The Ray Family: Lauren Turns 5!!

Oh, my beautiful Lauren Michelle. I can't believe it's been 5 whole years since I first laid eyes on you. You were so beautiful from the very start. I was instantly in love. I have been ever since. You have made all my dreams come true just by being you. You are smart, sassy, whitty, beautiful. You are an amazing big sister and little sister and love, love, love your mom and dad. Some of your favorite things to do are cook, color, draw, play with friends, put on makeup, and change your earrings. You love to boss around your little brother and be a bother to your big sister. Yet, in the end, you are perfect for our family and we couldn't have asked for a better Lauren. We have been so blessed with you over the last 5 years and can't wait to see what the next year has in store for you. You are an individual through and through. You don't like big crowds of people and are just content to stay at home and away from the chaos. You can be shy when you are around people that you don't know, but don't let that fool anyone. You are one of the loudest little girls we have ever met! Preschool has done amazing things for you this year, as you have learned to come out of your shell and become more and more independent. You take your bear bear everywhere you go. Hopefully we will make it to Kindergarten next year without her! Thank you for being my daughter. I love you through and through. Love, Mom

Lauren a few hours old

Meeting big sister Madeline for the very first time

Getting ready for school with her cupcakes (she celebrated at school the day before her actual birthday)

Don't they look yummy. She loved them!

Madeline, daddy and I got up early to make Lauren a special birthday breakfast. We had crepes with powdered sugar, fresh strawberries with sugar on top, bacon and chocolate milk. When we took her the tray of food, she told me she wasn't hungry. *sigh*

all she wanted to do was open her presents. So we told her she could open a couple of them before daddy went to work that day.

The rest had to wait until he got home from class late the night.

How mean is that?

The only bag I could find to fit this one particular present was the bag filled with other bags.

So I put all the other bags on top of the present to cover it up.

Here is Lauren tossing the bags and tissue paper out one by one to get to the bottom of the bag.

YAY! A carseat for her baby so Lauren can take her in the car and make sure baby stays safe.

next was the baby set of a pack n play, a stroller, a bouncy seat, a floor toy and a diaper bag. she was tickled.

Lauren with all her loot!

The reason she has this picture, is because as we were getting ready for the day, she was pretty upset she couldn't open all her presents.

She had requested to go to McDonalds for her birthday lunch, so I called Matt, and told him to meet us there.

We took Madeline out of school for a couple of hours so she could be part of the fun and we took her presents to McD's to celebrate.

Lauren was in heaven.

She was able to open her presents and still be with her family.

After Madeline got home from school, I took the kids to BOUNCE! per request from Lauren.

I don't have any pics from McD's or BOUNCE, but we still had a great time!
Dad ended up getting out of class early, so he came home and we had a spaghetti dinner.

After dinner, we frosted the cake and sang happy birthday to our sweet Lauren.

Blowing out her #5 candle

Lauren did not get a birthday party this year because I do them every other year on the "even" birthdays.

On the odd birthdays, the kids get to choose one friend to go do an activity of their choice.

Lauren chose her best friend next door, Halle to go get their toe nails painted.

We have a favorite place we usually go to, but they were booked up for a few hours, so we tried another place.

That place wanted to charge me $15/ KID to paint nails. Umm. No thanks.

So we ended up at a different place in which, the girls had to choose between their toes or their nails, because it was too expensive to do both.
They all chose toes.

Here is Lauren having her toes pampered.