Let's go fly a kite! (or not)

So, remember my cute little cheeser? I can't count how many pictures we have of Audrey saying "Cheese!" at the top of her lungs and smiling like her face might break. Well folks, I think those days may be over. Here's her new word in action - now when I ask her to say "cheese" I get an emphatic "NO!" Apparently she's discovered she's not getting royalties for these shots, and is taking her role as house Diva to a new level.

Little chinese Izzie... this is a face I've not captured before on this girl, so I had to include it for posterity's sake. Not your greatest, babe... but we still love you. And yes, she dressed herself.

See that kite on the ground? Despite our best intentions and my research on the weather patterns for the day, we had no luck with the wind and this was the best action Audrey got flying the kite this time. Quite honestly, however, I'm not sure the wind was the only problem. The problem began when I decided to take three little kids by myself to try to fly a kite. I'm certain most of the people hanging out at the park this day would tell you it was a bad idea. I'm not a good enough writer to help you fully visualize the scene, but it involved me holding the string, 25 feet or more from the kite, and trying to shout directions to my 4 and 5-year old as to proper kite presentation. The kite was upside-down, then backward, and eventually both kids were properly tangled in the string. After the initial detangling, many bystanders listened to me (again 25 feet away) yelling sweetly to my 2-year old to release her death grip on the string midway between me and the kids, who were finally holding the kite correctly, and because I was helpless and she knew there really was no way for me to make her let go (and because all she wanted all along was to hold the string as you can tell in the picture taken later) she had no intention whatsoever of acquiesing to my desire. Short of my just running and hoping the kids didn't bowl over their shorter sibling, we were pretty much at a stalemate. The kite was airborne a couple of time, and if I'd been able to just keep running south we may have eventually seen it really fly on its own, but we ran out of grass and mom ran out of steam. So, with the kids tangled in the string again, Audrey crying because she'd lost a shoe in the race, Izzie holding the tail of the kite and Erick bringing around the center frame support stick (of course using it as a lightsaber to torment his sisters) we finally gave up. Family - 0, kite - 1. There will be other days.

The kids love to climb around in the base of these old evergreens, but we inevitably have boo-boos. Some are worse than others - here Erick's trying his hardest to point out his most recent. It took a while to find, but a quick kiss and a little sympathy sent him back to his wooded abode.