Lauren is 7!

I was joking around the day before Lauren's birthday that I thought she was really turning 6.  She didn't think it was funny, and honestly, I sort of thought it wasn't that funny because it seemed like it should be true!  Seven just didn't seem right :)  A few years ago a friend (Thanks, Sunshine!) of mine inspired me with her shirts she made for her kids' birthdays.  They are darling, and I had done a few for Brooke and Ashley, but had kind of forgotten about it, until Lauren said, "Do I get a shirt with a 7 on it?"  Um, yes, of course... and then let the last minute scrambling for plain t-shirt ensue! Also for Lauren's birthday, she has been really wanting a new bike - she has 2 bikes already, but both of the bikes were her sister's old cast-offs (and we got them used for the older girls!) and they have seen better days.  She was pretty darn excited to come down to this in the morning.

 

She chose Chick-Fil-A for her birthday lunch. Good times!

 

Lucky for her, her birthday was on a Friday so she could have her party on her actual birthday.  She had decided on her birthday theme when we were in Hawaii.  We had signed the kids up for a craft at the resort and they did leaf painting, so she really wanted to do that for her party.  The girls arrived and ran around the yard gathering their leaves and then the painting started.  They were all so very civilized!  I was a little worried that it was going to be crazy - we had already had to limit her birthday invitees to people in 1st or 2nd grade to keep the numbers down, and we still had 13 girls :)  

Anyway, they all did so great with the painting - no one got paint all over and they actually painted for a long time.  Then when they finished their bags, they helped us paint Lauren's birthday banner.  It turned out way better than when I try to do crafty-things!

 

 

In keeping with the theme Lauren also wanted a leaf cake.  Unfortunately, if you google "leaf cake" mostly what you are going to see are awesome wedding cakes with leaves, and a bunch of cakes made to look like a marijuana leaf.  Not helpful.  Robie actually made it home early for the party and he and Brooke helped me shape the cake - whew!  The fondant wasn't perfect, but I was in a hurry, so we just went with it. 

Since the girls were so into the painting, we almost ran out of time to do the "Pin the leaf on the tree" game, so when it came time Robie was trying to get everyone their leaves with their names on them at the same time.  Little girl attack!

 

I'll admit, Lauren is sometimes the most FRUSTRATING kid in the universe.  She still is an extremely picky eater and it affects our relationship every day!  One of these days I really hope she will snap out of it.  She is starting to get much better at her reading and is very proud of her math skills - she finds that a lot easier than the letters.  She loves pink and is so excited for when she is old enough to wear makeup (in our house that number is 12).  Sometimes she sneaks some lip gloss or glitter eye shadow on anyway :)  She is a better performer than her sisters and loves to put on dance shows  that actually use real dance moves!  Her nani (Robie's mom) takes her to ice skating lessons once a week, and she is doing ballet at the local Rec Center.  I love you, Lauren!