Alice's Baptism & First Birthday Celebration

We are not a particularly religious family.  There was a bit of arm twisting involved in getting George on board with baptizing the girls, and a little bit more involved in getting him to ask his cousin Mike to be Alice's godfather (just because he didn't want to inconvenience him).

Alice with her Godmother (Genna) & Godfather (Mike)

Our family at Mission Santa Clara before Alice's Baptism

So ready to be welcomed into the family!

Despite our not being particularly religious - I know that all of us felt that Alice's baptism was an incredibly joyous occasion.  We had it in the Chapel of St. Francis in Mission Santa Clara, the same beautiful space that Violet was baptized in on her first birthday.  Father Michael Zampelli did the service - which was full of his eloquence and enthusiasm and rich speaking voice.

Clapping right after being baptised in holy water!

This time we had lots of members of George's family from Indiana present - his aunt and uncle Delly and Pat, his cousins Mike and Sue, and their sweet kids Jennifer, Chris and Kelly.  Also Papa David, Hetty and of course Mimi were here.  I had my parents, Genna and Kaz, Aunt Jamie and Aunt Carmen, Uncle Bill and my cousin Jeanette plus a few of my closest friends from my department.

After the baptism we went back to our house for Alice's first birthday party! 

 Because of everything going on with finding Violet a new school, and because my mom is genuinely "the hostess with the mostess," I had her take over communicating with the caterers.  Boy was that good choice!  After our experience throwing that blowout party for Violet, George and I swore we would never host another event where our six closest family members and us were running around working the whole time.  (At Violet's 1st birthday party we had tables and chairs and linens delivered but had to set them up, and had to prepare and arrange food everyone brought, David and Uncle Bill barbecued the entire time and Aunt Jamie and Aunt Lala both worked cleaning and setting up before and after the party!  It was crazy).  For Alice's party we hired a full service caterer who set up the tables and chairs, umbrellas and whole spread, made amazing passed appetizers and incredible yummy finger sandwiches. People brought alcohol and there was delicious homemade lemonade.  We all sat and talked and enjoyed!  We didn't even have to clean up.  Amazing!  A few favorite moments:

Alice's first taste of cake!  (Daddy picked out red velvet from Hannah's!)

Happy Birthday to Alice!!!

"Lemme show you how it's done, baby Alice!"

Alice's first little friend Finley wants some of the yummy cake!