Leah

Holiday happenings

Posted in Leah, Molly on December 19th, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host…Luke 2:13

Molly and I participated in Walk to Bethlehem as angels singing "Gloria!" She and Simon sang out loud and clear every time (which was roughly every 5-10 minutes during the two hours we were there!)

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host

I was not planning to dress and sing, but when Molly asked, I couldn't say no.

Momma angel and her little girl

It's become a tradition for the girls to go over to Grams and Pop's house and bake Christmas cookies with Grams, Aunt EA, and Aunt Caroline. When Chad and I arrived to pick them up, we found Leah surveying their product.

Cookies

I think Molly has her eye on one.

I pick this one

Astounding cookies. Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

Astounding cookies

Yes, they get pretty excited about cookies.

I love cookies!

I’m dreaming of a white…pine?

Posted in Family outings, Leah, Molly on December 4th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

We again returned to Greenway Farm to cut down our Christmas tree. We took a family vote and opted to try out a white pine this year.

A new kind of tree

Molly thought this little tree was the cutest! She kept saying, "Mom, it's so little!"

Mom, it's so little!

Chad picked out a good saw this year and cut the tree down in no time.

Cutting down the tree

That evening, it was time to decorate our new tree. Molly put on the first ornament.

First ornament

The daddy ladder is sometimes required to reach the higher parts of the tree.

Up high

Leah was much more into putting ornaments on the tree this year than in years past.

Leah, too

All decorated and ready for Christmas. This is the earliest we've ever put up our tree, thanks to our very eager Kindergartener. We're hoping that we don't have a Charlie Brown tree come Christmas Day!

Our tree

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

More Memphis moments

Posted in Leah, Molly, Trip on November 11th, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

G'Mom's birthday is later this month, so we had an early birthday celebration. Chad was impressed with my fast baking skills when I decided to whip up some cupcakes during nap time and they were baked and decorated in 1.5 hours.

Another early celebration

JJ sure likes hanging out with Aunt Jen - especially when he's wearing the snazzy pajama pants I made for him.

With my Aunt Jen

We also checked out the excellent Children's Museum of Memphis while we were there. It has a a tons of fun stuff for kids, including the cockpit of this FedEx jet that Leah is flying for us.

Children's Museum of Memphis

Leah and Emmie are ready to fly this jet wherever we need to go. Emmie said we were going to New York, though Molly radioed from flight traffic control saying we were supposed to go to South America.

Pilot and copilot

The museum has two areas with green screens where they show the kids on TV screens superimposed over some other video feed. The band here is rocking on the beach to Surfin' Safari.

Rocking the green screen

Emmie selected Justin Bieber's Never Say Never, and the younger girls filled the role of his backup dancers. (Chad clearly had a bit of fun with these green screen pictures!)

Bieber backup

Molly and Leah decided to soar through the sky a bit as well.

Sky diving

We also played at the toy river they had set up. Apparently, the little toy shark is very exciting.

A shark!

We visited Grampa at his office before having lunch at the Bar-B-Q Shop (which was outstanding). The girls wanted to go to Grampa's office so they could draw on the whiteboard.

Visiting Grampa's office

G'Mom and Grampa took us to paint pottery on Monday night. Molly saw this castle piggy bank and fell in love with it. Now she says she needs some money to put inside!

Painting pottery

Leah painted herself the perfect sized ice cream bowl.

Nice work Leah

With G'Mom and Grampa helping the girls, I was able to paint a piece too. I turned the girls' handprints into owls, inspired by this blog. And I left strict instructions for Mom to keep this one in Memphis. :)

Whoo loves you?

We had a great weekend all together, but we did miss Uncle J who was on a mission trip in South Sudan. On our way home from the airport, we stopped for dinner with Aunt EA and Scott to avoid rush hour traffic. If you are local, you must check out Cheesetique in Arlington. Mmmm, it was so good!

Our weekend in Memphis

Posted in Leah, Molly, Trip on November 10th, 2012 by jen – 1 Comment

Our county uses schools as polling centers, so Molly was off of school Monday and Tuesday for the election. We took the opportunity to fly to Memphis to visit with my family. Leah was thrilled to sit in the seat like Molly and we were excited to not have to carry her carseat through the airport!

We'll fly away

G'Mom and Grampa took us to a giant county park near their house. It has a spectacular playground, including this extremely tall and fast slide.

Super playground

Molly's favorite part of the playground was this teeter totter.

Teeter totter

So much fun

The girls had fun all together on this basket swing.

Now we're swinging

Emmie must have thought that G'Mom and Grampa's house was really frigid! Or it may have been that she was excited about her new gifts from G'Mom.

Is it that cold, Emmie?

Molly loved her new sparkly clothes so much that she decided to cheer about them!

Sparkly cheerleader

JJ was happy to watch all the dancing and cheering!

Happiness

I couldn't resist making JJ a fleece monster hat. He'll be sporting a super fun hat this winter.

Monster hat

Emmie was the recipient of a cute monster hat too. She was also excited to model her new cherry corduroy jumper.

A new outfit for Emmie

Saturday night we had an early Thanksgiving dinner. In preparation, Aunt 'Chelle needed to snap the green beans, so she enlisted some extra help.

Our future chef

You can never get enough holiday food, right?

An early Thankgiving

The girls all enjoyed playing games together on any available iOS device. They were even seen playing old school board games!

Still playing

JJ was sick over the weekend, but he did have some smiley moments.

Smiley

Molly found that JJ's puppy played Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes, so she spent one afternoon trying to teach him all the moves. He was very entertained!

Entertaining JJ

More to come tomorrow…

Sharing the candy love

Posted in Leah, Molly on November 9th, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

As we did last year, the girls participated in the Halloween candy buy-back program at our dentist office. The girls were told that they could each keep 15 pieces of candy.

Counting candy

Molly made sure to count her 15 pieces, as well as the pieces that she was going to donate.

Double checking her count

Ms. Melissa helped the girls weigh their candy and rewarded them with a thank-you goody bag and $1 coin. When I asked the girls if they wanted to donate part of their candy again, Molly was most excited about the goody bag!

Handing it over

Dodek Dental also set up a table to draw thank you cards to be included with the candy. The donated candy will be part of Operation Gratitude's care packages sent to deployed US Military.

Thank you cards

Molly was very intent on getting her card just right for the soldiers.

Getting it just right

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

Pumpkin carving

Posted in Celebrations, Leah, Molly on November 2nd, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

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

Pumpkin carving

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

Leah's not so sure

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.

The finished pumpkins

Another farm field trip

Posted in Field trips, Leah, Playdates on November 1st, 2012 by jen – Be the first to comment

It was Leah's turn to take a trip to the farm. Our playgroup headed out to Gaver Farm for a morning of Fall fun.

Another farm field trip

The farm had so many things for the girls to do, with at least 6 different mazes.

First of many mazes

The corn crib was a big hit. Fun like a sandbox, but without all the sand all over!

Corn crib

Leah and Rachel had a great time test driving the tractors.

Farmers in training

Leah loved this slide! She probably went down it 15 times, and insisted on doing it all by herself. It is made of ridged tubes, so she'd bump down and laugh all the way.

Leah's favorite part

Fall photo shoot

Posted in Family outings, Leah, Molly on October 28th, 2012 by jen – 3 Comments

I wanted to get some Fall pictures of the girls, so Tuesday we went to Savage Park to take some pictures among the fall foliage.

Hug on a log

Still hugging among the trees.

Among the trees

Leah was excited about her pretty red leaf.

A leaf!

At the end of the trail was a fun bench in the woods. I love the colors glowing behind the girls.

Back to back

Molly decided to take a rest and find objects in the clouds.

Look up in the sky

Mommy was requested in a picture too!

With Mommy under the trees

We wanted them to sit together, but by the end of the outing, Leah had different ideas.

Give me my space

We told them we could go to Chick-fil-A after the session, so they were excited to head back toward the car. And they just like running through the leaves.

The end