Happy Birthday Lauren!

Today is Lauren Claire's 2nd birthday. It's very hard to believe just two short years ago we went to the hospital to be blessed with such a wonderful little girl. She is growing up to be daddy's little angel (and sometimes devil).

To start the day, we took Lauren to portrait innovations for her 2 year pictures. Little did we know, she was in no mood to take pictures. After lots of coaxing and a couple packs of smarties (for her and Brayton who actually wanted to have his picture taken today) we got enough decent shots to make the trip worthwhile. The first picture is one of them from this mornings adventure.

After a quick trip to Jordan Creek to play at the park, we came home and ate lunch and got ready for naps. While the kids were napping, Colette baked the duck cake that Lauren had chose as her birthday cake. It actually turned out really well, it looked like a duck coming out of the cake pan, and once Colette got done frosting it really looked like a professionally decorated cake. Good Job Colette!

Lauren was really excited for her cake (and so was Brayton). While the kids were napping, Grandma and Pappa Anderson arrived, and an hour or so later so did Uncle Matt and Aunt Audra. After waking up, I asked Lauren what she wanted for dinner, of course the answer was PIZZA! So we played outside a bit, Colette went and picked up pizza from Nick & Willies and we had a pizza picnic outside. Once the pizza was gone, the kids opened up gifts from Matt and Audra and Colette and I. Brayton was trying to open them himself, I literally had to restrain him. Lauren got lots of fun new toys for her birthday. Matt and Audra brought a shovel, rake, and watering bucket for the sandbox and garden. We combined all the money from Grandpa Gordon and Grandma Cindy, Ryan & Mikhael, Grandma & Grandpa Hansen, and Colette and I to buy Lauren a new play house outside. The kids both had a ball playing in it this afternoon. After pizza and playing we had birthday cake and by 8pm they were both about cashed out.

The first film clip isn't actually from today, but from the other day when Lauren decided she didn't want to eat dinner at the kitchen table. She went into the foyer and proceeded to push the kids table and both little chairs into the kitchen to eat. I turned on the camera and only got a second of her moving the whole table, but the funniest part of the whole video is when I asked Lauren if I could help her, she abruptly replied "NO!" and that has been the new thing lately. She really is learning to speak her mind, with authority.

A few nights ago, I was trying to get Lauren to come to me to rock before putting her in bed. Colette and Brayton were already in Brayton's room and getting ready for bed. Lauren was milling about in the hallway as I was trying to pursuade her to come into her room so we could read books and rock before going to bed. She obviously didn't want anything to do with this, so she kept wandering the hallway stopping to look in the doorway at me. After having enough of this I got a little more stern with my request to her to come in or she was going to begin losing her books (for not obeying daddy). I said, "Lauren, come in here so we can read books and get ready for bed." She walked about four steps into the room, stopped, put her hands on her hips and shouted "WHY!". My oh my, I thought, she's not even two and already we're getting this. She said it in the same tone she said "NO!" in the video clip. It's quite funny really (the way she interjects), but I didn't show my hand to let her know inside I was really laughing.