. Thankfully, we were near the edge of the sprinkler range, so only got a little wet and only had to scoot a few yards to reach dry land.

Before the fireworks started, many of the others around us set off their own small fireworks. The kids thought this was great. They cheered and screamed for each one, and then immediately chanted for another when it was done.

Once it got dark enough, Stacie broke out glow wands and bracelets which were a huge hit, of course.

Here's Molly with a glow necklace, a glow bracelet, and a glow wand in her hair.

The fireworks were perfect. Close enough to see well without being so close as to scare the kids.

We'll definitely make this a tradition. The girls had a great time, and did remarkably well considering the very late evening.

Aunt Caroline turned 21. While we gave her cooking related gifts, Aunt EA gave her something more specific to this particular milestone. That's 71 airplane bottles of assorted alcohol. She said the idea was to give Caroline a variety of things to try to figure out what she likes.

The party was not just for Aunt Caroline, but for Grams and Pop as well. Grams was immediately excited to get these cupcake stands, though it took a bit of explaining before she appreciated the solid state drive we gave her as well.

We celebrated Pop's birthday as well. This celebration took place at our house instead of Chad’s parents, as their power had been out for two days due to the derecho that knocked out power to over 1 million people in the Washington area.

The birthday peeps and Pop's two helpers blow out the candles.

The icing from the cupcakes seemed to be specially formulated to stain lips.

Molly's last day at East Columbia Preschool was on Wednesday. Sniff, sniff. I can't believe she's heading off to Kindergarten in the Fall!

Sisterly love before heading off to school.

Molly had a fantastic year with Miss Kelly.

She's a preschool graduate!

We were all there to celebrate with her. If you want to feel like you were there too, watch the video of graduation here.

Molly and Jake have known each other since they were less than a year old, and here they stand together as preschool graduates.

Molly and her teachers for the year - Miss Jodi, Miss Kelly, and Miss Kathy.

A graduation isn't complete with a little advice from a great teacher.

So long for now ECP, but we'll be back in 2013!

Molly graduated from preschool on Wednesday. They had a nice ceremony including a review of some of the stuff the kids learned this year. This video includes some of the highlights.

Note that this video is about 6 minutes long and may take a while to load on a slower Internet connection. Also, please excuse my shoddy video work, as it was difficult to get shots amongst all the parents/grandparents/siblings competing to see.

My Mother's Day celebration was a tad early this year. First, I headed into Molly's preschool class yesterday for the Mother's Day celebration. This included a performance of "In the Meadow" with Molly the Duck (hence the duck hat).

I then came home to a celebration with both my girls. Leah knew exactly what I wanted for Mother's Day…a double boiler!

And the best part - big hugs for Mom.