Check out these adorable baby smiles!  I just can’t get enough!

I’m not a fan of taking all 5 kids in the rain which occurs frequently.

Isaac was so excited about her birthday that he set his alarm and woke up all his sisters at 6 AM (he foiled my plans to sleep in till 6:40).  I made poppy seed muffins for breakfast and added purple food coloring.Nicole’s birthday fell on a Sunday this year so we decided that one thing we really wanted to give her was a special dress to wear to church. Luckily she has a very talented aunt who offered to make one for her:I also made dinner rolls and added purple food coloring.  Here she is with a purple bear and a purple roll before church:After Church, we gave her presents to open at various intervals throughout the day so that she could have some time to enjoy her gifts before opening more.  She really liked the Aquadoodle.Her Grandma Bunny and Grandpa Bird sent her a purple package that included the purple hair accessories that Charlotte and Nicole wore to church, a purple shirt (pictured below), a purple jacket, a purple dress, a purple Care Bears movie, purple candy, and a book of Bible stories.We invited some of her favorite adults to stop by between church and dinner.  They each brought her thoughtful gifts. Sister Halverson, who Nicole loves to sit with during sacrament meeting, made her this great blanket:The first councilor in the primary (who moved up from Nursery with Nicole), Sister Welsh, gave her a purple bag of goldfish crackers, a purple bag of skittles, and a ladybug girl sticker book.  Her primary teacher, Sister Moon, gave her a bag of goldfish crackers, lots of stickers, a purple notebook, sparkly purple pencils, and a package of twist-up mini crayons.  Zach and I enjoyed visiting with them while she colored and used her stickers.  We have been really blessed to have great teachers and leaders in the primary watching out for our kids.Her Great-Grandma came over as we were eating dinner.  After dinner, we Skyped with her Grandma and Grandpa Cochran and her aunts:She got bird wings from Laresa (pictured above), a purple light saber from her dad (also pictured above) and a ballerina doll that attaches to her feet from her Cochran grandparents and aunts:The birthday song with candles:Purple cupcakes:And bedtime with her new purple bedding:Her Great Aunt Charlene and Great Uncle DeFord came over and brought her a puzzle and her Great Aunt Margret sent her the dress she’s wearing in the last few pictures.

Did you notice how many different purple outfits she wore over the course of the day?

Click here to see what I wrote about her when she turned 3. 

It’s always interesting to see how much my children change in a year.  Last year I wrote about her yelling everything she says.  This year she has started to learn about using a quieter voice, but it’s still hard sometimes to get her to lower her volume (especially at church).  She went through a phase of yelling Ila’s name that I’m glad to say ended a while ago (here’s something that I wrote about it).

She is still my little family ambassador.  She really likes people, especially adults, and is the first to give a hug to a new friend.  I’ve noticed that she is most comfortable with female adults and has started to develop strong bonds with several women in our ward.  We sit next to the Halversons at church and she really likes Sister Halverson.  When they sit down at the other end of the row, Nicole often scoots away from our family, towards theirs.  Zach and I sometimes jest with each other that she’s our little Halverson.  One Sunday she insisted on sitting on every Halverson lap (they have several adult children), although I noticed that she moved on more quickly from the boy’s laps than the girl’s laps.  I’ve also noticed Nicole smile really big when she sees Sister Welsh.

She still struggles with some of her language skills, but I am seeing improvement.  She still likes to repeat phrases, but probably not as much as last year.  She is starting to answer questions better, or at least be aware that a question requires an answer.  She seems to have some difficulty in comprehending language.  Sometimes It seems like she can only process part of a sentence.  There have been a few times recently when she has repeated only key words in a sentence and then responded with what she thought was the appropriate response.  Here are some examples:

“Nicole do you want a hot dog?”
“A hot dog!”
“Where’s your doll?”
“My doll!” (holds up doll)

She still calls herself “Me-cole,” but her sentence complexity has improved.  Sometimes she says things that are surprisingly clever or imaginative, other times she says things that seem to make no sense.

She often misinterprets the cat’s intentions.  A cat will enter the room and she’ll run away saying “Don’t eat me cat!”  Or a cat will walk in the general direction of something of hers and she’ll run towards the item, grab it and yell at the cat not to eat it.  Most of the time she yells at the cat, it’s about not eating something that the cat is not likely to try to eat .  Sometimes she seems genuinely afraid that the cat is going to try to eat her or something of hers.

She hasn’t been verbally replaying routines much anymore, but the other day she started one by saying “We get up and then go to the bus.”  I took her routine and expanded it with several more steps and she seemed to really enjoy that activity.  Whereas last year, her replay involved her repeating familiar instructions that were given to her, this time she listed the steps of a typical morning routine (or repeated steps that I listed).

She still loves looking at books, particularly thick ones and she loves to draw, particularly on electronics.

She has learned to dress and undress herself a little too well.  She changes her clothes several times a day.  This last week her favorite thing to wear has been a swimsuit and she’s spent large portions of each day wearing a swimsuit.  Sometimes she changes into a few different swimsuits during the day.  She has even started encouraging Ila to wear a swimsuit.  Yesterday she helped Ila take off her shirt and pants and then tried to help her put a swimsuit on.

She has started playing with Ila more, although Nicole usually yells at Ila while they’re playing and then Ila gets really upset and starts to cry.  Sometimes she orders Ila around, other times she copies what Ila is doing.  Sometimes they even play cooperatively (ie:  one girl will make a pretend dish and then serve it to the other who will enjoy pretending to eat it).

She likes to play and wrestle with Charlotte.  Most of the time when they play, Charlotte tells Nicole what to do and Nicole does what Charlotte asks.

She is passionately affectionate.  She hugs and kisses hard (tight hugs and forceful kisses) and often insists on kissing on the lips even sometimes grabbing someone’s hair and pulling them in for the kiss.

She loves the color purple and talks about wanting purple things all the time.  In parking lots I often say something like “where’s our white truck” and she’ll say “where’s Nicole’s purple car.”

Other things I blogged about Nicole since her last birthday: Jealousy towards Thomas, a silly outdoor outfit, collecting rocks, sending me subtle hints, recording her favorite book, wanting to hold Thomas, a favorite book, putting on make-up, a baby powder mess, playing, a haircut, potty training (which I’m still working on with her), a bad bout of nausea, Nicole’s ingenuity.

Isaac = green, Charlotte = pink, Nicole = purple, Ila = orange*, Thomas = blue

The kids were inspired by a sharing time activity to make prayer rocks for family home evening.  They each picked out rocks and decorated them.  I spray painted some of the rocks for them. 

Ila ended up with a very large orange rock.  It’s so heavy that she has trouble picking it up or carrying it, but she insisted on brining it everywhere with her.  Only it was so big and heavy that she kept dropping it.  My solution was to spray paint a few smaller rocks orange and have her big rock stay in her bed.  I’ve found her cuddled up to her big orange rock on several occasions when I’ve peaked in after bedtime.  One time when I was putting away laundry,  she turned in her sleep and bumped her head on her rock.

Today, like most days, she carried two small painted rocks everywhere with her.  She took them to the bus stop, in the store, and into the school when we dropped off and picked up Nicole.  For some reason, she adds an extra ending and calls them her “rockets.”  So several times today as we were out she said: “Oh, No!  My orange rocket!” which meant that she had forgotten to bring one or both of her rocks with her.*Ila’s color is orange because she was born in Knoxville, Tennessee (home of the Vols) and if you’re ever in Knoxville on game day you’ll see “a sea of orange.” 

I got into a fight with Charlotte on Friday morning.  It started about 10 minutes before we needed to head out the door to catch the bus.  I asked her to go upstairs and get her socks on because it was almost time to go.  She started purposefully walking very slowly and eventually disappeared upstairs.  I got coats and shoes on everyone else and yelled up the stairs a few times that she needed to hurry or she’d miss the bus.  She sauntered down just as we were about to go out the door and sat on the bottom step (at least she was wearing socks).  I yelled at her to get her shoes, coat, and backpack because we had to go right now.  She just looked at me and sat there.  So I shepherded everyone out the door and told her she’d have to get ready and then run to catch up with us. 

I thought she’d be in a panic when we left without her.  As I walked down the street with the other 4 kids, I kept hoping to see her scamper out the door, it didn’t happen.  

Isaac got on the bus and we headed home.  I spent the whole walk home trying to figure out what I should do next.  I thought, how could I make the drive to school so miserable that she remembers that she wants to take the bus.  What kind of punishment should she get so that next time she runs to put her socks on.  I certainly didn’t want to make a habit of loading up all the kids in the suburban and driving her to school.  

When we walked back in the door, she looked happy (maybe relieved) to see us.  I had wanted to find her crying and upset and worried about how she’d get to school.

I said “you missed the bus, Charlotte” with no emotion in my voice.  Then as I helped the girls take off their coats and shoes,  I commented on how I thought they’d probably do something really fun in kindergarten today.  She still didn’t react.

I took Thomas with me upstairs where Zach was just finishing getting dressed (usually he’s long gone by now, but this morning he slept in).  I told him what happened and he offered to take her to school. 

I went back downstairs and Charlotte brought me her Junie B. Jones book and asked me if she could go to the website listed on the back page.  I knew that she couldn’t wait to go to that webpage.  I have to admit that I was a little excited that I finally had a way to make her regret not getting on that bus.  I told her no, that since she missed the bus we wouldn’t be able to go to the website for the whole day.  She did react now, she was mad.  I told her that she’d also have to miss movie night tonight.

Zach had to count down from 5 to get her to finally put on her shoes and coat.  (She knows that if we get to zero, she gets a punishment–usually a spank and she always scrambles when we get close to zero). 

Finally, she was off to school, but I was still all worked up in my head about how poorly our morning had gone.  How could I have handled that better?  Why did it turn into a fight?  What can I do to maintain a positive relationship with this girl so that when she’s older (like a teenager) she’ll want to talk to me about stuff?

The reason for her behavior that morning finally hit me as I talked to Zach about the details of our morning.  The night before this incident, Charlotte found a website in the back of her Junie B. Jones book.  I told her that she could look it up tomorrow.  When I went back into her room to check on the girls, she was just about to fall asleep and she told me that she knew she’d have good dreams because she was going to dream about that website.  The next morning, the first thing she said to me (and to her dad) was about the Junie B. Jones website. 

She must have forgotten about it after she finished eating breakfast because she started to play with some toys with Isaac.  I forgot about it too because I was so busy making sure everyone was fed and dressed and had their hair fixed.  I think she remembered it when I told her to get her socks on.  At that point, instead of telling me that she was upset because she had wanted to go to the website before school, she just got mad and then mader.

I felt bad about how angry I was with her that morning.  I also felt bad about the lack of quality time I’ve had to spend with her lately.  I decided that I’d stop at the library before she got home from school and get some Junie B. Jones books.  

I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches just before Charlotte and Isaac got home from school and let them eat them outside (picnic style).  I told Charlotte about the books that I had gotten her and she ran in and got one for me to read.  I read several chapters to her outside as she played around the yard and we had a good time together.  

I gave her an opportunity to earn back the privilege of going to the Junie B. Jones website.  She spent much of the rest of the afternoon playing games on the website.

At bedtime, Zach took the other kids up to movie night and I read Charlotte a “Captain Underpants” book.  We talked about what had happened that morning.  I told her that I hadn’t known why she was mad, but that I had figured it out after she left.  She told me about how much she had wanted to go to that website.  We talked about how we could have communicated better and had a much better morning.  In the end, I told her she could go join her siblings for movie night.

(not because I don’t have more to say, but because I have to go to bed while I still have a chance to get some sleep)

Name:  Thomas Deane Cochran

Age: 2 months, 3 days

Weight: 11 lbs     10th percentile

Length:   22 inches       25th percentile

Head Circumference: 15 1/2     50th percentile

Last well check (11 days) comparison:

Age = +almost 2 months, weight = +3 lb 4 oz, length = +1 3/8 inches, head = unkown

Then they sang “Ring Around the Rosies” and “fell” over: