our sweet phoebe has been with us for a full year, and to celebrate that milestone, molly made a cooler full of cupcakes and plenty of homemade icing, and we headed up to pennsylvania. all of her fellin-side cousins, aunts, uncles, and nana and pop pop, came to eagle rock for a cookout, swimming, and eating, of course! what a beautiful day – the weather was perfect, the food was yummy, and the company was awesome. phoebe had such a good time, especially once she finally got her hands on her special strawberry “smash cake” with strawberry icing!

we had two kinds of yummy martha stewart cupcakes — devil’s food (chocolate) and strawberry. some included plain white buttercream icing and others were topped with a strawberry buttercream, created with strawberry preserves from jill’s freezer! awesome.

but phoebe wasn’t the only one we celebrated that day. her godfather, colin, turned 16 on aug. 2, and so we all got to tease our favorite teenager by singing the happy birthday song to him, too! (how about those awesome cupcake toppers? another super-fun etsy find!)

in case you couldn’t tell, the “theme” for the party was ice cream! the kids’ favors were ice cream bowls, phoebe’s headband had a cone on it, and we all enjoyed some awesome homemade ice cream that jill brought along. afterward, phoebe tried out her pink howdy cow, which we found at our favorite toy shop, dancing bear in downtown frederick.

our little princess enjoyed all the attention!

big brother jackson couldn’t wait to show phoebe the present he had picked out for her. his love for his little sister just keeps growing, and it’s a joy to watch.

thanks to everyone who made phoebe’s 1st birthday so special. here’s to many, many more lovely birthday celebrations for her!

we were so lucky this year to have amazing, warm easter weather. usually, we’re all shivering and forced to wear winter clothes when we celebrate. but not this time! temperatures were in the 70s and 80s, so out came our bright, happy clothes! we joined molly’s whole family at the fitzgeralds’ house in eagle rock and at nana and pop pop’s house in conyngham for our celebrations. we had some wonderful food (you’ll see photos of molly’s homemade desserts — viscuits, or italian butter cookies, and 3-layer carrot cake) and some wonderful times hanging out with all the fellin cousins! thanks to aunt jill and aunt lynne for their efforts to put on another great egg hunt, and to aunt amy and pop pop for coming with us to the bowl arena for jackson’s first non-wii, real-life bowling game!