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Today was Leah's last day of school at My First School. Ms. Deb has been a wonderful teacher. Leah has a bit of a stubborn streak in her (ahem, not sure where that comes from!) and early in the year, Ms. Deb's spin on it was that Leah would make a great leader one day. Ha! Leah has loved school and would always insist on giving her teachers great, big hugs every day. She'd even run back in if she forgot.

We're so ready for preschool at ECP this Fall. Leah's super excited to go to "Molly's preschool" and I'm eager to get back into the classroom with Ms. Carol, enough that I even volunteered to be Leah's class coordinator!

We went down to St. Mary's College of Maryland to see Aunt Caroline graduate on Saturday. We sat so far back, and outside the covered seating, that all we could see were the silhouettes of the graduates. Thanks to Chad's photography, these pictures were like seeing Caroline graduate for the first time.

Going in for the shake and the diploma.

Congratulations Aunt Caroline! You've just graduated from college with more honors than anyone else in your family (Major, 2 minors, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa). Well done.

Big smiles for a happy day!

Hooray!

The Sellers family.

Caroline and Charles, very decorated.

After graduation, we went out to lunch at Nicolletti's (which was excellent). They also had a kid's play area, where Molly found this hat and thought it went well with her smocked dress.

A quick picture before we headed back to Caroline's apartment for the most furious 2 hours of packing imaginable (sorry, no pictures of packing).

I may not have had my sewing machine on hand, but I still found a way to be crafty for Teacher Appreciation week. Mod Podge became my new best friend!

Leah has been attending My First School through Howard County RAP. She has had a fabulous year and was so excited to give her teachers their new clipboards.

Molly and Leah both loved helping paint these word blocks for Molly's teacher. They spell at least 14 school related words. I dropped them by the school along with some White Chocolate Macadamia Nut bars. I had to smile when Molly came home with a Thank You note and I read, "Once again, you prove to be the craftiest mom ever!"

We've tried to take advantage of some nice, Spring days lately and play outside. Molly tried skating a bit.

She then moved on to biking for the first time this season. She had some trouble here, though we did eventually figure out that she needed the seat raised, the tires inflated, and one of the training wheels adjusted. Once that was done she had a much easier time.

We had some fun throwing the disc around as well, though Leah didn't exactly throw this one very close to her target (Daddy).

At some point, Leah decided she didn't want to throw the Frisbee any more for no apparent reason.

It didn't take her long to cheer back up, though.

The most fun game of the afternoon was likely "pull the tree branch." This involves a child standing on a step stool and pulling a tree branch, pretending to be a monster.

And if you really pull the tree branch down, you can…

…let go of the branch and watch it spring up into the air.

We are so ecstatic! We have a new house! We'll soon be living on Vinter Way in Ellicott City, moving after school ends in June.

It's crazy to think that in only two weeks we listed our house, got it under contract (twice!), and found a new house. A huge "Thank you" to Jeremy Walsh for helping us make it all happen. Now we can start planning where things should go and mentally moving in to the space.

Here are the pictures from the listing:

Living Room

Kitchen

Family Room

Master Bedroom

Master Bath

Bedrooms

Bathroom

Laundry on Bedroom level

Finished Basement

Walk out to backyard

Office nook

Accessible storage

Trex decking

Rear of house

When we moved to Maryland, we said we'd reevaluate whether to stay in 5 years. Almost 10 years and 2 kids later, we're still here and we've now outgrown our little home. So, since January, we've spent countless hours working on the house in order to put it on the market. We achieved our self-imposed deadline of April 1st and our house was listed on April 2nd.

After 7 days, 39 showings, 1 Open House, and 5 offers, we had a contract on our house. (Thank goodness we were in Birmingham celebrating JJ's 1st birthday for 4 of those crazy days.) We started really living in our house again, and then two days later, the contract fell through. :(

So, we started the showings again (now 49 total) and on Saturday we reviewed 5 offers again - the four we originally rejected plus a new one. After some negotiations, we are really, truly under contract. Hooray!

We have also put an offer on a new house, so hopefully we'll have some news on the buying front soon. :)

We spent part of Spring Break in Birmingham visiting with my family. It was possibly the shortest time between visits with G'Mom and Grampa that the girls have ever had.

It's always fun to see what Grampa sees.

JJ loved his first ride in the Cozy Coupe. Leah stopped to chat along his route.

We went out to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack where the servers dance. Molly took that to mean that she should dance as well, and she spent much of the evening dancing and dancing and dancing.

The reason for our visit was to attend JJ's first birthday party.

The birthday boy is a happy boy as he waits for the party to start.

Who needs cake? The icing is the good stuff.

Emmie loved sitting with Uncle Chad. And Leah's always wanting to share in Daddy's love.

There's always time for reading with G'Mom.

Leah loves "baby JJ."

Grandma Dot came over for a post-party visit. Here she is with her four great-grandchildren.

JJ loves playing with his trucks.

Molly was super sweet with JJ. Every time he was fussy, she was right there trying to cheer him up. She even sat with him a few times and played trucks with him.

Molly's birthday weekend was also Easter weekend. The girls were excited to see what they got in their Easter basket. So excited that they made sure we were up a little early.

There were also some Easter presents from Aunt 'Chelle, Uncle J, Emmie, and JJ, including these fun eyes.

We had a nice Easter service, a great lunch at Grams's, and some good family time. Happy Easter from The Sellers!

It's the morning of Molly's actual birthday. Molly's got on her birthday crown and it's time to open presents. Why is she hugging her sister so excitedly?

A new umbrella! Leah picked it out herself, and Molly is thrilled with it.

Molly requested to go to Red Robin (yum!) for her birthday dinner as they sing. Here she is eating her birthday dessert after the singing.

We then headed home with aunts, an almost uncle, Grams, and Grammy to have some more treats and open presents. Molly is really excited about this Hello Kitty karaoke machine from Aunt Caroline. Her mom and dad are slightly less excited…

Molly has not yet embarked on a sleepover, but she's now ready with this Hello Kitty sleeping bag from Aunt EA and (almost) Uncle Scott.

Birthday cake at her party, ice cream sundae at dinner, and now a cupcake as well. She's one happy 6 year old!

On Good Friday, I took the girls to an Easter Egg Hunt organized by my MOMS Club. Leah was one of the oldest of the youngest group, so she ran full on in search of all the pink eggs.

Leah loved filling up her basket. She eventually had so many eggs that she started collecting eggs to give to the younger toddlers and babies.

The egg hunt for the older kids was a bit more challenging with eggs hidden in bushes and wedged in tight spots.

The girls were joined by some of their best playgroup buddies.

After the hunting was complete, the candy counting began. Leah and Molly brought home 40 pieces of candy each! They'll be eating Easter candy until Leah's birthday!

Molly, Keira and Maya were happy to pose next to the Easter Bunny. Leah is still unwilling to get near large, costumed figures.