Here's How You Do it, Mother....

Cara dancing in the

                                                       rain in NY

The Little Merman 

                                                                      is made in Santa Cruz    

Max, George and Hayden after Cara's flour   fight on her 17th birthday

You're welcome Mother. Your photos are loaded. All you have to do is click the picture button. And then the upload button. I think you can handle that much. Love, Cara :)

So my new entry starts. Cara retrieved the photos off from my crushed phone. I couldn't figure out how to upload them. She politely told me how on the blog. Thank goodness for nearly adult daughters to show me the way.

Speaking of daughters, I told Leah last week I had a secret for her. She was so happy to have a secret told to her. She smiled with delight as I whispered, "Leah, your hair is so long and beautiful it makes me cry." In response, she kept smiling and whispered, "I have a secret. Your hair is not so long and beautiful and it doesn't make me cry." Then she looked at me with delight and asked, "Isn't that a good secret?" "Thank you Leah. It's a good secret." Leah continues to greet the world like it was meant to love her. She made two new friends at a flag football game last night. She overheard two girls saying they liked her shoes. She was immediately flattered and went over to talk to them. At the end of the game, she showed me her otter pop that she acquired from her new friend. I looked over and her new friends were mature women. We ran into one of them at the school carnival today and the woman said, "Hi Leah, do you remember me? I'm Sophie."

So you might be asking yourselves, "Why was Leah at a football game unwatched?" Well, it just so happened that I was coaching the football game. Steve is George's coach for flag football. He is in NY this week. He had a back up, but the back up called me at 5:00 on game day saying he had the stomach flu. So I tried to coach. The ref looked a little surprised when I said I was the coach. He asked for a team captain. I said, "Who wants to be team captain?" I have six kids. I should know a dumb question before it comes out of my mouth. So who do you think wanted to be team captain? All of them. Oh well. I picked one. Later the ref told me I wasn't supposed to coach the kids on defense being on the field. He said, "But that's ok because I know you don't know what you are doing." After the other team scored on us two times, another dad offered to come and coach. I'm not as old as I am without learning some wisdom, so I graciously accepted. The team started doing much better. George even jumped over some kids in an attempt to avoid having his flag pulled. They still lost, but at least they weren't humiliated.

George and Max spend all of their spare time training to be American Ninja Warriors. It is Max's favorite show. I constantly find them climbing up walls, inside and outside, inching along stucco with their fingertips, and jumping on and off things. They think they are cool without shirts. I haven't been able to convince them that these guys eat healthy to stay in their prime.

A few weeks ago I survived Cara's birthday party and subsequent flour fight. Tomorrow, I get to survive Maddie's birthday party. She has invited 15 girls. Oh my!