Alice turns 8 Months Old! (and shows off her teeth!)

Alice turned 8 months old today.  How did this happen?  This year is flying by!  She is reaching new milestones every day, and we are having so much fun on this journey with her.  This month, she and Duckie finally made up.  (You might remember that beginning at 5 months or so, she cried lots when we brought out Duckie for her monthly photos!).  Today, she had lots of hugs and kisses for Duckie.  Also, we got a couple of great photos showing off her new bottom teeth.  Enjoy!

Here is a link to the rest of the photos from her 8 month birthday!  We got some really cute and funny ones this time! :)

Alice Loves Music!

From very early on, Alice has always enjoyed music very much.  Anyone who has visited our house knows that she is a big fan of the"Toddler Tunes" channel on our TV.  Also, you might remember that even when she was just a week old, there were clear indications that she LOVED the song "Jai Ho" from Slumdog Millionaire! :)  Now that her personality is becoming more animated, she dances whenever she hears a beat, and when Toddler Tunes is on, she points at the screen and bobs her head (only to the songs she likes - she is very discerning!).  Here are some recent photos of her enjoying music.

Listening to her iPod:

Playing the piano with Daddy:

Dancing to Toddler Tunes (and looking cute!):

Here are some recent music related photos - enjoy!

Alice's First Lantern Financial Holiday Party!

On January 10, we hosted the annual Lantern Financial holiday party at our house. Alice was her usual social self and enjoyed visiting with everyone very much. It was lots of fun to visit and catch up with several of our former interns. We all enjoyed so much good food and sweet desserts, it seemed that everyone rolled home that night!

Lisa is so proud of her whole crew and the success of the company over this past year.  Alice helped give the toast in celebration!  We all made predictions for ourselves and the company and put them together into a time capsule.  It will be fun to see how many of them come true when we open them in the future!

Leah knit a gorgeous blanket for Alice (and scarves for Lisa and Scott!) for Christmas!  Here she is presenting it to Alice.  Alice loves it and it is really helping to keep her nice and cozy as she sleeps at night.  Thanks so much Leah!  We love our gifts!

Here is a link to all of the photos from the party - thanks for coming everyone, and thanks for all that you have done to help Lantern succeed!  We wish you a happy and successful 2010!

Big Girl Crib!

Now that Alice is so close to crawling, rolling over and wiggling like crazy and sitting up with ease, we figured that it is about time to lower her crib down so that she won't fall out when she figures out how to pull herself up in it.  Here she is, enjoying the new vantage point!

Here is a link to these photos in our Picasa album.

Happy New Year 2010!

Happy New Year!  We had a wonderful New Year's Eve holiday, and so far, 2010 has been great.  Since Scott and Lisa had the week between Christmas and New Year's Day off from work, the three of us spent a couple of nights down in Marion, celebrating with Uncle Dan and Auntie Chris.  Here are some fun photos from the trip.  We hope you are having a fun 2010 so far as well!

Here is a link to all of the photos from our mini vacation. Thanks for inviting us, Uncle Dan and Auntie Chris - we had so much fun! Happy New Year, everyone!

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"!