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On Thursday, we headed with some friends to Dutch Wonderland for one last summer hurrah. Our first stop was to hop on the Sky Ride to be carried to the back of the park. Here's Leah, Molly, and Chad high above the trees, which the girls loved.

When we arrived, Molly said she would not ride any roller coasters. However, once she saw the Joust and heard Simon say he was going to ride it, she chose to participate. Much to my surprise, so did Leah, who was barely tall enough to be allowed on with a parent.

Next stop - bumper cars. Molly loved this too, but Leah did not and cried the whole time riding around with me. This left her not wanting to participate for a bit, but thankfully she joined back in after lunch.

We took a ride on the monorail, of course. Molly still likes peering out the window, just like she did 3 years ago.

The Frog Hopper, which lifts you up then drops you a bit, was loads of fun for all.

This year they've opened a full-service restaurant called Merlin's. It was great. Not much more expensive than the cafeteria and vendor options around the park, but so much nicer menu and service. Highly recommended. And the portions were huge. Here's Simon chowing down on his children's hamburger.

I think Molly enjoyed every ride she went on except this one. This picture was taken before the shuttle got fully going. Once it did, she got very queasy. Possibly not the best choice of ride immediately after a big lunch of fried chicken fingers and fried tater tots.

One nice things about our visit was the lack of lines. Only a couple of rides had really long lines. Many of them looked more like this.

The Wonder Whip is a simple little ride that pulls the kids along then whips them quickly around the end, but the kids loved it.

There were a few rides that Leah could not ride, and a few that she chose not to ride. While resting as others rode the Turtle Whirl, but she proclaimed herself the "Princess of the rock."

This ride was definitely not for me. If you don't like spinning around, avoid the Turtle Whirl. For the rest of them, it was a lot of fun.

Leah finally snapped out her funk when she got to do the thing she'd been asking for all day - ride the pony. They even gave her a fun miniature one.

The girl's love the Crazy Plane, which goes in a circle and gets pretty high, as well. Molly exclaimed shortly after the ride got underway "This is so much fun! Mommy would not like this." She knows her Mom well.

This ride, called Kite Flight, has you lie on your belly and fly through the air as if you were in a hang glider. We decided it was more like flying like a superhero, so instead referred to it as the Superman ride. And yes, that's Leah going on this one. It shocked me that she wanted to, but she did and she loved it. One of her favorites of the day.

The Fun Slide was requested multiple times during the day. It was the perfect ride for the younger kids, while the older kids did a bigger ride. It may have gotten a bit competitive here, as Zach and Matilda have pulled ahead of Leah and me.

Before heading out, we did the Joust roller coaster one more time. This time, I rode with Leah and Chad rode with Molly. Here's a shot of her as we zoomed around. I think she's enjoying it!

Chad and I were so proud of how well the girls did. They rode some rides that I wouldn't even tackle. On our drive up, Molly asked if Leah got to skip her nap. When the response was yes, Molly turned to Leah and proclaimed, "Ooo, it's your lucky day!" It turned out to be a lucky day for us all. We had a blast. You can see more pictures from our day on Flickr.

Molly had many activities this summer, including her first time taking tennis lessons. We’ve played a few times just in the family before, but this was her first time taking proper lessons. There were one or two rough weeks, but she ended up having a great time and doing great. Here’s a small taste of her mad tennis skills.

Ten years ago, we became Mr. and Mrs. Charles Sellers. It's been a wonderful decade and we hope for many decades more!

We already took our big tenth anniversary trip, but last night we had a nice date night to celebrate. Thanks to Aunt Caroline for playing with girls while we were out.

It was a perfect evening to wear my new "fancy" dress, as the girls deemed it. After many years of sewing for Molly and Leah (and their friends!), I finally sewed a dress for myself. I felt like a real seamstress too. I first made a muslin dress to test the fit of the pattern, then made adjustments before moving on to the real fabric.

Molly and Leah went to a pool party on Saturday. I have been encouraging Leah to swim on her own ever since she did it with G'Mom. We're not sure what motivated her, but she finally did it! She was such a happy little swimmer.

She was so excited to show Daddy!

Leah and Matilda had a great time swimming together.

Leah is still working on kicking her legs to get her moving. Several times she got stuck because her little legs just weren't moving fast enough to combat the waves from other swimmers.

Even Keira, who's not a big swimmer, couldn't resist the fun of playing with Molly in the pool.

When it was time for cake, Molly was quick to take the seat next to one of the birthday girls. She did not hesitate to dig in to the cake either!

Nice smile, Leah, but your teeth look like you don't brush them.

Leah took the seat next to the other birthday girl. I guess our two girls think alike.

Appropriate for a pool party, I made the birthday girls swim cover-ups.

After the party, we actually joined the birthday girls for dinner as well, followed by the opening of presents. Rachel had to put her cover-up on right away, despite not having on her swimsuit anymore. I think she liked it!

The girls had a fun week with friends at Vacation Bible School. At the end of a fun and exhausting week they know that no matter what, trust God!

I taught Molly's class again, and we had a fun time learning, singing and dancing together. The singing and dancing extended into Molly's quiet time, which during VBS week was not so quiet! She sang this song over and over for almost 30 minutes one afternoon.

Leah got to experience part of VBS even while in the nursery. Several days she left the church declaring "That was a great day!" Leah had her own favorite song too. I recorded this one night sitting outside her door.

Did you know that July was National Blueberry month? In honor of that, the girls, some friends and I headed up to Larriland Farm to pick blueberries on Thursday. The hot weather didn't stop the kids from having a great time!

Leah was great at picking the blueberries, though not one actually made it into her bag.

The next stop was the red and purple raspberries. Clearly, Leah preferred the blueberries since there are actually raspberries left in her box! (Or it could have been that she had to share this box with Mommy!)

Looking for the perfect one!

I could have stayed all day picking fruit, but the kids had had enough. We now have blueberry ice cream to show for our efforts!

We decided to take the girls to see fireworks on the 4th of July for the first time. It meant staying up way past bedtime (which is normally not something we do in our house), but we threw caution to the wind and headed out. We joined Simon, Matilda, Keira, and Maya (as well as their parents) at UMBC to see the Catonsville fireworks.

We brought blankets, chairs, and snacks for pre-show fun on the UMBC field. This picture was taken before the sprinklers on the field came on and sent people running for cover. Thankfully, we were near the edge of the sprinkler range, so only got a little wet and only had to scoot a few yards to reach dry land.

Before the fireworks started, many of the others around us set off their own small fireworks. The kids thought this was great. They cheered and screamed for each one, and then immediately chanted for another when it was done.

Once it got dark enough, Stacie broke out glow wands and bracelets which were a huge hit, of course.

Here's Molly with a glow necklace, a glow bracelet, and a glow wand in her hair.

The fireworks were perfect. Close enough to see well without being so close as to scare the kids.

We'll definitely make this a tradition. The girls had a great time, and did remarkably well considering the very late evening.

Aunt Caroline turned 21. While we gave her cooking related gifts, Aunt EA gave her something more specific to this particular milestone. That's 71 airplane bottles of assorted alcohol. She said the idea was to give Caroline a variety of things to try to figure out what she likes.

The party was not just for Aunt Caroline, but for Grams and Pop as well. Grams was immediately excited to get these cupcake stands, though it took a bit of explaining before she appreciated the solid state drive we gave her as well.

We celebrated Pop's birthday as well. This celebration took place at our house instead of Chad’s parents, as their power had been out for two days due to the derecho that knocked out power to over 1 million people in the Washington area.

The birthday peeps and Pop's two helpers blow out the candles.

The icing from the cupcakes seemed to be specially formulated to stain lips.

As I mentioned in this post, Chad and I visited Bahama Hand Prints while in Nassau. I decided to purchase three yards of "Dancing Hibiscus" cotton-poplin fabric.

I came home and immediately started searching for a dress pattern to use. Being inspired by the dresses I saw in the boutique, I bought the Lillian dress by Children's Corner. It had the same a-line shape with little bows at the side seams.

If you look closely, you can see the extra detail of the covered buttons down the back. Chad mentioned that this added more character than the boutique dresses. I love when he appreciates my craftsmanship!

Shortly after getting married, Chad and I decided that we would try to take a trip for our anniversary instead of giving gifts. We always pick up an ornament as a keepsake. So, in addition to the dresses, I made a Christmas ornament for us. I used this tutorial for the fabric ornament.

The dresses and ornament took less yardage than I thought and after I finished them, Chad looked at my sewing table and said, "It doesn't even look liked you've used any!" My response, "Believe me, I will use every inch of this fabric!"

So, to thank my parents for coming to stay with the girls, I made them a few gifts too. For my mom, I made a Multipocket Tote from this Martha Stewart book. Mom always has lots of things in tow, so a tote with multiple pockets is perfect for her.

For my dad, I made a tie with this Puking Pastilles tutorial. I've never hand-sewn that much before, and ow, my fingers were about to fall off! I made Chad try it on to make sure it actually fit before gifting it. When Dad received it, he said it certainly would be a conversation starter!

My last project was to make the girls Oliver + S bucket hats. They love them and walk around calling them their "Bahama hats."

The hats are reversible, so I added a pop of color using Moda's Hoopla Cherries in Yellow. The girls insisted on showing everyone who came over (or Skyped with them) this weekend.

I still have roughly a fat quarter of fabric left, but no current projects lined up. But don't worry, I'm still brainstorming on how to use up every last scrap!

As Chad mentioned, the girls had their first ballet recital this weekend. Here's Leah and her class of little ducks looking incredibly cute at rehearsal.

Leah's definitely got the moves.

Here's Molly's class rehearsing their dance to "If You Believe" from "The Whiz."

On recital night, the stage looked the same, but the audience was a lot bigger. Leah's on the lookout to find all of her fans in the sea of faces. In fact, she wandered off toward the front of the stage at one point during the performance looking through the audience to find her family. You never know what will happen when you put a 2 year old on stage, but Leah did great.

Molly, with her dance partner. It's important to curtsy and bow before beginning the dance.

So graceful.

Molly loved every minute of dancing.

Did I mention that the girls had some fans?