Christmas Eve / Christmas Day!

Christmas Eve was a very special night for Alice.  She got to stay up 3.5 hours past her bedtime to attend a family party and to meet the big man himself - Santa Claus!  Santa took a break from delivering gifts around the world to stop by and visit our family.  Alice was so excited and happy to meet him and sit on his lap that she didn't even cry!

Note how tired she was!:

When she opened her present, she was in love!  Rosie the Sock Monkey has quickly become one of her best friends.

After opening her present, she left the party early with Mommy and Daddy and went back to Grammie and Grampie's house to sleep soundly with sugarplums dancing in her head.  The next morning, she began to understand how much fun Christmas morning is!  Here are Grammie and Alice, equally excited!

In great Baptiste tradition, here we are waiting at the top of the stairs to run down and see if Santa made an appearance overnight:

He did!  Great-Gram and Alice celebrated with some jingle bells!

Throughout the day, it became evident that Skype was the theme of Christmas this year.  Here we all are, video-chatting with Auntie Bethany and Uncle CJ in California:

And at the end of the day, along with Auntie Chris and Auntie Jen, Alice played peek-a-boo over Skype with the Lopes' down in Florida:

Alice loved her "new car" from Bisavo ("Great Grandmother" in Portuguese) - she is already planning to teach Mommy to drive!

It was a wonderful Christmas - we are reminded how blessed we are to have such a great family and such a sweet, beautiful, happy daughter.  We hope you had a fun Christmas as well.  Much love from the three of us to all of you!

Here is a link to the rest of the photos from Christmas Eve Night and Christmas Day - Enjoy!

Modern Family

We are so lucky and thankful to live in a time with such advanced technology.  Since Alice is so young this year, we were not able to travel by air at all over the holidays.  However, when Christmas Eve morning rolled around, thanks to Skype, it was just like being in North Dakota!  Each house had two computers, so we even were able to video chat from multiple angles as we all exchanged Secret Santa gifts and presents for Alice and her cousin Miranda.

Here is a photo of Grandma Marcia, via computer monitor, attempting to answer the phone through her sofa - talk about modern technology! :)

Alice continued to enjoy her Christmas - happily surrounded by Mommy and Daddy, and able to see her family over the computer as well.

One of Alice's favorite gifts was this "telephone" from Grandma Marcia and Papa Pete.  Now she can learn about keeping in touch with her whole family all day long!

Here is a link to the rest of the photos from Alice's first "Skype Christmas"!

First Christmas!

Merry Christmas Eve Morning from the Petersons!

We got up bright and early and much to our surprise, Santa had visited last night!

We went through our stockings and could not believe all the generous gifts from Santa!

Alice had a great time and even got her own cell phone!

We already uploaded the first set of Christmas photos to the web album here.  And now we are just waiting for the Petersons in North Dakota to wake up so we can have Skype Christmas!

Snow, Alice... Alice, Snow!

This past weekend, our first big snow storm of the season came through the area.  A true Nor'easter that we enjoyed from the comfort of the house.  Once the storm had subsided, Alice could not wait to run outside to see what this snow was all about.

At first she was a little unsure about the fluffy, white stuff...

But we got some smiles in no time!

The camo-snow-bear!

A few bonus pictures are on the web album here.

Alice on the Polar Express

Today we took Alice on a magical journey on the Polar Express!  Our travels took us from a mystical place called Anderson station in Woburn all the way to the North Pole (aka North Station).  We were entertained along the way by the Wakefield High School band, choir and theater students.  We had a great time singing songs and enjoying the winter wonderland that is the North Pole.*

Alice especially enjoyed the little cookie crumbs that she got to taste!

The highlight of the trip was when Alice got to meet the big man himself, SANTA!

Alice also got a special gift that is now hanging on the Christmas Tree!

Alice had a great time with Grammie, Grampie, Uncle Dan, Great Grammie and her parents.  Her Christmas wish from Santa was for everyone to have a Merry Christmas!

More photos from the Polar Express are here. Enjoy!

** Please note, we don't actually have any snow here in Boston... not even at North Pole Station!

Giggling Alice

Alice has just started to really find her laugh.  Here is a video of her giggling as we play with Millie.