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Lauren’s room is coming together nicely…but it required Lauren and I to do quite a bit of shopping over the weekend…her new favorite thing to do yesterday was to say “Hobby Lobby” over and over in a sing song voice:) Updated pics of the big girl room should be up in the gallery later this week…so far we have put up her bow holder, a picture, and some flower hooks. Still have flower shadow boxes, shelves, wooden glittery flowers, a mirror, and a magazine rack to put up. Lauren tells us at the very least once a day, “I love my gig girl room/bed”. She napped for the first time on her “gig” girl bed this weekend and did awesome…3ish hour naps!

Now for a cute story…

Lauren LOVES going to Pottery Barn Kids…yes, she has half the kitchen stuff they sell…but apparently the other half is even more fun. We were there for an hour on Monday night and I had to drag her out of there….then another hour on Saturday. When we first got there, she went straight for the kitchen stuff and I went to the register to make some returns. She comes up to me and says really quiet, “mommy”…and I bent down and said “yes, sweetie”..and she said “I feel kinda shy”. It was adorable. I told her it’s ok, that I feel shy sometimes too…but to just go up to the little girl and tell her that her name is Lauren and that she’d like to play. She said “ok” and went running off and she must have said something bc her and the other kids played really well the whole time we were there:).

We are going to Destin with my parents in a few weeks and I’m not sure Lauren really “gets” what we’re doing…but Dora goes to the beach…so she knows that there is a place with sand and water. She knows we’re going on an airplane again and who will be there. She told the bagger at the grocery store yesterday all about it, unsolicited…I’m going to the beach. The bagger asked when and she said in 3 days…close, it was 3 weeks:). Then she said she’s going with grammy, papa, mommy, daddy, and “wanan” (aka - Lauren). She totally had it right! We asked her last night what we’re going to do at the beach and she said “I don’t know?” So we said play in the sand, build sand castles, play in the water, look for fishies, cover daddy in sand, etc…and each thing was met with a squeal more ear piercing than the last! She’s on overload right now with Ethan’s party in a few weeks, the beach, and then of course talking about her birthday constantly. I think after her birthday, we’re going to talk about Santa for 3 months! She’s already started asking about Christmas trees!

Lauren is 2 months shy of 3 years old and she has still been sleeping in her crib. She loves her crib and has never tried to climb out and has always been such a great sleeper that we didn’t want to mess anything up! We planned on moving her to a “gig girl bed” as Lauren would say, around her 3rd birthday. That was until last week. Out of the blue, she started telling us she wanted a big girl bed and seemed so sad about it. Our weekend wasn’t too jammed full, so we decided to go ahead and do it. My mom and I had already decided on the theme (yellow and pink flowers) and mom has bought all the fabric for her full size quilt and started on it. So, I matched the fabric and painted the room yellow (Lauren’s favorite color in the entire world…ever since she was the flower girl in Tiffany and Brian’s wedding and carried/scattered/dumped yellow flowers) with a pink stripe around the top. Worked on it Sunday, Monday before and after work, and finished Tuesday morning. When Billy got Lauren up (she’d been sleeping temporarily in her crib in the guest room), she was still sleepy when we showed her the room yellow for the first time and she didn’t say anything. But after she went potty and had woken up, she came running down to her room where I was doing touch-ups and said “mommy, I LOVE my room!!” Ahhhh.

Billy converted her crib out to a full size bed before we got home on Tuesday and the big reveal to Lauren was just awesome. She was squeeling at the top of her lungs and was so, so excited! As soon as she went in the room, she started jumping on the bed and flopping herself down, doing belly flops. I was nervous about bedtime, but it went as usual…she gave me a hug and kiss and said good night, Billy took her upstairs, tucked her in, hug/kiss/I love you’s and he closed the door. We heard her reading to her animals/babies for about 5 mins and then she was asleep! We finally had to wake her up at 7:45 this morning and tonight went just as smoothly! That kid is just too easy!

Here’s a few pics, there are more in the gallery! The room is painted and the furniture is in place, but we haven’t hung the curtains or put anything on the walls or done any decorating yet…and mom is working on the quilt.

This is right after we told her she could go see her room but made her wait to get the video camera set-up…she was screaming and saying “my gig girl bed” over and over!

the new room!

Lauren in motion!

and sound alseep her first night:)

It’s been awhile, can you believe it’s only 2.5 months until our little girl turns 3? I have an update almost ready to go, but in the meantime, here’s a glimpse into Lauren’s mind lately.

Yesterday we went to the gym to do the Basic Training class we do every Sunday morning and Lauren goes to the kids gym/daycare. When we pick her up, she comes out carrying a hat that someone made for her and in yellow glitter (of course, her favorite color), it says “Birthday Girl”. I look at Billy and say, omg - I think she convinced them it is her birthday. All the other parents from our class were also picking up their kids and several of the kids said to their parents “it’s her birthday today!” and pointed at Lauren. omg. On the way out, we told her she couldn’t tell people it was her birthday if it wasn’t, and she got really sad. I told her it was ok, but that is called lying and not to do it again.

The girl is OBSESSED with birthday’s…every single day of my life I hear “when is my birthday?” “whose birthday is next?” and this has been a daily dialog since February, when her birthday was 7 months away. Now, she’s all about planning her birthday party…which she tells me is a flower garden theme (suggested by me), who she wants to invite (which includes a large list of kids from daycare that we are not planning to invite), what kind of food we will have, what her cake will look like, what kind of candy she wants, etc. Oh - and she’s nice enough to tell me that I’m invited…thanks kid, since I’ll be doing all the work:).

Then tonight, Lauren and I are on a walk on her tricycle and ran into our next door neighbors who were also on a walk, we stop to chit chat and they say hi to Lauren and how big she’s gotten, etc and she looks at them and says “hi, it’s my birthday today”. child!!! I said omg - Lauren, no it’s not, it’s in 2.5 months! Our neighbor said, I thought it was a little early!

How do I convince her to stop telling people it’s her birthday?