thesellers.net

Molly competed in her first karate tournament on Saturday. Her dojo was holding a tournament, so it was an easy way to try it out. There ended up being girls from lots of other karate schools there (which meant the place was packed). Molly elected to compete in both Forms (katas) and Sparring.

Here she is doing her kata. It was good enough to tie for first place in her division with a score of 7.47.

She lost the tie breaker, but was still very excited about winning the silver medal. Congratulations, Molly!

In sparring, she had a tough opponent to start.

You get 1 point for a punch, 2 points for a kick, first to 5 points wins. There are 3 judges, which are all sensei’s from different schools. Scoring a point requires confirmation from 2 of the 3 judges.

It was a very tight fight. Towards the end, Molly was losing 4 to 3, and her opponent came close to scoring several times. But then Molly landed an excellent kick, giving her the 5-4 win.

In the gold medal fight, Molly faced another tough opponent with an excellent kick.

She fought well, but ultimately lost.

Molly won the silver medal!

Molly’s a happy champion, even if her smile looks odd with her mouthguard in.

I couldn’t get a picture of her with both her medals there since it was so crowed, but here she is right after we got home.

Congratulations, Molly!

As soon as we got our Christmas tree, the girls started asking when we could decorate it. Fortunately, the wait was not long (2 days).

In the beginning, the girls told Jen they could handle the big tree, and she could stick to the little tiny one.

Fortunately, the tree is wide enough to get close to the love seat. It can be a helpful tool in reaching a bit higher.

To reach even higher, you can stand on the love seat arm, though you need a hand to steady you.

And then sometimes you need even more height and have to pull out the ladder.

The girls in this family need as much help reaching up high as they can. And with this big tree, I ended up on the ladder a lot as well.

One nice thing about a tree this big - you don’t have to pick and choose ornaments to go on. There’s room for them all.

Here’s what it looks like all lit up.

Here’s the tree with a bit of the rest of the room for size comparison. I think this is the biggest tree we’ve ever had in terms of girth. I cut a good bit off the bottom and a bit off the top so it would fit under our 9 foot ceiling (barely), but it’s also really big around. Watching TV is slightly more difficult than usual, but we really enjoy this awesome tree.

As we have done for the past five years, we went to Greenway Farms in Woodbine to cut down our Christmas tree. Again, we opted for a White Pine (which they sell for only $25 regardless of how tall it is!). So, we made our way to the row of White Pines and looked for the best one. Here are Jen and the girls in front of our pick.

Unfortunately, when I went to cut it down I found a problem. It had 2 smaller trunks that split just above ground level. Had I cut it down, I would have ended up with 2 disconnected trunks that happened to be tangled up. Fortunately, we had gone back and forth between this one and a different one, so it was easy to make a different choice.

Here they are with our final tree. This one did have a split, but it was up near the top. So, it wasn’t a problem. If you think the tree looks big, you’re right. It measured 10 feet 4 inches from the ground. Our family room has a 9 foot ceiling.

The tree farm is next to a horse farm. So, naturally Molly wanted to pose with a horse.

Tune in next time to see how our giant tree fit in our house.

A couple of weeks ago we realized it had been a long time since our last real photoshoot. With the need to print Christmas cards arriving soon, we picked the warmest available day we could and planned an outing. Jen and I looked through lots of locations, but ended up choosing to go to Rockburn Branch Park.

Give me a kiss!

Suddenly, Leah became much older than she was a few minutes ago.

These girls manage to always have fun. This can make it hard to stay on task sometimes, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Jen thought it would be fun for the girls to wear their hats. I thought I might wear one as well, and then suggested Jen join in the fun too.

This picture made it onto the back of the Christmas card.

And this picture was the big winner for the front of the Christmas card. Jen got a crate and some letters for the perfect extra touch.

Note that the hats did eventually come off.

As the sun went down, it started to get colder. The girls let me take one last picture before heading to the car to warm up.

This is just a taste of the photoshoot, but you can see all the great pictures on Flickr.

While Jen and I got to meet Charlie at the hospital, Molly and Leah were not so lucky. Fortunately, Charlie came home from the hospital yesterday, which meant Molly and Leah got to meet their new cousin. They were so excited to meet this sweet little guy.

Of course, they were excited to hold Charlie. Molly was all smiles for her little cousin.

Charlie checks out the world; Molly checks out his face; Jen and Leah check out his feet.

Charlie is really studying Molly here.

Leah loved to touch Charlie’s soft little face.

Charlie has soft chubby cheeks, but his hands are old man hands. Long, thin, wrinkled fingers. Here they are up close.

Eventually, his mom did get a chance to hold him.

The girls gave Jen a chance to hold him, but they didn’t go far.

Molly loved chilling with Charlie, but she also would get tired of it and want to get up. Leah, on the other hand, couldn’t get enough of him.

So cute!

It didn’t take long before he was back in Leah’s lap.

Leah could not stop stroking his hair.

Yay for Charlie! And good luck to Aunt EA and Uncle Scott. We can’t wait to see you guys again.

Aunt EA and Uncle Scott had their first child Thursday evening. Welcome to the world, Charlie.

Jen and I didn’t get to see Charlie right after his birth, but we made sure to get to the hospital the next morning to meet him.

It’s been a while since I’ve held a baby this tiny.

Jen can’t hold back the kisses when around such cuteness.

I failed to get a picture of Aunt EA as a new mom, but I did get one of Uncle Scott as a new dad.

Congratulations Aunt EA and Uncle Scott! And welcome to the family, Charlie (or Charles, if you prefer). Your cousins can’t wait to meet you tomorrow after you get home (non-sibling children were not allowed to visit in the hospital during flu season).

The girls wanted to have bunk beds from an early age, and we always told them they could when Molly was 6 (that’s the Federal guideline for sleeping on the top bunk). When we moved to our new house shortly after Molly turned 6, they got their wish. When Leah turned 6 not long ago, she requested a swap. After a few trial nights, she and Molly agreed to permanently switch. Here they are ready to sleep on their first night in their new beds. Please excuse their very messy room.

They’ve done great the past couple weeks since making the switch and show no sign of wanting to switch back.

Molly participated in an after school Lego robotics program, and I volunteered as the parent helper. The program was run by Bricks for Kidz (which we love), and was awesome. We used the Lego Mindstorms EV3 kits and software. Here’s Molly building a jumping spider.

Molly’s program this week used a proximity sensor to detect when something came close to the spider, then activated the robotic arm to make it jump at that thing. The first time it jumped, she was a bit shocked. Sorry for the heavy vignette, but I did not get permission to post a picture of her partner.

In October, we flew to Memphis to visit G’Mom and Grampa. Aunt ‘Chelle, Uncle J, Emmie, and JJ drove up to meet us there for a family weekend.

Our first night in Memphis, the girls requested to read The Book with No Pictures at bedtime. Emmie had never read it, and the girls were excited to share the hilarity with her.

The hospital Grampa works at was holding the Pumpkin Run while we were in town, and we decided to join in the fun. It included a 5K, a 400m kids fun run, and a costume contest. Molly and Leah had to wear last year’s costumes as this year’s costumes were not ready yet.

The event wasn’t just a run. They had lots of things to do, including this inflatable obstacle course.

The kids were ready to run. Well, at least the girls were.

Emmie is fast - she was the first of our family to finish the race.

Molly finished strong.

And Leah was close behind.

All the kids got medals.

Here are the runners/walkers for the 5K. Aunt ‘Chelle and Uncle J were kind enough to stay with the kids so the rest of us could run/walk.

I managed to run my best 5K in a long time thanks to the relatively flat course. I came in under 26 minutes, which isn’t that fast, but isn’t super slow either.

Bob ran as well (more on that later), and Jen and Susan walked together. Jen and Susan thought about stopping at the 2 mile mark, but decided to push through to walk the entire 5K.

They were greeted at the finish line by a waiting little girl.

And here’s all of us after the race.

Our family won our category in the costume contest. Yet another victory for the Super Sellers.

G’Mom won 3rd place in her age category.

A congratulatory hug for G’Mom.

Grampa won 3rd place for his age group as well.

Grampa got a hug for his victory as well.

The kids ate a lot of pizza while we were in Memphis, which they were very happy about. Here they are eating pizza for lunch on Saturday. They’d already had pizza for dinner the night before, and at the race earlier that morning.

Memphis is known for its barbecue, and the Commissary is one of the best places to get it. It doesn’t have a lot of room, and you’ll have to wait a while for a table, but it’s so good. I’ve been cutting back on my calories, so I saved as many as possible (including those from the 5K that morning) to allow me to really enjoy this meal. Those were some delicious calories (1,548 by my count).

On Sunday morning, the kids were all enlisted to ring the hour at the start of the church service.

G’Mom and Grampa’s bell choir played a couple songs during the church service.

Here’s all of us after church.

And then it wasn’t long until we were back at the airport headed home. Thanks to G’Mom and Grampa for hosting us.

Still catching up on posts that never got posted - here’s one from September. For Leah’s birthday, she got the Lego kit for Cinderella’s castle. As soon as she had a few free hours, she built it.

646 pieces is nothing for this Lego expert.