when we opened our advent calendar for december 17th, we found a slip of paper telling us that this was the day to ride the walkersville southern railroad’s santa train! hooray! we missed the train last year, and couldn’t wait to see the big guy again this year…

we had a nice, long scenic ride before santa came and sat down next to us!

when the big guy finally arrived, the kids were pretty shy. after some prompting, jackson was able to tell him a few things from his list. and give him a hug. phoebe? none of the above.

hooray for the walkersville southern! we’ll be back for another excursion soon!!

shortly after arriving home from our whirlwind tour of eastern pennsylvania, our family’s portable hard drive took a turn for the worse and we thought all (meaning our last 6 years’ worth of personal images and videos) was lost. after a few friends tried to help out, we turned to some pros. and voila! we got everything back, including all our videos! yay!

so, here it is, our long overdue post on our fun times in doylestown during the holidays!

presents, presents, cute baby girls and snow!

we enjoyed ourselves for almost a whole week in d-town, meeting our newest niece, ginger miriam, having a date night with matt and naomi (way too much fun, needs to be done more often) and just plain hanging out with grandma and grandpa. along the way we took a few pics, but for the most part we just enjoyed everyone’s company. looking forward to a planned trip out west to see more of the idaho spences soon!

look what santa brought jackson… a big kid bike! super cool, dude!

the girls and their aprons from jan.

it’s the crazy hat family!

got your hands full there, matt!

the girls loved taking baths together! lots of splashing all around!

jackson thought the girls were wacky!

naomi trying to read the girls a story, but there was just too much squirming!

ginger is a master of the serious stare. but get her started on laughing or talking and watch out! she’s a riot!

she’s not a fan of the hugs, phoebe.

phoebe and daddy had fun in the snow…

…and big brother jackson loved it, too!

while visiting doylestown this week,  dave, phoebe and jackson took a little trip to visit with grandma’s aunt meb and her family! we had a blast with nancy, bob, kate, mark, and the kids! and of course great aunt meb, who is dave’s late grandfather, charles babcock’s little sister. she is such a fun lady and we love visiting with her whenever we get the chance.

aunt meb checks out little phoebe kate’s technique on eating cookies.

phoebe was all smiles the whole night, except when daddy tried to get her to eat her dinner.

the kids were busy, busy, busy all night long. of course, everyone had to initially get over their shyness!

the whole group! we had a blast, thanks again!

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 brought together many of jackson’s biggest loves — train rides, the circus, animals, bright colors, and his best friends — to celebrate his 4th birthday. the centerpiece of the party was a colorful cupcake tower, featuring the birthday boy on top, clowns, and of course, lots of sprinkles! (props go out to martha stewart’s cupcakes book for the yummy recipes!)

but we’re getting ahead of ourselves… we didn’t eat the cupcakes until the very end of the party!

we started festivities at the walkersville southern railroad.

jackson got to explore the engine, and then, once we were all aboard the birthday caboose …

the real fun began!

jackson was joined by his buddies jillian, aidan, lucas, garrett, collin, cayman, and zach, as well as cousins sarah and josh. and of course, little sister phoebe, whose birthday is just a few weeks away!

the kids got crafty with some markers, decorating wooden trains or stars…

games included an elephant ring toss and “stick the nose on the clown,” during which all the kids figured out how to cheat by peeking through the bottom of the admittedly cheap paper “blindfold”!!

circus-theme tattoos included elephants, seals, lions, clowns, or the ringmaster!

guests snacked on popcorn, hot dogs, twizzlers, juice boxes, and lemonade!

aunt lynnie got caught up in all the fun!

the 90-minute ride went by really fast. the views were beautiful, and the trees provided lots of cool shade from the hot sun.

some of the best views came from the upper level seats on the caboose!

the kids spent most of the trip hanging out up there together, climbing up and down the slightly precarious ladders!

molly and dave also got in on the fun!

once our ride was over, we checked out the model trains next door, then headed to casa spence for more partying!

there’s those delish cupcakes again!

pool time!

those monocacy valley montessori kids just can’t get enough of mulch!

jackson’s always a bit timid when it comes time to sing the happy birthday song. we had to literally pull him out from under the table to blow out the candles!

phoebe had such a great time at her brother’s party, she said she’s really looking forward to her first on august 1st!

(special thanks go out to our “second photographer” tom fedor for several of the shots above!)

wonderful weather and a no-wedding saturday added up to lots of fun for the spence fam this weekend! on saturday, we hosted another yard sale on our driveway. we made a few bucks, but more importantly, got rid of a lot of stuff that’s been cluttering our garage! dave spent the morning organizing and now we can move pretty freely in there, which is a big relief! jackson was a bit confused about the whole process and even got a little upset when some people were “taking our stuff,” but he got over it!

also on saturday, we attended sts. peter & paul orthodox church greek festival for some delicious food. jackson’s favorite was “greek quesadillas,” also known as tiropita, or feta cheese wrapped in phyllo dough. basically, it’s spanikopita without the spinach!

jackson also had a few bites of molly’s gyro. (the guy above made the gyros for us — he was super. they were stuffed to the brim! yum!) the “sour cream sauce,” also known as tzatziki, won jackson over with that dish! he and phoebe are also huge fans of the homemade rice pudding. jackson would’ve eaten the entire container if we let him!

on sunday, we all ventured out to ellicott city. what a great, neat little town! dave met a couple there to do an engagement shoot, and molly, jackson, and phoebe spent a few hours exploring “old town.”

first stop was the b&o railroad museum, the birthplace of american railroading! there, the kids enjoyed exploring a caboose.

the train museum was a lot of fun. a few minutes after this picture was a taken, a “real” train drove right past us! jackson loved watching it, covering his ears when it got too loud! we also spent some time learning about how a telegraph works. jackson tried to tap out some letters and said he was “sending a mesh-age to america!”

after the museum, we did a little shopping, found lots of bargains, and lost phoebe’s sunhat! oh well.

finally, we met up with dave as he got done with his lovely couple. (see his favorite shots soon at spence photo’s blog!) dave and jackson got a quick lesson in handspun yarn (below) just before we got back into the car. totally fun weekend.