The Birthday Boy

The day started with homemade chocolate old fashioned doughnuts.

At work, David got cupcakes!

Then the kids and I surprised David with a Jamba at work.

I made David this set of “redeemable” gifts.

After work we met up with both sets of parents and my brother’s family at Joe’s Crab Shack in Oceanside for a fun dinner. We were so thankful for extended family spending his birthday with us!

Our waitress dolled David up…

And made him stand on the table while we sang to him (he’s a good sport).

Gigi, Papa & Micah.

Bro-Bro

hanging out

Here’s to David’s next 30+ years!

I love you, Mi Amor!

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!!

More news from June…

It took him over 14 months, but Brody finally decided to go for it. He started taking a few steps here and there in early June and then really took off on Father’s Day/Yaya’s birthday. Now our big boy is walking all over the place, confidently picking up toys and standing up without the help of furniture!

Brody Walking from Nicole Bennett on Vimeo.

At 16 months now, Bro-Bro is quite the talker. Here are some of his commonly used “words:”

ball (obsess-much?! he also uses ball for anything related: baseball on TV, bat, glove, balloon, etc)

da-da

ma-ma (sometimes refers to me, sometimes means “milk” or “more”)

day-day (baby)

bowl

Yaya

baba (Papa)

eat

Muh-mo (Elmo)

golf

dog

car

trash truck

washcloth

cracker

ga-ga (whatever he wants that you’re eating)

and how could I forget… “NO!” or “No-no!”

He still uses signs, too, now more enthusiastically than ever. He knows and uses more, please, all done, eat, and milk.

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!

Everyone loves Bro-Bro’s natural mohawk, including us, but the tuft on the top was getting a bit too long, so Mama decided it was time for a trim!

Yaya helped hold him still, while I trimmed.

Almost done…

Daddy captured this adorable gem of our handsome little man.

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}

We had a really fun time celebrating Brody’s birthday. Having a little backyard get together a week after we moved in to our new place helped us settle in quickly which we were happy to do with little ones wanting to get into every box. We are very thankful for all the moving help we had, and for the friends and fam that came out to celebrate.

We didn’t really mean to plan it on April 10th, but it worked out great as that is Brody’s Adoption Day, which made it doubly special for our little fam.

And thanks to Unc A, this mama got to enjoy the party and not have to take any photos (might as well leave it to a “professional,” I figure!). You can view the photos here, but here some favorites.

Then, this week we went in for his 1-year checkup. He’s doing super and here are his stats:

Height: 30.5 inches (71%)

Weight: 21 lbs, 12 oz (32%)

Head: 47.5 cm (98%!!)

He’s getting more comfortable on his feet but still not walking yet. Man, this pregnant mama (32 weeks!!) is ready to not have to carry him around all the time anymore. Come on, Bro, you can do it!!

Here are the rest of March’s photos.

I love this shot of David doing some major multi-tasking.

The most exciting thing in this photo album was Gigi’s preschool field trip to the Helen Woodward Animal Center. She loved having a birdie perch on her toes and seeing some other fun animals with her friends.

She really loves her teacher Ms. Molly (and especially loves getting to use Ms. Molly’s camera!). We just signed her up for a 4-week summer school session which should be a lot of fun and help keep somewhat of a routine over the summer when we have the new baby (!!).

Oh, and there were a couple of milestones this month…

Gigi learned to write her name (the word “green” here she traced, but “Gigi” she wrote by herself!)…

and Brody fell in love with cow’s milk. He fits in perfectly with the rest of our family of milk lovers. The first week he drank it, I think I had to go back to the store three times for milk as I was figuring out how much we would need to get through the week (although it’s not that uncommon that I go to TJ’s more than once a week!).

We’re so thankful to be celebrating our sweet little guy’s birthday!

We greeted him in his crib when he woke up this morning with a nice rendition of Happy Birthday, which he loved, since he loves singing and music.

Then we gave him a happy helping of his favorite breakfast– bananas, applesauce and a few cheerios… oh, and milk, the boy loves his cow’s milk!!

After our CBS Bible study, we headed to In-n-Out where he shared a birthday burger with his sister (he devoured it, along with some fries), and right now he’s treating himself to a nice birthday nap.

Still to come will be a trip to Target where Momma & Daddy will buy him his first dump truck or something manly like that, and then we will celebrate him some more this weekend.

It’s hard to believe we’ve had him as part of our family for almost a year (this Sunday marks the date we brought him home), and looking back, it’s clear to see that everything we went through before him was clearly part of the Lord’s plan of bringing him to our family to be a Bennett.

A big shout-out today to Brody’s sweet birthparents today, too. We are so thankful to not only have acquired a son but also a relationship with them thru the whole adoption process.

Our hearts are full!

{my super awesome brother made this sweet logo for Brody out of the 2011 MLB Opening Day logo. I love that Brody’s birthday coincides with the start of baseball season!}

This past month, Gigi had her first haircut!

I used to trim her bangs till she was about 18 months old, but then we started growing them out and we had never trimmed the back. I figured it was time since, when she sat down, her hair was starting to “brush the potty” as she said.

We got about 4-5 inches cut off, but it still looks long! Much healthier now, though, as you’ll see from the before and after.

Before

After

The best part for her, of course, was the lollipop she got while her hair was getting cut!

Yesterday, Brody turned 11 months!

I know I haven’t been very good about updating his milestones here, but here’s where he’s at right now.

• crawling everywhere
• pulling himself up to stand
• cruising the furniture
• even starting to climb!
• babbling like crazy, he’s quite a talker
• not a big fan of his morning nap these days
• absolutely loves banana (he eats and loves most food, but this is his favorite)
• getting some curls in the back to go with his mohawk
• signs “more” (when he feels like it), and is now learning “please” and “all done” next
• loves to dance!!

He is quite simply the happiest, most easy-going baby most of the time still. We love our little Bro-Bro and are so excited to celebrate his first birthday next month!

The little shorts/overalls he’s wearing above were David’s! So cute!