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All three girls had a blast playing together. Who needs swords when you've got shakers.

G'Mom and Grampa found this little swing and set it up on their sun porch. Of course, they all constantly wanted to swing.

Everyone loves a good book.

We visited the children's hospital in Memphis, where Grampa works.

And then headed to the Peabody Hotel to see the ducks. It was the fastest march of ducks ever! One minute the elevator door opened and 15 seconds later the duck were in the pool! The other girls eventually tired of the ducks, but Molly couldn't get enough.

The girls had lots of fun with balloons, and Leah was determined that she could blow up this one.

Cookie baking with G'mom. A little on the sheet, a little in the mouth...

And just to prove that we were all indeed there.

Both Molly and (especially) Leah like to watch Bubble Guppies on Nick Jr. When we started talking about flying to see G'mom and Grampa in Memphis the "Gup, Gup and Away" episode became an instant hit. We sang, "Yeah, we're gonna fly. Fly, fly, fly, fly, fly. fly" many, many times during our traveling. Molly was super excited when she was given her own set of Delta wings!

Michelle, Jeremy and Emmie drove up from Birmingham to visit too. We took the girls to the Children's Museum of Memphis, which was packed with fun activities. Here's Leah doing some indoor fishing on the Mississippi River.

The fishing pole was a bit hard to handle, so switching to a net which was much easier for Emmie.

Molly is ready to fight some fires.

Molly's absolute favorite part was launching paper airplanes. She got very good at shooting them and even managed to get it in the target a good bit of the time.

Leah gave us a puppet show.

The museum also had a couple green screens for the kids to have fun with. Who knows where they saw themselves on the monitor, but Chad had some editing fun.

More to come tomorrow...

When I asked Riley's mom what the birthday girl would like, the answer was, "Anything homemade by the very talented Jen Sellers would be very welcome and appreciated." Looks like Molly's friends are loving the dresses made by her Mommy!

I love the square neck, the ruffle sleeves, and the pleats in the front and back. I bought the pattern after seeing it on Mandy's blog. She's the cousin of my friend, Emily.

I also made a dress for one of Molly's preschool friends, Maisie. All these dresses means that I am getting to try out a lot of different patterns.

With this dress, I put my first zipper in a garment, and if you look hard you can see side pockets!

A couple months ago, my Aunt Jan asked if she could make the girls something because she had an itch to do some sewing for some little girls. When a package arrived in the mail, I opened it and responded, "Oh, I forgot she was making the girls something!" It was a fun surprise!

The dresses definitely passed the playability test.

Leah is now the fifth little girl to wear this dress. G'mom made it for Aunt 'Chelle over 30 years ago. Here is Molly wearing it.

We were sad to learn that Emmie had broken her arm earlier this week. So, we decided to do something to cheer her up. Emmie - this video is for you. Molly, Leah, Jen, and I hope it helps you feel a bit better.

We made our annual trek to Savannah to visit Chad's family last week. We flew last year, but decided this year that it had to be our long roadtrip down I-95 again. And it was a long one indeed. Add together ~12 hours on the road, plus a sick child (one girl on each leg!), and you get two very.long.days. However, the three days in the middle were quite pleasant!

The hammock was the favorite destination, and thankfully the aunts frequently obliged the girls' requests to swing. It really is very relaxing.

Grandaddy's dock is also a great place to hang out and relax.

We also spent one morning at Uncle Carl's house swimming. Leah had a great time in the water, while Molly insisted on staying on the steps. I put Leah's head under a few times to get her more comfortable with the water. She always came up shocked, but after a lot of cheering from the crowd, she'd start smiling and say "I did it!"

You can see all the pictures from our visit on Flickr starting here. And if you missed it, a reading from Molly here.

I'm not sure if this came about because of the pirate pigs on Dora, the pirate episode of the Backyardigans, or the pirate in the What's in the Bible videos, but Leah now loves to pretend to be a pirate. This basically consists of her saying "Arrrrrrhhh!" followed by "I'm a pirate!" It's pretty hilarious.

The girls have really enjoyed their pool playtime every week. We've already been more times this summer than the entire summer last year. Thank goodness for a single afternoon naptime!

Pouring water with cups and buckets is certainly the favorite activity.

It can be serious business.

And anything can be a bucket, even an upside down boat!

Molly has not been interested in actually swimming, but she does enjoy splashing around.

Jumping in is fun too!

Is it good luck to dump water out of a cup behind you like it is to throw salt over your shoulder?

Though, sometimes you have to take a break from the action to survey the landscape and plan your next move.

After our first trip to the pool, I decided that the girls needed some cover-ups. So, I made them these matching terry cloth cover-ups. They have been perfect for keeping them warm and dry while eating our picnic lunches.

We have a lover of all things pink in our house, so when National Pink Day came around on June 23rd, I knew we had to celebrate! I hosted a Pinkalicious Party in honor of the day.

I decided to make our reading of Pinkalicious a bit more fun. I had the girls stand-up or sit-down every time I said the word pink or cupcake. Do you know how many times those are said in this book?! Oh.my.goodness. A lot! They eventually gave up and just sat and listened.

We had some pinktastic treats: strawberry cupcakes and strawberry pink lemonade. I used these free printables for the cupcake toppers.

And of course there was a pinkerific craft! The girls painted with glue to create Pinkalicious magnets.

The girls came dressed for the occasion and had a fun time celebrating all things pink!

And Leah enjoyed getting in on the cupcake action too.

Leah is now old enough to participate in bedtime story reading. She's got a few favorites that Jen often reads to her (yes, when we're both home Jen reads to Leah and I still read to Molly). So, just as we did with Molly a couple years ago, we decided to record Leah participating in a few of her favorite books.

Fair warning, the video is five and half minutes long and may take a bit to load on slower Internet connections.

I made liquid sidewalk chalk for the girls to paint the driveway. It paints like water colors, but dries bright like chalk. And it's a simple recipe - equal parts water and cornstarch, plus a few drops of food coloring.

Molly liked painting with all the different colors.

Leah had a lot of fun painting the cement, but eventually moved on to her hands, and the front door! It's a good thing the paint was washable.