thesellers.net

Per Molly’s request, we went to Red Robin (one of the only places around that still sings for birthdays) for her family birthday dinner with the Sellers side. Molly made this birthday hat for herself to make sure the staff there knew it was her birthday.

Leah had fun playing with Aunt Caroline much of the evening.

As they always do, Aunt EA and Uncle Scott entertained with a singing card. Unfortunately, Red Robin is too loud to hear it, but we’ve heard it many times since we got home.

It was a monster-themed evening, including some Monsters University toys like Art here.

Molly also got both the new Monsters University as well as the original Monsters, Inc.

Our real reason for being there was of course the singing and sundae for a birthday girl.

You can even relive the magic in this video of the singing.

Sunday was Molly's actual birthday, so we opened some presents in the morning before church, including a couple of jump ropes.

Leah gave Molly a couple of hula hoops. While Molly can spin these crazy fast, when Chad and I gave it a go, hilarity ensued. I laughed so hard my sides hurt!

Molly also opened the present from Aunt ‘Chelle’s family while video conferencing with them. We did this for Emmie's birthday, and the kids really love seeing each other's reaction to the gifts.

G’Mom and Grampa came in town to celebrate Molly’s birthday, and they arrived with some fancy My Little Pony puzzles in hand.

Leah had no trouble with the puzzle, except that her hair was constantly in her face. Of course, she still refused a clip or headband to solve the problem.

Molly had a half day of school on Friday, so she requested to spend the free afternoon painting pottery. G’Mom did a nice job supervising.

This was Leah’s first ever figurine to paint. She very patiently waited for each of the three coats to dry of several different colors. And Grampa was very patient with helping a 4-year-old paint.

While G’Mom and Grampa assisted the girls, I took the opportunity to paint a piece of my own.

On Saturday, Molly showed off her reading skills for G’Mom with a Junie B. Jones book.

Then, it was game time. I don’t think Leah appreciated G’Mom skipping her in this game of Uno.

Molly’s excited about playing a wild card.

Leah played one hand on her own, but then she decided to help Grampa.

Hooray! Molly wins!

Dinner can be an amusing time in our house, especially when there are exciting birthday events looming. Here's a peek into a couple of those dinners.

I’m not sure why Molly seems to be pretending to have a chin injury with her napkin.

When you’re making a silly face, it’s easy to miss that you’re using the wrong end of your fork.

Magic utensils, no hands necessary.

This is not the way she’s supposed to eat ice cream.

Ice cream causes silly faces in Leah. As does everything else.

We've had lots of fun around here lately. First up - International Night at Molly's school. The whole family went and had lots of fun tasting different foods, checking out toys from different countries, and watching performances from different cultures.

Molly has now lost all four of her lateral incisors in the last two months. None of their replacements have shown any signs of coming in yet, so she’s got some nice gaps in her mouth.

Friday was Wacky Hair Day at Molly’s school, and Molly was excited to join in the fun. Jen found an idea to use pipe cleaners to turn up the fun, and added them in to Molly’s pigtails. I was surprised that they stayed in all day.

Our girls often take way too long to eat dinner. So, we’ve instituted a system where we have a dinner timer. If they beat the timer, they get a sticker on a chart. After collecting five stickers, they get to pick a place to go out for dessert. Our first dessert excursion was to my favorite gelato place - Cafe Di Roma.

The girls liked combining Leah’s birthday cake gelato with Molly’s raspberry gelato. From Leah’s face, it looks surprisingly good.

We made the trek down to Montgomery County to the home of the Kentobeans for a gathering with a bunch of friends. The Dunbars, our friends who moved away to Texas a couple years ago, were in town to visit. The party was lots of fun, but I forgot my camera. The girls got these party gifts, which they love. So, I photographed them after we got home.

Molly’s mad scientist and Leah’s robot look evil to me when seen up close.

Thanks to the Kentons for hosting such a fun gathering (and supplying such wonderful parting gifts). It was great to see the Dunbars (and everyone else).

For much of the winter, Molly has been doing a gymnastics unit in P.E. at school. At the end of the unit, they invited parents to come in to see all they had learned. Here she is with her friend Grace ready to do some cartwheels.

Nice cartwheel, Molly.

It didn’t last long, but she did a nice headstand.

It's so nice to live right next to school, so I can walk over to see what she's up to. Next time, I might even find out the right time to be there so I don't show up half an hour early ;).

After so much snow and such extreme cold, this past weekend was incredibly nice with temperatures approaching 60. So we broke out the bikes and scooters and headed over to the blacktop at Molly’s school.

It was so warm that it melted the snow and ice, except for the stuff piled up on the side. It felt funny to be playing outside in the warmth on a blacktop surrounded by large walls of snow.

Leah was given this little bike by her friend Matilda last Fall, but didn’t get a chance to ride it before the cold. She wanted a little help at first since she had never really ridden a bike before, and Jen was happy to oblige.

Eventually Leah was doing it mostly herself with Jen fading into the background.

Leah in silhouette and shadow. I love her pose here. Makes her seem so much older than four.

She's a hopscotch champion. Leah may have a couple years before she’s in elementary school, but she’s already ready for recess. Please excuse the missed focus; she was moving very quickly.

Molly found a bit of chalk and drew a little, then gave it to Leah. Leah was more into it and stayed focused on drawing for some time.

Leah’s drawing a sun here with her tiny remnant of chalk in her little fingers.

Leah decided a fun game was to try to run into me with her bike. I had to snap this quickly before fleeing her attack.

By the end, Leah was getting around on her bike pretty well.

After an hour or so on the blacktop, we moved to the playground. Molly’s love for monkeys has turned her into a master of the monkey bars. Note that proper swinging technique includes sticking out your tongue at all times, even if your hair is in your face.

Slides are fun, whether they be twisty...

or straight.

While these pictures may look like Leah is posing for me, she is actually trying to avoid my camera. She would run by, briefly glance at me to taunt me, then disappear down the slide. Fortunately, I’m pretty quick and managed to catch her taunt a few times.

This time, Molly decided to help me by capturing Leah before she could run away from the camera.

We very much enjoyed our day of fun in the sun.

Of course, after our weekend of warmth, we've already had snow on Tuesday and Wednesday this week. Just 2 or 3 inches between the two days, but still a dramatic turn from our warm weekend.

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. ;)

Olaf Frosty had a rough evening. First, it warmed up and rained in the afternoon meaning he melted a bit. This caused him to start to lean. Then the snow fell and the wind blew. Looks like he lost a button and a piece of his mouth.

We got between 4 and 5 more inches (this is measuring on the driveway where I shoveled the day before). That said, the rain and warmth before the snow meant that yesterday’s snow was compacted enough that the total was still only about 11 inches deep. Just a much heavier 11 inches.

Thanks to my outstanding wife, I was not shoveling all this snow alone. If you add the time we each shoveled together, we spent about nine man-hours shoveling this snow over the past few days.

Yet again, I walked Molly home from a friend’s house and she chose to walk through the snow-covered back yards.

On the walk home, she walked along the top of the hill while I was at the bottom. She chose to take advantage of her position to attack me with some snowballs.

Once we got to our back yard, I told her it was time to walk down the hill. She chose to get down a different way.

It snowed again the next day, but not enough to need to shovel. I am very thankful for this.

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.