Celebrations

Our Easter celebration

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on April 11th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

Easter morning, Molly and Leah awoke to baskets full of fun.

Easter morning

As usual, Leah had to run over to Chad with each thing in her basket to exclaim what she found. I'm guessing this is "Look Dad, jellybeans!"

Wow!

The girls got to hunt for eggs again (thanks to Aunt Caroline and Charles) at Grams and Pop's house after Easter lunch.

Hunting on Easter

After hunting for eggs, the girls broke out their bubble wands from their Easter baskets and had lots of fun as usual.

Bubble wands

Once the bubbles have been created, it's important to go after them.

Bubble stalking

The bubbles need to fly higher than that to escape Molly.

Jump

After hunting for eggs, it's also important to check out your haul. These eggs were great as they had toys and stickers instead of more candy.

The goods

Leah immediately wanted to put stickers on herself. Mickey and Donald for her hands, then Goofy for her forehead.

Adorned with stickers

Easter egg hunt

Posted in Celebrations, Molly, Playdates on April 10th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

Molly attended an Easter Egg Hunt with many of her playgroup friends. Here they all are posing with Mr. Bunny. (Leah was not there due to potty training, but had she actually been there, she would have been clinging to my leg! Big costumed people = not Leah's friend!)

Posing with the Bunny

Molly hunted eggs with all the 5-8 year olds and had a fun time running around looking for the eggs.

Searching for eggs

There were even eggs growing on trees. Molly like to call these "special" eggs because they were decorated too.

Growing on trees

Molly, Keira, and Riley had just as much fun opening all their eggs and taking inventory of all the treats!

Taking inventory

Our Birthday Princess

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on March 30th, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

Hear ye, Hear ye,
Calling all calling one…
Join us for some birthday fun!

Today, Molly turns 5! We celebrated on Saturday with a Princess & Prince Party. As the kids arrived (dressed in royal attire, of course), they each decorated their own princess or prince crown. Leah apparently thinks the more the merrier when it comes to crowns!

Making crowns

We then played three group games, each themed with a particular princess and preceded by a reading of that princess story. Here I am reading the story of Snow White before playing Pass the Poison Apple.

Story telling

Pass the Poison Apple

The second game was like Pin the Shoe on Cinderella. Instead of a blindfold, I used these lovely Peruvian hats given to us by Aunt Caroline.

Not bad

It's so nice that these kids are old enough to sit and listen now. Here are all the big kids listening intently to the third story about Ariel.

Listening

The last game was Under the Sea Limbo. You may not be able to see it in this picture, but the limbo bar is covered in Ariel, her friend Flounder, and some crafty kelp.

Under the Sea Limbo

Of course, opening presents was lots of fun. Molly's now old enough to read a card to see who a present is from (though she has very little interest in doing so). Also, she moves through the presents quickly without getting easily distracted.

Opening presents

Molly loved being sung to, especially the extra "cha cha cha's" added in by many of her friends. You can watch the video of her birthday song here.

Loving the singing

Leah shows the only way for a kid to eat a cupcake - icing first.

Cupcakes are yummy

I definitely had fun playing with my new Silhouette digital cutter for this party. Here are a few of the other party details.

Partycollage

Two of Molly's friends left the party saying this was the best party ever, and asking for a party just like Molly's. Clearly, the kids had a great time!

Happy 5th birthday Molly

Posted in Celebrations, Molly, Video on March 25th, 2012 by c-had – 1 Comment

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We celebrated Molly's birthday Saturday (though her actual birthday is not until later this week. It was a princess party, and everyone came dressed as a princess (except for the two boys who were the knights). Happy Birthday Molly!

Celebrating with Emmie

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly, Trip on January 29th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

We flew to Birmingham to celebrate Emmie's 3rd birthday. It didn't take long upon our arrival before the girls all headed to the play room. Nice shoes, Leah!

Nice shoes, Leah

Emmie is so intent on using her computer that she has no idea Molly is about to give her a trim.

Surprise haircut

Grampa was appointed head book reader at bed time.

Night-time reading

Emmie was insistent on having a flower party, so Aunt 'Chelle got creative with the flower theme.

A flower party

Naturally, Molly and Leah were eager to assist with the present opening.

Present opening assistants

Time for cake!

Blowing out the candles

It was finger lick in' good!

Yum

Leah took a quick break from the party festivities to assemble the alphabet with G'mom.

Assembling the alphabet

Emmie also got a kite, which was then of course flown. Apparently it's just as much fun to run after someone flying a kite as it is to fly it yourself.

Kite flying

Molly flying with Tate chasing. An image of timeless childhood.

Kids running with a kite

Leah thought the flower balloons needed a bit of love.

Balloon love

The girls were finally all together to wear the Christmas jammies I made them. It was like Christmas Eve in January.

Late Christmas

Emmie may be one of the few kids her age that knows what a chalkboard is. For those who don't, it's an upright display you write on with chalk while you stick out your tongue.

Writing on the board

Baby rings can turn into steering wheels when you get older.

Driving is fun

And the post the baby ring comes from can become a microphone.

Is this on?

Our holly, jolly Christmas

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on December 30th, 2011 by jen – Be the first to comment

In Sellers tradition, we opened one gift each on Christmas Eve. Leah got this Tinkerbell doll from Grammy, which she's slept with every night since receiving it. She also decided this ribbon from one of the presents would make a great pirate headband.

Nice headband

On Christmas morning, Chad took video of the girls opening their stockings. The girls also enjoyed playing with their new toys.

When wearing one particular pair of jammies, Leah always calls herself Dr. Leah. So, when I saw this doctor kit at a consignment sale, she knew it'd be perfect!

Dr. Leah

Whenever Leah was opening a present and Molly wanted to open it, Molly would tell Leah they should use teamwork. She figured out this was a way to get to open someone else's present without being told to back off since it was someone else's turn.

Cooperative opening

Here's Molly opening some books from G'Mom and Grampa while sitting on her new floor cushion.

New books on a nice reading seat

Over at Grams and Pop's, Molly was nice enough to push Leah in the rocking chair before they did a little dancing around. Watch that video here.

Little Santas

Leah got some wings and a tutu of her own from Aunt Caroline, which she of course loves. And we love that the girls are no longer fighting over the one set we had before.

Wings and a tutu for Leah

Molly, Leah, and Aunt Caroline had fun playing with some fairies (specifically Tinkerbell, Vidia, Rosetta, and Silvermist).

Playing with fairies

We had Christmas crackers before lunch, a tradition Chad's family picked up when living in England. As always, they include crowns which we all don for the meal.

Christmas crowns

Aunt Caroline and Aunt EA played Mario Kart with Molly for the first time (as well as some other Wii games). She did ok, though Molly does much better with the Kinect as she's not used to the abstraction of the controller.

Mario Kart

The girls had fun playing with their Aunts all day. Here Aunt EA and Leah had to wake up the sleeping (not really) Molly. On the count of 3, say cock-a-doodle-do!

Cock-a-doodle-do!

Christmas Eve singing

Posted in Celebrations, Church, Molly, Video on December 26th, 2011 by c-had – Be the first to comment

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This was our first Christmas Eve service without Molly by our side. This was because she and the rest of her Cherub Choir were very involved in the service. This video is of the song they sang towards the beginning, Mary Had a Baby. Note that Molly appears to be the only one doing the hand motions they were taught. Later in there service they briefly appeared again as reindeer and then appeared as angels singing Gloria toward the end.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on December 25th, 2011 by jen – Be the first to comment
Chistmas pictures at church

Sweet sisters

The four of us

O, Christmas tree

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on December 18th, 2011 by jen – 3 Comments

We made our way to Greenway Farms to get our Christmas tree this year. Molly is pointing to our pick and giving us a thumbs up. Leah is trying her best to give two thumbs up (so cute).

That one

This was a cut-your-own tree farm, so Chad cut the tree down before lugging it up toward our car.

Cut it down

After dinner, we worked on decorating the tree. Nice antlers, Molly!

Nice antlers!

While decorating the tree, we listened to the score from The Nutcracker. Leah had no interest in putting ornaments on the tree, but instead just wanted to dance with this nutcracker ornament. She loved it and was happy as a clam, other than getting annoyed that we kept interrupting her to ask if she wanted to put an ornament on the tree.

Dancing with the nutcracker

Chad acted as a ladder to prevent all the ornaments from ending up on the bottom of the tree.

Up high

Hanging another

Molly did great putting ornaments on the tree, but during certain scenes of the score from The Nutcracker, she had to take a break to dance with a nutcracker ornament like her little sister.

Dancing too

After everything else was done, Leah finally agreed to hang her nutcracker ornament on the tree. This was the only ornament she hung.

Finally on the tree

The tree, decorated and lit.

The tree

Looks like Christmas came early

Posted in Celebrations, Family visits, Leah, Molly, Trip on December 1st, 2011 by jen – Be the first to comment

Since we won't see my family in December, we posed for our family Christmas photo Friday morning.

The 9 and a half of us

We then headed inside and exchanged gifts with G'Mom, Grampa, Uncle J, Aunt 'Chelle, and Emmie. Molly is shocked by these socks.

Socks!

She was also very excited to get a Belle doll.

Belle

Chad sometimes sticks a little Lego man on his camera to give the girls something to focus on. After using it for the pictures, Leah wanted to play with it. Even after getting a bunch of Christmas presents, she kept coming back to playing with the Lego man.

Leah and a Lego man

I love this picture of Leah opening her ornament from Grampa.

Opening her ornament

Emmie had to check hers out from all angles.

Emmie and her ornament

After the gift giving had concluded, Leah took a minute to teach Grampa a bit about how to use the iPad.

Teaching Grampa