thesellers.net

As Chad mentioned, Molly has requested an American Girl party for her upcoming birthday. The girls asked if I'd make them new dresses for the occasion. Molly picked the Caroline Party Dress for the tea party.

As requested, the dresses have pockets.

Sometimes making up funny stories behind the camera makes for a funny photo shoot.

Of course, for an American Girl doll tea party, the dolls need new (and matching) dresses too. I had to get a little creative for these and modified the Mini-Miss Mary Mack doll dress to match.

Rose and Molly, can you please stand still? It can sometimes be difficult to get these two to cooperate. ;)

Saturday, Jen told Leah she had a surprise for her, and she needed to close her eyes. She’s a bit excited about it.

It’s her very own American Girl doll!

Leah’s a bit shocked.

"She’s so beautiful."

I think she’s excited.

This girl loves her new doll.

Jen’s been looking for an American Girl doll for Leah for some time, but she really wanted to find one before Molly’s upcoming American Girl birthday party. Jen found a friend who had this doll as a girl and had saved it for her daughters, but ended up having all boys. She was happy to pass it on to a little girl nearby, and Leah was happy to have her.

Leah decided to name her Rose Jane McIntire. McIntire is the last name of Molly’s American Girl doll, and the girls have decided that Rose is her sister. The two dolls have been in constant use the past couple of days, and generally wear at least 8 outfits over the course of the day.

We got a bunch more snow thanks to Winter Storm Pax. Yet another snow day off of school. At least it was only supposed to be a half day in the first place to allow for parent/teacher conferences in the afternoon.

We stayed inside for the morning, but then ventured out after lunch. Molly was sinking into it immediately.

At that point, the snow measured a bit over 10 inches. The snow had been melting for most of the morning thanks to a temperatures around 35 and a pretty constant rain. Others around us got 14 inches, but that seems a bit more than what we saw at our house. Perhaps 12 inches at its deepest up to this point, though it's snowing outside as I write this so there will probably be more than that in the morning.

Molly’s just chillaxing. You’d think she might be a bit chilly in her bed of snow, but it doesn't seem to bother her. Her snow pants and coat must be doing their job well.

First things first - snowball fight!

Hey, not at the camera!

Why does everyone love to attack Daddy?

Unlike last time, Leah had a great time in the snow. I think she didn’t like the extreme cold of the last big storm. Today was 30 degrees warmer, which was much more pleasant.

These girls really like just laying around in the snow.

We got Jen on the sled this time. Here she is blazing the trail with the first sled run of the day.

The snow was so deep and wet, the sled didn’t move very quickly. And the end of the run left Jen a bit buried.

Molly got a bit more speed by using the track that Jen had just created.

Molly also finished under the snow. In fact, the sled seems to be wedged pretty deep in it.

Leah was excited to sled with Mommy.

Who needs a sled? Molly can slide down pretty quickly without one.

Molly was a bit excited to sled with her mom.

After sledding, it was time to make a snowman. The snow was so wet you could roll a snowball around to create a giant snowball with ease. That is, until it got so big and heavy that it wouldn’t move. Leah’s giving it her best, but it’s not moving.

With a little bit of help from Molly, they managed to get the ball rolling again.

Here’s our snowman. The girls named him Olaf Frosty Sellers.

The girls love to eat snow. Looks like Olaf Frosty should watch his back.

I think Olaf Frosty prefers this sweet kiss to being eaten.

Making a snowman is hard work. Time for a rest. Where better to rest than lying down in the snow.

We had a bunch of fun in the snow. Eventually the rain returned, so a good bit more melted and our snowman started leaning forward a bit. The rain turned back to snow about 4 hours ago, and the snow will likely continue for another couple at least. I'm not sure how deep it'll be in the morning, but I know it'll be extremely heavy to shovel. I'll get my exercise.

Leah's preschool class has a class pet of sorts. Quackers the duck (on the left) gets to go home with each kid for a few days. Leah was given instructions to take him on some adventures, and that's exactly what she did.

Before getting to any adventures, they had lunch. Quackers was very well behaved at the table.

Quackers then helped Jen sew a dress for Molly. Leah was there too, but chose to leave the sewing to her mom and Quackers.

Quackers was very excited when he found out we were having fish for dinner. Quackers and I thought the salmon was excellent.

Quackers joined us for Bingo night. He and Leah are ready to play.

Quackers was extremely focused, ensuring that Leah never missed a number on any of her cards. This is one intense duck.

Leah and Molly had ballet on Saturday morning, which sounded like fun to Quackers. He didn't get to dance, but loved watching the girls.

Generally our girls are not allowed to bring non-humans (toys, animals) to Sunday School, but since Leah’s assignment was to show Quackers some adventures, he of course came along. And he didn't have to worry about whether the teacher would allow a duck in the classroom, since Jen was the teacher.

Looks like Quackers got his beak stuck in today’s Sunday School craft.

After church we went out to eat at Qdoba with Grams. Quackers was very excited. I don’t think he’d had a quesadilla before.

After lunch, we went to Target so the girls could spend the gift card they won in the Bingo night raffle. They got a couple small toys and a bag of Hershey’s Kisses. Shortly after we got home, I caught Quackers getting into the chocolate. You’ve gotta watch this duck closely.

Quackers went with Leah to the gym to watch her show off her gymnastics skills. He loved watching her, but then snuck over to the pommel horse to work on his routine for the 2016 Duck Olympics.

Quackers also got to get frozen yogurt with Mrs. Christy and Olive. He said it was a lot of fun, though he felt a bit weird getting frozen yogurt when it was so cold outside. Sadly, I don't have any pictures of that.

The adventures were very fun, and Quackers was sad they had to come to an end. But, he was very excited to get back to school to tell everyone about all the fun he had with Leah. In fact, Leah and I made this story into a book that she brought to school so all the kids in her class could hear the story as well.

Molly’s school had a Bingo night for both kids and adults to participate in. Here’s a lineup of six first grade girls, and Leah at the end. They're all paying close attention to make sure they don't miss a number.

There were lots of people at the Bingo night. In fact, there were so many that they had to hold it at a nearby high school instead of Molly's school as we needed more space. There was also a duck, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to learn more about that.

We have a winner! OK, she didn’t get Bingo. But, in between the Bingo cards they had raffle prizes, and Molly won a Target gift card. She was so excited she couldn’t stay on the ground, or stay still enough to be captured by a camera.

She’s still running around in excitement from the raffle win. She'd better zoom back to the table before they start the next round of Bingo.

Jen got Bingo! Unfortunately, so did two other people. In the Bingo-off, she sadly came up short of winning the scooter.

Who would have thought Bingo night would be such an emotional roller coaster?

We saw Frozen in the theater and the girls loved it. They both claim it is the best movie they've ever seen. Since then they've kept singing the songs over and over again, so I bought the album. The next day, Leah decided to put her favorite song (In Summer) on repeat and dance with Merida. I’m sure she’d rather be dancing with Elsa or Anna, but we don’t have any Frozen dolls (yet?).

This song is pretty silly, so the dancing had to match. Leah, of course, is an expert in silly dancing.

Silly dancing often leads to falling down. When I fall down, I'm usually not grinning about it. I guess it helps to be closer to the ground.

After dancing to the same song a few dozen times in a row, it’s time for a rest. Believe me, I know. I was dancing with her for many of those times.

At the end of In Summer, Olaf the snowman belts “In Summerrrrr”. This picture is Leah belting that part. When Leah threw her arms out, both Jen and I cracked up.

For the past several days, there have been very few moments when a song from Frozen is not being sung in our house (or at least bouncing around our heads). Between Do You Want to Build a Snowman?, Let It Go, For the First Time in Forever, Love is an Open Door, Reindeer(s) Are Better Than People, Fixer Upper, and of course In Summer, we've at least got some variety to our music.

Leah is finally old enough to join the Cherub Choir at church, which means Molly and Leah get to be in choir together until next year when Molly moves up. Today was their first time singing together, and they did great. Leah was a great singer and did great staying focused on what she was supposed to be doing.

Here's the whole performance, including two very well sung songs. I think this is the best they've ever done. Must be Leah's influence.

OK, Leah might have briefly acted a bit crazy once or twice.

Father’s Day comes early at preschool. Since they’ll be out of school for the actual Father’s Day, they celebrate it in January and invite all the dads to join them for the day. Everyone in class had their dad along for a day of fun.

Leah’s job for the day was the calendar helper. It’s an important job, which included counting all the way to 30 since it was the 30th of January.

These kids really enjoy preschool.

Once it was time to move on to activities, Leah headed straight to the dress-up station to put on this dress. Then, we headed over to this station to make a sailboat.

Once the sailboat was created, Leah took it out for a sail in this tub of water. The straw made it easy to direct the wind for it.

Per tradition, we painted the bottom of our feet (one of Leah’s, one of mine) and made footprints on a piece of paper. Leah doesn’t look too sure about having the bottom of her foot painted.

We were also assigned to build a building of some sort. Leah opted to make it a tower of sorts.

Here we are with our creation.

Leah kept her first dress on for a while, but then opted to change into a wedding gown. She makes a beautiful bride.

Of course, after a wedding you need a reception. Leah opted for the fruit and potato plate.

I brought my guitar along, but we only got to sing one song at the end of the day as it was such a busy day. But it was very fun, and Leah certainly loves her school. I'm so glad I got to be there.

Tuesday we were hit hard by Winter Storm Janus. It was a teacher work day, so Molly already had no school. She planned to go over to a nearby friend’s house to play. Little did we know she and Jen would be walking through so much falling snow.

A few hours later I walked down to walk Molly home. We decided to walk back through the back yards (that’s our porch down on the right). The snow had gotten up to 5 or 6 inches at this point.

I chose to walk on the relatively flat ground, but Molly instead chose to walk along the top of the hill. This meant that when she got to our house, she got to run down the hill through the snow. What could be more fun?

The snow kept falling into the night, which meant the following day was the fourth day off school due to snow in this school year. First task - make a snow angel. Looks like we got a lot of snow this time.

Leah made a snowman ruler at school to measure the snow. Looks like we got 8 inches, which is conveniently the maximum length this ruler can measure.

Then it was time for some sledding. For some odd reason, Leah decided she was scared of sledding (despite having done it many times before). She did sled down twice with me, and admitted that it was really fun and only a little bit scary, but still refused to sled any more. Molly, on the other hand, was happy to sled over and over again.

Later that day, Molly headed back out to sled with some other kids while Leah was sleeping. She was happy to find her friend Ariana to play with.

There were lots of other kids there as well. This is the back yard a few houses down from us.

Despite not looking very fancy, these sleds can really move.

She’s moving too fast for my camera here as she starts to stop at the bottom of the hill.

Unfortunately the fun had to end. Thursday sent Molly and Leah back to school (though after a 2 hour delay), which meant no more playing in the snow. The snow's not going anywhere right now, though, as it's been incredibly cold with temperatures starting the day around 5° and rarely getting above 15°. We're forecasted for a bit more snow tomorrow, so there may be more fun winter play to come.

After a quiet New Year, Molly headed back to school on Thursday January 2nd for a short two day week. That short week was cut in half when it snowed all Thursday afternoon and night, giving her a snow day on Friday. The girls were excited to get out and play in it.

This is the first snow day since Jen got the girls some snow pants. They were very excited to be able to play in the snow and not have soaking wet pants within minutes. Here they are ready for some fun.

I didn’t get to play in the snow since this was a work day, but Jen went with them. Unlike the girls, she does not have any fancy snow pants. So, one of the little boys (Zane) down the street asked her:

Zane: "Are you wearing jeans?"
Jen: "Yes."
Zane: "Why aren't you wearing snow pants?"
Jen: "Because I don't have any yet."
Zane: Looks confused.

I guess Jen and I need some snow pants.

I peeked out the window a bit later to see how they were doing, and found them on their way home from a few doors down after some fun sledding and playing with other kids.

The next day, after a morning of ballet, Molly was eager to get out in the snow again. Leah went down for a nap, and Molly wandered to a friend’s house to see if she wanted to play. She wasn’t able to, but Molly was undeterred and joined in with some other kids a few doors down.

She stayed out playing in the snow for several hours. There were a couple girls early on, but by the end it was just Molly and 5 boys. It was the first time we’ve let her sled without one of us around (though we peeked our head out the back door every few minutes). She did great, though, and kept going until she had completely turned into an icicle.

Three snow days off school already. If things keep up like this, they're going to be in school until July. In the mean time, the girls have been making the most of all the snow in our very hilly neighborhood.