Caroline Ubels // May 2018 //

I REALLY love to celebrate.

I love to celebrate birthdays, weddings, you-just-lost-your-tooth, graduations, baptisms, everything. This love for celebrations came from my beautiful mother, I think.

Growing up, she would throw us these birthday parties. And they always had a theme. I distinctly remember as a teenager, she threw me a murder mystery party. The theme was Hollywood, and all of these “knock-off” actors and actresses were in attendance (I mean, not Brittany Spears, but Whitney Lears…you get the picture). My friend was really into fake nails at that point, but as we were 14 or 15, she had found a website and printed them off and used white glue to paste them to her nails. Oh my goodness, it was so much fun. Another year, she baked this FANTASTIC topsy turvey cake, all covered in fondant and flowers. It was spectacular.

All that to say, birthdays have a special place in my heart. So, when my dear mother’s birthday came around again, I knew that we’d have to celebrate. My sister that had just returned from Peru collaborated in preparing a delicious “Summer Lovin'” meal, complete with BBQ-ed steak, sausages and shrimp, a delicious fruit salad, these fantastic potatoes that Leslie made (I have NO idea what she did, but my gosh..) and so on.

Because spring had decided to show up JUST in time, I grabbed my camera, and asked mom to model for me. She was happy to (I think) and these are some of the results. It was so nice to be outside, celebrating Mom, and thoroughly loving every minute of the warm, mosquito-free outdoors!