Nicole loves to color, but for some reason her favorite thing to color on is words. This means that every-time I write her name on one of her drawings, she scribbles all over her name. Here is an example of her Art:
While scribbling some of the red scribbles she kept saying “oh, no Bunny.†I don’t know if she was referring to an actual bunny or her Grandma Bunny. She also calls squirrels bunny for some unknown reason so she may have even been drawing a squirrel.
Nicole loves the bath. Not being able to bathe because of her cast has been a challenge. She’d cry for a bath whenever someone mentioned one. Three weeks and two days after breaking her leg, she was ecstatic to be in the bath again thanks to a waterproof cast cover. I only wish we had thought to find one earlier.
I took this video of Nicole using her walker this morning
Later, I turned on So You Think You Can Dance while I fed Ila and Nicole just got up and started dancing in circles without her walker
And finally, this last one is just for fun.
Awhile ago I was evaluating our books to determine which ones to keep and I came across this tattered old book. It was missing all of the little characters that slide into little slots throughout the book. It seemed like the perfect candidate for the trash, but I got an idea to adapt the book so that perhaps it would entertain a child in church. 
I printed out little wallet sized full body pictures of the kids and laminated them. 
I even went so far as to changing all the characters in the book to my children. I changed every character except Bear, perhaps one day I’ll be ambitious and change him to Mom or Dad. 
It didn’t work as well as I had planned, not only did it not entertain her for as long as I had hoped, the skinny little family member cut-outs kept slipping deep into the slot causing Nicole to cry out in frustration as she tried to retrieve them and before long, all of the pictures I had made were missing (the pictures above are the second set that I made) 
When Zach was called into the bishopric, I racked my brain for ideas on how I could keep Nicole entertained without him. I pulled this book out and made new family inserts, but was carful to make inserts that couldn’t fall completely into the slots and get lost or stuck. A week or so later I got the idea to add some of Nicole’s favorite cartoon characters (Curious George and The Man in the Yellow Hat). 
The last addition was a big hit. She spent the entire meeting on Sunday happily playing with ‘George’ and ‘Hat’ as she called them. She made them dance and hug and sing.
I finally got around to scanning this picture. This picture shows the break best, but you can see more here.
I was trying to take a new video of Nicole moving around with her new cast on, but she didn’t really go anywhere. She just kind of wiggled around. I did however capture her trying to read this book filled with addition and subtraction problems.
I didn’t know that she recognized numbers yet, but whether she actually saw the numbers on the page that she named or just recognized that they were numbers and started saying numbers, I don’t know. I suppose it’s a silly video to post.
Here are some videos that I took of Nicole learning to move with her leg splint:
Here she does some climbing:
Here is a still picture with her cast:
So far she seems much happier in the cast. I think it’s less painful for her.
Name: Nicole Kate Cochran
Age: 2 years, 1 week
Weight: 24lbs 20th percentile
Length: 32 3/4 inches 20th percentile
Head Circumference: 47.8cm 60th percentile
When we were kids, my mom did lots of little things to make our birthdays great. It was like the whole day was a celebration. We got to sit in the front seat and mom would fix our favorite food for dinner. I try to do the same thing for my kids, so I did my best to fill Nicole’s special day with the things she likes to do.
Zach picked up some balloons the night before and we put them in her room after she fell asleep. So that she’d wake up to them.
I heard her call out in the morning when she woke up. She grabbed a hold of the balloons and held onto them as I changed her diaper and put on her pants (I left the PJ shirt on to avoid prying the balloons out of her hands in order to change it). She took the balloons with her to the kitchen.
She clung to her balloon as she ate her breakfast of vanilla yogurt.
Ila was intrigued by the balloons, too.
After breakfast, she played with balloons.
Then I gave her a bath because she loves baths and playing in water.
After her bath, we went to the park where she spent the majority of her time on the swings.
After using the baby swing for a little while, she insisted on trying the big swing. Right after this picture she started to lean forward to get off and before I could catch her she fell on her face. The fall wasn’t far, but she scraped her nose in the process and needed a hug.
The next stop was the library. You can see the results of her fall in the picture below. We looked at books, checked some books out, and then went to part of a story time. We left story time early when Nicole decided she’d much rather play with a door than listen to stories.
After the library, we headed home for a lunch of spaghetteos and mandarin oranges. Then she played with balloons and toys until naptime. After nap we watched an episode of her favorite show (Curious George) before heading off to the “french fry store†for dinner. We let her enjoy the ketchup this time so as soon as she came home we gave her a second bath. We invited her to open presents right after her bath (that’s why her hair is wet in the picture below). At first we had trouble getting her to open any presents, she just wanted to run around with balloons.
She had a little time to play with her new presents before my Aunt Dee came over followed by my cousin Brent with his wife and sons. I’m really pleased with the Play Mobil farm set pictured below. It’s a great sturdy gift that all three kids enjoy playing with.
We gave the kids Curious George hats and toys.
Next we had cupcakes and ice cream. As soon as she sat down she picked up one of the cupcakes with a candle in it and started to place the cupcake in her mouth, candle first. Fortunately, they weren’t lit yet. She didn’t seem to understand the concept of blowing out the candles so, after some encouraging, Zach ended up blowing them out.
After cake, we played until our guests left then put her to bed.
Today my little Nicole turns 2. She has blossomed into a funny quirky little girl. She loves to be the center of attention, stealing
glances at visitors and then beaming from ear to ear with her head cocked or galloping around the room in her own unique dance.
She has recently entered a new stage of language development. Her vocabulary is exploding and she has started regularly using two word combinations and small phrases. Where she would have said “shoe,†I hear her carefully articulate “one shoe†or “Charlotte’s Shoe.†One of my recent favorites is hearing her say the whole phrase “Mom, where are you?†I’ve started working on encouraging words instead of crying or yelling for something. She’s doing quite well with that. She says things like “help, please†and “orange, please†or “Oh, no ball!†Every time we drive somewhere, she likes to say goodbye to everything “goodbye houseâ€, “goodbye treeâ€, and so on.
She loves hats and shoes and she smiles and dances when I put either one on her. 
This evening, I watched her try to fit her brown sandals onto her big sister’s foot. She regularly emerges from her siblings bedroom and clomps down the hall in a pair of oversized shoes. Then she’ll climb into her seat at the table and say “oh no, shoe!†as one of the shoes slips off and falls to the floor.
Six months ago, it was a rare treat to have her sit still in your lap for a hug, now she seeks out and sustains hugs regularly. 
She has started hugging both of her sisters spontaneously and occasionally crying for a hug. The 2nd hour Nursery leader at church says that every week at about 10:30 she just stops playing and comes to get a hug then goes back to play happily. She went through a short phase of saying “awww†every time she hugged someone. Charlotte and Nicole loved to hug and say “awww†over and over again.
She goes to bed easily most days both for her nap and at night. At times she’ll be up for an hour or two after being put to bed, but she never leaves her room or climbs off her bed. She usually doesn’t even cry. She’ll be in there for hours, just singing and talking and looking at books. I think it’s only been in the last month that she’s started insisting that she sleep on top of items. She gathers at least three toys and often a book or two along with her water 
bottle in her arms and sleeps on top of them. A stuffed Curious George toy is always under one of her arms. I still don’t understand why she prefers to sleep this way, but she gets mad if I try to move something she’s laying on. It reminds me of a silly sleeping phase Isaac went through. It’s funny how these strange little things they do pull at your heart strings.
She still doesn’t like to be forced to sit still. If I try to get a picture of the kids lined up or sitting next to each other, she’ll be the one who refuses to sit still long enough for me to take the picture. Church meetings can be challenging, 
I was counting down the days until she turned old enough for nursery!
Her favorite show is Curious George. She’ll carry a remote over to me and say “George†periodically during the day. She also loves to be outside. Everyday when we get home from picking up Isaac she climbs out of the car and runs directly outside to play. If you mention leaving she’ll to to the door to the garage and say “outside†over and over.
I also love her big brown eyes and her silly smiles. She has started smiling and saying “cheese†when she sees my camera. Sometimes she gives me a goofy smile where she protrudes her lower teeth and it looks like she has an under bite (I think that’s the right term).
Charlotte is a creative little girl. If you start making up a story, she’ll add to it. Today I decided to see what she could create on her own. I only helped her with prompts like “what would she do when she is a great-grandma?†The sequence, ideas, and pictures all came from her.
Picture Note: A cupcake in the middle with sprinkles on it. Surrounded by candy, including a lollipop. I don’t know what the line on top is for.
Picture Note: The picture of Nicole as a mom is wearing glasses, like Charlotte’s mom. The other picture is of a taco. Again, the line on top baffles me, I shall have to ask her.
Picture Note: The circle with a dot is a belly with a bellybutton. The other picture is a bowl of Marshmallow Mateys.
Picture Note: The green picture is celery.
The End.
This story has inspired Isaac to write his own, only he wants to write a non-fiction book about Space.
Nicole insists on sleeping on toys and books. If you try to move them, she’ll put them right back. She likes to have a stuffed animal (usually Curious George) or doll under each arm and then she places books in the middle and sleeps on her tummy on top of all of them! And she will scream if she drops her water bottle, which she hugs along with everything else as she sleeps.
Before anyone went shopping, I thought I’d post some pertinent info. I hope this isn’t too presumptuous of me. We’re really ok if no-one gets her anything. She is only turning 2, but I know that a grandma or two may be thinking of sending something and I thought this format would be acceptable. If you do buy her a gift on this list that’s not eatable, leave a comment so no one duplicates. If you like the suggestions, I’ll post the same sort of thing for Isaac’s birthday which is a month later.
I like this picture of Nicole. I found her sitting on the kitchen floor, wearing her father’s hat and looking at this book that she took from our bedroom.
There’s just something about this picture that seems very silly to me. Maybe it’s that she didn’t just take the book or the hat, but the two of them together and then walked all the way into the kitchen to sit down and ‘read.’
She’s a funny little girl. She seems to really like Ila, but she’s not quite two and can be a little rough in her attempts to be kind. I generally try to avoid laying Ila anywhere Nicole can reach her when Nicole is awake, but today I thought Nicole was distracted so I laid Ila down while I poured drinks for dinner and when I went back to check on her, this is what I found:
Nicole had neatly laid trucks and trains around Ila
I came into the kitchen the other day and found this: 
It made me smile because I am sure I know exactly which child made the mess. Nicole has a thing for wire whisks.
