Gigi started her new year of preschool this month!

We love Gigi’s school and this year it was made even better because one of Gigi’s best friends, “Sofia Our Neighbor” (who we used to live next door to) started attending as well.

We went to an open house where Gigi got to check out her new room and then she started the next day with her teachers Ms. Dee and Ms. Bree.

The new kitchen is well-stocked!

Class pets: millipedes!

Best buddies.

“Signing in.”

Our Funny-Faced Four-Year Old!!

Going back to June for a minute… Gigi finished up her first year of preschool the week after Hallee was born.

Let’s flashback to her first day of school to see how much she’s grown:

Okay, back to the end of the year…

with Ms. Molly

with Ms. Bree

We absolutely love Gigi’s preschool and look forward to next year which starts later this week. She adores Ms. Molly, who started out as her teacher but partway through the year was promoted to director of the preschool. Gigi loves visiting Ms. Molly in the office every morning when I drop her off.

On the last day of school we went out for a special treat: Fro-Yo!!

She made some sweet little friends at preschool and can’t wait to have one of her best little buddies, Sofia, join her at the school this coming year.

When the regular school year ended, she had a week off, then went back for a month of summer school. Summer session was great as there was lots of water-playing, art and science. She learned about the artist Jackson Pollock and explosions, and even made jam!

We had so much fun celebrating Gigi’s 4th over her birthday weekend. Now that she’s a little bit older, it’s fun to stretch out the celebrating and really go all out for her. Here’s the (slightly long) photo recap!

We started with a Friday morning playdate with her friends from preschool. She wanted to invite them to her other party but I didn’t want to have quite so many kids over at one time so we figured why not have two celebrations! It worked out great. We had a great time playing at the playground.

She had spent the night at Yaya and Papa’s the night before (which she loves to do) so Yaya brought her back in the morning and spent the day with us.

Gigi loves her school and has made some great friends there!

Then, that afternoon we had more friends over for an Ice Cream Party. You can read and see all about it over my other blog, but here are a few photos…

Gigi picked the flavors of ice cream and her toppings of choice were sprinkles and sour gummy worms. She had fun shopping with me for the goodies and also picked out some bunny crackers and fresh, local strawberries.

Saturday, May 7th was her actual birthday. She started the day with presents…

And loved getting her own camera! She is quite the photographer although I did already delete about 40 pictures of the couch and several of the toilet.

She then enjoyed some yummy pancakes at The Original Pancake House.

At home, she painted her candle for her school birthday celebration. The following Tuesday I came in to her class and told the story of her birthday and she got to blow out her candle. She did a great job decorating it with her favorite colors (pink, purple, teal and Dodger blue)!

It was a nice day, so we headed over to Yaya & Papa’s for some swimming…

{New bathing suit from Y & P!}

We then surprised Gigi with a special outing… Yaya and Papa babysat Brody while we took her for her first time real bowling (she was quite the Wii bowler already). Bowling is in Gigi’s blood!

{cutest bowling shoes ever!}

She loved it!

{new dress made by Yaya}

Sunday was Mother’s Day, and Granny and Granpa brought Gigi her birthday gift then: a set of real golf clubs!

She can’t wait to try them out with Daddy.

We love our Gigi Bri!! Happy Birthday, sweet girl!

{Photo album of Gigi’s 4th Birthday}

Gigi on stage at our CBS Bible Study.

Last year, she sat down and watched the others, so standing there quietly (no singing from Gigi) was a sort of improvement, I guess. She’s not that shy most of the time, but she’s not much of a stage performer yet!

Too be honest, she seemed a little bored with the whole thing– funny girl!

My first baby is so grown up!

It’s hard to believe that August 2007 was so long ago.

P.S. more preschool details to come!

Gigi loves listening to a CD (that our friends the Michels gave her) that has a lady singing all the classic nursery rhymes. The funny thing about her is that she tends to mix them up when she sings them herself.

Here’s my favorite:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a tuffet eating his Christmas pie.

heehee! Hope that made you smile today.

We had a little photo shoot in the front yard.
{Cute outfit from Debbie, and handmade flower clips from Stephanie.}

I’d love to hear which one is your favorite. Just click over to see them all (only 20), and leave a comment!

It’s so hard to believe that it was three years ago that our spunky, little Gianna Brianne came into the world.

We’ve been having some difficult days with Gigi lately, with and emphatic “NO!” being her word of choice often. She’s very strong and independent these days, although still has her moments of shyness where she clings to Mommy’s leg. Despite the difficulties we’ve been having with her though, she still is such a sweet girl at heart. She loves her friends and her family, even the ones who live far away, talking and asking about them often.

Everyone loves her raspy little voice and is amazed at her vocabulary. Her artistic side has really been bourgeoning lately– she loves to paint, and do anything crafty, whether it’s stickers, crayons, “sewing” with mommy.

Gigi still loves macaroni and cheese as well as “peanut jelly & butter” (nope, that’s not a typo), but she will really try anything and is such a good eater.

She’s such a good big sister and loves to sing to baby Bro-Bro– usually it’s “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” the ABCs, or “Twinkle, Twinkle,” or “Awesome God,” often with her guitar around her neck. She’s even getting close to carrying a tune these days.

This year we aimed to celebrate her all week– since we’ve really tried to simplify things at Christmas we want to go all out for our kids’ birthdays. She still doesn’t quite understand all the special treatment and the meaning of birthdays but I think she enjoyed the week, which included a beach day, a trip to the San Diego Botanical Garden, and lunch with Yaya at her fabric store.

Then on Friday, we had a little party at one of our favorite beaches, Fletcher Cove, in Solana Beach, near David’s work. We played on the grass and playground, did a little craft and had some yummy snacks (including the cupcakes she helped make). Then we went to dinner at Pizza Port with Yaya & Papa. She had a great time!

Saturday we got up and headed out to the Wild Animal Park with all of Gigi’s grandparents. It was another beautiful day, and we finished it off with a little BBQ.

Gigi got her first real bike from Granny and Granpa!

Here are all the photos from Gigi’s two birthday parties!

We love you, Gigi Bri!

The other day Gigi lost her first balloon up to the heavens. We had just got home from grocery shopping and she was showing off her “Dodger blue” balloon to two of our neighbor when the ribbon slipped right through her fingers and up into the air. (I usually tie it to her wrist– oops!)

I wish I had a picture of the super-sad, pouty lip that emerged as she immediately began to cry big alligator tears as she watched it float away. I tried to console her but she was so sad!

Thankfully, our neighbors came to the rescue! Our next-door neighbor Marc ran in the house and brought out a pink balloon that he proceeded to blow up for her (and assure her that it couldn’t go up in the sky). Then, our neighbor KC squatted down and pointed it out way up there, all excited-like, and told her how the little birdies were going to find it.

She seemed okay, although still a little sad. That night we went to some friends’ house for dinner and a backyard concert (which was awesome). When we got home, we saw something mysterious taped to our fence next to our front door. Sure enough, there was a big, blue Cinderella balloon taped up with a note.

Dear Gigi,
Today I found your blue balloon that flew away from your home. So here is a special balloon for you that I just thought you might like.
From the little bird that found your balloon

What a sweet surprise! Thanks KC for making Gigi’s day! And she didn’t even know how much Gigi has been into Cinderella lately (without having ever seen the movie of course).

Admittedly, I was not in any big rush to get a cell phone once everyone and their mom (and their 5-year old kids) starting getting them.  However, I am coming around to the textual revolution and I even have a phone with one of those tiny keyboards that makes me feel very uncoordinated when I have 27 typos per sentence.  I tend to stick to full sentences and words when I text and I am convinced that today’s children might as well be illiterate because of the terrible habits they are developing while texting.

Wow, didn’t mean to go there but sometimes that’s the way it goes, LOL.  All that being said, I recently began shouting “O-M-Gigi” in our house when something fabulous or wacky happens.  This usually solicits quite a chuckle from Gigi which makes me and Nicole laugh harder at my hilarious, original joke.  Well the other day Gigi managed to outwit me and responded with a hearty, “O-M-Daddy!”  Since then she has also added ,”O-M-Mommy” to her arsenal.  Each time she busts out with an O-M-whoever, she is very amused with herself. That’s all.  It was very funny and I thought you all should know how funny and witty Gigi is.