Here’s a glance at January’s 365Project Calendar (click photo to visit my page for daily details)… You can even subscribe to my photos if you want to make sure you don’t miss one!

As for the rest of the photos… we started up with swim lessons again at Murray Callan Swim School and Gigi is doing awesome. This month also included attending a bridal shower, 2 baby showers (one that I helped throw), a lot of rain (relatively speaking), a little puddle-jumping and big-wave watching, and the usual fun times with family and friends.

Here’s a slideshow or you can click over to flickr view them bigger with some captions.

We took a lot of photos, so I’ll just let them speak for themselves. If you’re in a reader/email, you may need to click over to view these slideshows.

December, Part 1: Encinitas Christmas Parade, our church’s Christmas Under the Stars, Bennett Family Christmas party, and other around-the-house and with-friends photos.

December, Part 2: Christmas Boat Parade in the San Diego Harbor, Walking the kitties with Sarah and Scott, our Community Group Christmas dinner (complete with gourmet french pastries), some homemade Christmas gifts, our visit with the Dears, and New Year’s Eve- a Zoo day with the Hollis fam and my parents’ annual bunko party.

Celebrating Christmas: Christmas Eve with the Pavones, Grandma, the Andersons, the Hollis fam and the Bennetts; Christmas morning with the Pavones plus the Eccles for dinner; and the day after Christmas.

I just read a cool post about doing a New Year’s Journal for your kids, and I love the idea. Since this blog is our family’s digital journal, I decided to do it here. Someday, I will print these out for Gigi and give them to her. I guess I’ll need to go back and add one for ‘08 and ‘07, too. Good thing she’s still young.

Gianna Brianne: 2009

Vitals

• Height: ~34 inches
• Weight: ~27 pounds

Places Visited {deep breath, this will be a long list!}

• Arizona (Spring Training) (March)
• Legoland, CA (March)
• Sacramento (Chase & Carly’s wedding) (March)
• Portland, OR (March/April)
• Bend, OR (April)
• Sebsastopol/Santa Rosa, CA (April)
• Camping in Carlsbad (April)
• Camping in Huntington Beach (April)
• Simi Valley, CA (Jordan & Jazmin’s wedding) (May)
• Ladoga, IN (the Leonards’ house) (May & June)
• Milwaukee, WI (May)
• Chicago, IL (May-June)
• Fair Oaks Farms, IN (June)
• Detroit, MI (June)
• Toronto, Canada (June)
• Niagara Falls (NY side) (June)
• Williamsport, Gettysburg, Philadelphia & Pittsburgh, PA (June)
• Washington, D.C (June)
• Alexandria, VA (June)
• New York & Poughkeepskie, NY (June)
• Cleveland & Cinncinatti, OH + a short drive to Kentuncky! (June)
• Camping in Carlsbad (November)
• + more baseball games at Petco Park, Dodger Stadium, and Angel stadium

Favorite Things

• Reading the Bible and “My Goodnight Book”
• Playing with friends
• Going to the beach or the playground
• “Swimming”
• Sydney and Lacy
• Cheering on sports teams
• color: Dodger Blue
• food: macaroni & cheese, “cuties” (oranges)

Things She’s Learned

• Numbers (she can count to 10)
• Colors (mostly, if you count her version of green being “it’s like philly ‘phanagit’ color“)
• A few Bible verses
• The letter A (recognition)
• Riding a scooter
• Pedaling a bike
• Singing the ABCs

Goals For 2010

• Potty Train
• Learn to swim
• Learn to recognize letters
• Learn more Bible verses
• Meet Manny

Other Special Memories:

• We started the adoption process, and Gigi can’t wait to get “our baby” as she says. She’s always asking questions about what “our baby” will be like.

In the last year, Gigi has matured a lot in her looks! Here’s a glance at how she has changed throughout the year.

Here’s to 2010!

Happy Birthday, Dad/Dan/Granpa!!

Here we are on Sunday after the shower my mom helped her friend Susie throw for Jenna (Susie’s future daughter-in-law). If you click the photo you’ll be taken over to my new project for the year: the 365 Project. A few friends and family members are also doing this with me. It’ll be a very fun way to document the year, one photo at a time!

This week we have been potty training!! It’s been going pretty well. She’s been basically diaper free during her awake times since Tuesday afternoon. We’ve been using diapers still at naptime, nighttime and when we went to Bible study. But otherwise she has done awesome all week, errands and all, with only a handful of accidents. Because of that, we’ve been washing hands a lot this week. When we wash hands with Gigi, we always sing the ABCs (to ensure long-enough washing, and to teach her letters). This was the first week she actually started singing them all by herself! Probably due to repetition!

The way I convinced her to sing for the camera was to ask her if she wanted to show her cousins how she could sing her ABCs for them. She loved that idea. Note that she’s not actually much of a singer (yet) but hopefully she’ll develop an ability to carry a tune a little later with more practice.

As a bonus, she was gracious enough to “read” her favorite book to you all as well.

Gigi Performs For Her Cousins from Nicole Bennett on Vimeo.

Coming soon: The Outtakes!

Thanks for your continued prayers. Now we wait.

Gigi: “Look, that’s like Granpa’s truck!”*

Me: “And we saw the real “Granpa’s truck” this weekend, too.”

Gigi: “And we saw the real Granny, too!”

*She has an uncanny ability to correctly identify cars as looking like someone she know’s car (correct color, too). Popular ones she recognizes are : “Yaya’s car” (white Highlander), “Auntie Rena’s car” (gray Pilot), “Papa’s car/truck” (white Expedition/Chevy truck), “Grandpa’s truck” (white Ford truck), “Unc A’s car” (maroon Malibu), “Our car” (white Sequoia).

The biggest event was the launch party for the company David works for, Elliptigo. It was a really fun party, complete with amazing food, beer and coffee, and test rides. My parents, David’s mom, and friends Rena & Risa all came to celebrate.

We also went out to a SDSU football game with our friends and TCU-almuni members, the McNaughtons. Gigi is buddies with their little girl and we have a lot of fun with them. David and Ryan are two peas in a pod when it comes to passion for sports. Now Gigi loves to cheer “Go Frogs!” while trying to make the little frog hand signal, and wave her purple and white pom-pom. Maybe we have a future TCU attendee on our hands?

We had a new family move into our neighborhood and now have 3 2-year olds on the block– Gigi loves her little neighbor friends. We also found out that one of our neighbors is the sister of a long-time family friend/firefighter. Small world!

Here’s a little slideshow of the month’s photos… (if in a reader/email, click over to blog to view)