Let’s go fly a kite!

The winds have been horrendous this winter. Even when we get a warm, sunny day, it is typically too bad to play outdoors because of the winds. A typical day has gusts around 30 mph. A bad day 60+ mph gusts. A good day, like today, winds are around 10 mph. So, since you can’t beat the wind, we decided to join it and bought some kites.

Myra was kind of afraid of the whole kite flying thing. I think she didn’t like the flutter sound the kite made. Not sure.

Stella, on the otherhand, rocked kite flying.

We pretty much just got the kite up for her and let her go. She’s a kite flying natural.

I took Myra with me to pick out kites. Naturally, she selected a princess kite. And, for some unknown reason, I picked up a backup kite…also princess.

Chris was thrilled with my choice!

Whatcha gonna do?

Myra may be smarter than us. I’m not sure. At the very least, she’s giving us a run for our money.

Myra, at 4, still has not stopped with the tantrums. She screams, swats, claws, kicks, throws things. You name it, she does it.

Chris and I have tried all the typical punishments and reward systems. Problem is, she doesn’t seem to really care about either the reward or punishment.

It used to be that when she threw a toy, I would take away said toy. Then she one upped me. She started only throwing Stella’s toys. So, I know take away one of Myra’s toys when she throws anything. Thing is, now, if I select a toy that maybe isn’t a favorite she will help me pick out a toy she likes better. Then she will sometimes jack with me, “I like that toy. Hmm, no I don’t. Yeah I do…” I’m to the point where I have no idea which toys she cares about and which ones she doesn’t. (I have another example of her outsmarting us but it’s a bit gross so I will leave it out here.)

Anyway, I am not sure what else we can do to get this girl to mind her Ps and Qs. Today’s punishment was a 30 minute time out along with no dessert, TV or toy for bed. She cared a little but did her darnedest not to let on.

Butterfly Girl

We are having Stella’s birthday party at the Butterfly Pavilion. I dressed her up in all black and monarch wings to get a picture for her invitations.

Stella’s smart. She knows tons of animals by name, most her shapes, some letters and can repeat and retain just about any word thrown at her.

Stella has a temper that makes us terrified of her teen years. She has a blood curdling scream that would make one think she was just sliced with a knife but instead might mean she’s out of bagel or the dog walked too close to her.

Stella loves to mimic Myra and Myra loves to have her own personal mimic.

Like her big sister, Stella is often an animal. A bear or lion or butterfly.

Stella is funny and she knows it.

In just a short month, she will be my tiny two year old with too big personality.

Nostalgia

Myra is the most nostalgic child. Her favorite two sentences are “Do you remember when…” and “When can we do XX again?” She reminisces about everything: roasting marshmallows in the rental house with her cousins on our summer vacation, seeing a rainbow in Miss Ashley’s classroom (over a year ago!), when Sophie bit her on the bears at the zoo, watching  Bolt on my phone at Ikea after waiting too long in the line for the playroom, all the people that came over for Stella’s first birthday and so on and so on.

One of her recent “remember whens” was when we took her to see the beginning of the demolition of the Westminster mall over the summer. She asks questions out of the blue like “Have the finished tearing the mall down,” “Is there a new mall yet,” “When can I see them tear the mall down again,” and “why are the building a new mall on the old mall?” Today, she asked again to see the old mall. So, we drove her by.

She asked why we were the only people watching the mall get torn down today. I get the feeling we will be back to check the progress on the mall sometime soon.

Music and Butterfly Catching

 

We took the girls to the Butterfly Pavilion’s BugaRythm event over the weekend. It was a day of kid music with the main attraction being Radio Disney. We met up with Elyas, Matea and Sophie in the Radio Disney performance. I don’t think the kids could have been more bored. After leaving to do more interesting things, we went back to hear the finale band. Turns out that band cancelled and the had some random guy singing kids songs instead. All five kids in our group loved him.

Stella got a maraca.

Myra, Sophie and Elyas were the guy’s fan club, begging, even requesting an encore.

After the music, we went to see the butterflies. Earlier in the afternoon, Stella caught Matea. But in the butterfly greenhouse…

Myra caught a butterfly! She was thrilled. She even had Chris print off her picture to take to school on Monday. Unfortunately, she now thinks all butterfly trips will result in a butterfly landing.

Little Orphan Annie

I finally dressed the girls in the Annie outfits Katie and I had as little girls.

I’m just hoping Katie and I looked cuter than my girls looked in this picture (seriously, who is that kid in the red??):

Or in this picture:

Weekend

We started our weekend with a couple visits to the Little Clinic in King Soopers (I love the Little Clinic! So fast and easy). I went on Friday night after having spent the previous several days with pressure behind my right ear. Turned out to be a sinus infection. Feeling neglectful that Stella’s symptoms were probably worse than mine and we hadn’t taken her to the doctor, we took her to the Little Clinic on Saturday to receive her sinus infection diagnosis. The rest of the weekend was pleasant as we began to recover.

We spent a little time outside so Myra could paint rocks with mud. A messy endeavor.

Stella stayed on the porch. See her left eye? It was starting to get weepy from the infection.

Myra had one of her boyfriends over, Jack, for pretend play, cookies and “silly hugs.”

On Sunday, we went to the Wildlife Experience to use our membership a second time before it expired (two visits made it worthwhile to purchase).

The girls were surprisingly good.

They danced on the fish, saw the taxidermy, played in the kiddie areas and even got to see a real wolf up close and personal. Myra took this picture:

And I took this one of her (teehee):