Tuesday

6:05 am Carter woke up early. "bee bee" "bee bee" I hear on the monitor.

I could tell he couldn't find his binky. I stumbled up the stairs and located a binky, changed his diaper and rocked him for a few minutes until I heard Kevin in the shower downstairs.

Then I brought him downstairs and he got a "bar". This is code for breakfast bar. And he nodded yes when I asked if he wanted cartoons.




Then I headed back upstairs to wake Anna. She is not a morning person. I patted her back and asked her if she wanted me to pick her clothes or if she wants to. Surprisingly she said I could. So I let her pick from two shirts and two pants (all of which mix and match). Then I made sure it was ok to go back downstairs while she got dressed.

I got a long sleeved onesie for Carter out of his closet, plus socks and shoes and headed down the stairs. I got his jeans out of the dryer.

Got him dressed. Down comes Anna. She picked to have yogurt except she wanted to take hers to school. Of course Carter had to have yogurt then but he wanted to eat it right away. I put a bib on him and prayed he wouldn't cover himself in yogurt which he has been known to do.

Brushed Anna's hair, got jackets (it has cooled off again).




7:05 Everyone is headed out the door. The morning routine includes throwing a toy for Tassie for awhile before they head to daycare.




7:10 I head back inside and find someone has made themself cozy in our bed.



I locate caffeine and shower.



Turn on the Today Show and listen to the news about the failed bailout bill and how this affects me. Put on makeup, dry hair, etc.

8:00 I realize I'm not sure if my 9am is a conference call or an in person meeting. I txt Jeff to find out. This determines if I can wear jeans or if I need to dress up.

8:05 No response. I dress up to be safe.

8:20 Grab a jacket and leave for work.

8:25 Jeff txts it is a call. Oh well.

ipod playlist on the way to work includes Forever by Chris Brown, Material Girl by Madonna.



8:45 Arrive at work.



9:00 Conf call goes well.

Usual boring work stuff. I update the blog over lunch. Download some new music from Pussycat Dolls and Disturbia from Rhianna.

1:45 pm I get a call from the daycare on my cell. Usually this means I have a sick kid to pick up. Not today. It's Carter's teacher. I quickly assume he's been bitten again. She is excited - Carter went on the potty for the first time and she just had to share with me. It was really sweet. She said he was saying potty potty and kind of fussy. She put him on their tiny little kiddy potty (the kind you find at kindergarten schools) and he was swinging his legs and laughing she said. Then all of a sudden he peed and she said the look on his face was priceless, sort of like he was scared or not sure what was happening. Then she said Carter! You did it! and she said he got down and kept saying "I did it!"

This might have been the highlight of my day.

4:30 I leave to go pick up the kids across town only to drive back across town to go to a Pumpkin Run meeting. This is a non-profit we do the website and email for. I debate what to get the kids for dinner. I make a work call/sale on the way to pick up the kids.

5:20 I swing by the house to get diapers, sippy cups, a blanket, crayons, coloring book and let the dogs out to pee.

5:30 pick up the kids




6:10 call Kevin to remind him he's on his own for dinner.

6:20 Get Sonic. Anna requests a hot dog with cheese and beans (translation extra long chili cheese coney) and tells me I need to cut it like grandma. (wha? uh, right, sure!)

6:30 Pumpkin Run meeting. I should have taken a picture of the kids. I spread out the blanket and got them setup with dinner. then they colored. then Carter found a styrofoam cup we pretended was a hat. I gave my report.



7:35 We leave meeting. Anna whines on the way home that she needs water because she has a funny taste in her mouth. Carter cries because he dropped his binky. I try to drown them out with music.

8:00 pm Arrive home. It's bath night. I herd the kids like cats upstairs to get naked.

Carter doesn't even want to read a book, just go to bed. Anna wants me to read Curious George and the Donut Delivery.

8:45 I'm so sleepy. So sleepy. Uploading photos, blogging. But a very long day with that meeting.

Monday Follow Up

A few more thoughts after thinking about my Monday entry. I could have added a few more details. Like...

When I got home with the kids Kevin was fertilizing the yard.

Kevin wiped down all the kitchen counters for me after I did the dishes. A chore that for some reason I despise.

I didn't eat the Lean Cuisine frozen meal I took to work because I went with the client to eat at Chipotle.

The 3:00 pm meeting was actually kind of a big deal. Even though my title has been Manager of Targeted E-Marketing for 18 months I have not actually managed anyone. This all changed effective as of Monday. I am now officially managing my Account Coordinator. This was announced to her in her 6 month review.

Anna dried the handwashed dishes for me. A welcomed helper.

Kevin and I watched Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares for our TV time. He is rather addicted to reality tv and so am I by default.

Sam called to say he and Candi are going to St. Louis this weekend to visit her sister. Kevin was bummed that he won't be watching the MU game with his buddy. I'm thinking we can get a date night together. Sam calls back to ask if Kevin can sub for him at the football game on Friday night. Scratch date night.

I made a bowl of ice cream complete with chocolate syrup, caramel and maraschino cherries and ate it right before I went to bed. Guilty as charged.

Monday

As part of my "Week In The Life Project", led by Ali Edwards, here are some of my photos and notes from Monday.

6:50 Woke up to Kevin flipping on the bedroom lights. The alarm had already gone off, he had already taken his shower and was getting dressed. I never heard the alarm or him get out of bed.

Get up. Get kids ready. We had bought donuts yesterday at the grocery store and since there wasn't time to eat them at home, we sent them to school.

7:15 Kevin heads out to take the kids to daycare. I get in the shower.

8:15 Bags are packed including frozen lunch to eat and camera in the purse.



8:50 Stop at Starbucks. Grande non fat white chocolate mocha with light whip cream.

9:05 Arrive at work. Getting settled in. 258 items in the inbox. Digging out of email after being gone a week at the ExactTarget email marketing conference.



11:15 Find out a client is heading over for a meeting that isn't scheduled. 2 hours later we are all starving and head out to a lunch at Chipotle.



1:45 Back at work. More emails. Weekly status updates to clients.


3:00 Review with my Account Coordinator.

4:00 Internal meeting with a project lead to review outstanding items for another client.

5:00 Troubleshooting issue for a different client. Final email check.

5:20 Head out to pick up kids from daycare.

5:50 Arrive at daycare. Carter was bitten twice today. I ask if Danny is the offender because every time he gets hurt he says "Dannnnnyyyyy". The daycare can't confirm due to privacy but in a round about way I'm 99.99% sure it's him.



6:05 Swing by grocery store to pickup yogurt for our sauce for our greek chicken. Carter throws a huge fit getting back into the car because he wouldn't hold my hand in the parking lot when he wanted to walk.

Driving home Anna tells me Liam's mom works at Dairy Queen. "How do you spell Dairy Queen?"

She's really in to spelling everything right now.

She tells me she had pineapple and ravioli for lunch.

6:15 Arrive at home in the garage.



6:20 The infamous "Nack" time. Snack while I make dinner. Anna had strawberries and yogurt. Carter had cheese and yogurt. And he wanted more cheese. And then cried and cried and cried because I wouldn't give him more. He seemed really tired.



6:35 I ended up making him Easy Mac and feeding him.

7:00 The rest of us eat dinner.

7:15 Put Carter down for bed. We read a new book that arrived in the mail "The Pigeon Has Feelings Too" along with "The Pigeon Wants a Puppy"

7:30 Get Anna ready for bed in PJs, flossing and brushing. We head downstairs for her to stay up a little longer.

Anna Says...
She tells me Quinn is not her boyfriend anymore. It's someone else whose name I can't recall now. Then she tells me it goes Liam, Quinn, [boy whose name I can't remember] and it rotates. It will rotate until she's older. Until she's 5.

I can't even make this stuff up.

7:45 Dishes

8:00 Sort the mail off the kitchen island.

8:15 Kevin puts Anna to bed since I'm grumpy. I decide to skip doing anymore work for the night even though I'm behind.

8:30 Quality TV Time with hubby. Uploading photos, blogging.

9:30 Exhausted. Heading to bedroom where laundry may tempt me to put it away.

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A few thoughts after today...

I hope to capture more pictures like the kids heading out in the morning.

I hope to keep more "things" like receipts or the sleeve from my starbucks cup, etc. as the week progresses to add to the pages when I put them together.

A Week In The Life

I'm back to home sweet home and motivated to do some scrapbooking this week by Ali Edwards' recent post for her "A Week In The Life" project.

I'm going to give this a shot, starting tomorrow. You take pictures of everyday things, people, places, stuff each day for a week. You also take notes. Funny things the kids say, thoughts I have, stresses, happinesses, etc.

The purpose is to show how your everyday life changes over the years. The way your house looks, the routines you have, etc.

Join me on this journey.

OMG

We won Agency/Reseller of the Year at the ExactTarget conference tonight. Wow. Really amazing. Humbled. Excited. Surprised. Amazing. Glad I stayed up really late finishing those entries while my entire inlaw family was in town that week.

Go DEG!

Where Are Your Pants?

This is what I would ask Carter right now if I could. I'm missing my babies so I pulled up the web cams at the daycare (which I rarely use anymore just because I am usually so busy at work and when I think of it they are usually napping and that is pretty boring to watch, but am LOVING this technology today) and Carter is wearing a long sleeve onesie and that's it. He seems to have lost his pants and socks and shoes. I'm sure it's due to a recent diaper change or something but he looks pretty funny.

He's reading book after book after book. All of the other kids seem to be doing something else. He's the only one tearing up the book shelf. Unfortunately the web cams aren't working for the playground right now and I think Anna is outside because the lights are off in her room.

Hello from Indy

I'm at the annual ExactTarget conference in Indianapolis Indiana this week. I think I need to go do a shot of espresso. As I said it my last post the secret is lots and lots of caffeine. I got up at 3:30 am to get here and it is quickly catching up with me. I still have a cocktail hour and dinner to go so I need to rev up.

Kevin is super dad for a few days. Anna is already excited as she told me "When mommy is gone I get to wear whatever I want." I was going to call the daycare to let them know I'm gone but then decided they should be able to figure it out when they see what the kids are wearing. jk. kevin does great. If I recall last time when I got home he had even done Anna's hair.

The Secret to Working Full Time, Raising Two Kids and Keeping a House

I know my last post was Anna exhausted, now I'm exhausted. I got up at 5:40 this morning to leave the house by 6:40 and drop the kids off at daycare before 7 and then head to the office. I had to be there by 8 and for some reason even though it only takes me 35 minutes to get there when I leave at 8:25 it takes over an hour if I want to be there by 8. Freakin rush hour. Luckily I planned for time to stop at Starbucks and after the meeting Neal stopped at QT to get more coffee. And yes, technically Thursday is my day off but this was the only day the client could meet so I'll probably just take off an hour or two early Friday.

My neighbor who is a SAHM (stay at home mom for those of you who don't have kids) told me she has no idea how I do it (working and raising two kids). I told her the secret answer is lots and lots of Starbucks. And that my house is a complete disaster. Which was driving me crazy this evening so I spent a lot of time trying to clear the damn kitchen island with mail piled up from Vegas and art from daycare, empty a suitcase, move laundry around so the kids have pants to wear tomorrow and do the dishes. Thankfully my lovely lovely husband threw together a wonderful dinner of goat cheese stuffed chicken.

Sweet Dreams

5 minutes before this she was throwing a fit, I think about a fake stomach ache if I remember correctly. Then she was out.

Bye Vegas

Memories.... in no particular order.

Skipping the line, straight to VIP and free drinks at Tao with my BFF Candi.

Delish dinner at craftsteak. filet. scallops. mushroom risotto. grilled white corn.

Pop n lockers at the adult show for adults. plus an entertaining version of michael jackson's beat it. not to mention the ladies. enough said.

winning at roulette till 2 am. (4 am kc time that's going to hurt tomorrow)

picked up by some tan french boys who didn't speak so good english at the pool. that's right, candi and i still got it. (or maybe it was just that we were the only girls at the pool without boys)

playing video blackjack at the bar before going out. blackjack! 21! winner! earned us a free lemon drop shot from the bar tender. who was also happy to take our picture.

worst cab driver ever took us to zappos. luckily we had a different one on the way back.

room service. more room service. more room service.

amazing fun with our best friends. bye vegas, see you next time.

Hello from Vegas!

Greetings from Vegas! It's upper 90's and not a cloud in the sky. Which is great since it started raining in KC yesterday and is going to rain constantly until Tuesday.

We watched a guy lose about $4k on roulette in about 5 minutes. Then I saw the girlfriend say "no more."

We started our day with room service and they are so lovely here. They call me M'Lady and Kevin sir. Love it.

Kevin's going to play in a Texas Hold em Poker tournament at 11 and us girls might go to one of the five pools here.

I'll see if I can post some mobile pics later.

Time to go find a drink!

21 Months

Carter turned 21 months on August 29th. I can't believe he is almost 2. There isn't a check up at 21 months which is usually when I do these posts but he has changed so much since I did the last entry at 18 months that I just had to share.

At 21 Months You...

...Are obsessed with your binkys.

...Need some mommy-cuddle-time every morning that I don't have to work. About 15 minutes on the couch just hugging and snuggling and then you're ready to face your day.

...Love to play with your trains.

...Have to know where your big sister Anna is at all times.
"Where Anna go?"
"She's in the bathroom."

(just getting out of bed in the morning)
"Where Anna go?"
"She's still sleeping."

...Love to read books. A few favorites are The Pigeon Wants a Puppy, the Alphabet Book and Sing Along with Elmo.

...Sign A and make the short A sound, say B and make the "buh" sound, say C and make the "cuh" sound.

...Have all of your teeth mostly in. Hooray to no more teething.

...Say "Aleh" for your friend Alex.

...Love the dogs and give them hugs. And I think you are still secretly feeding them under the table when I can't see.

...Frequently sit in timeout for hitting your sister. repeatedly. sometimes with an object. always after being told not to. and looking right at me when you do it again.

...Love it when I pretend like I'm going to eat your arms and tummy.


Some of my favorite things...

...You pat me on the back when I hold you on my hip.

...You lay your head on my shoulder.

...Your hair flies straight up in the air when you run because it's so fine.

...If you have a blankie you put it on your shoulder and put your ear to your shoulder to "lay down."

...You blow kisses.

I think you weigh almost as much as your sister. She did seem to grow an inch this week so she's still taller, for now. Your rash has miraculously almost completely cleared up in the last month. My mom might have been right - it might have been the teeth. Or maybe it's because you're in a new room at daycare and they change your diaper more. Or maybe the other ladies were putting something on it and not telling me and that was causing it. We may never know. I still have the dermatologist appointment in a month but now I don't know if I need it. As soon as I cancel I'm sure it will come back. I took pictures of it this summer so maybe we will still go. Then, if we ever need to go back will it be faster to get in because we are an established patient? Who knows.

I love you to pieces. You are my sweet sweet baby boy.

I'm Crazy

Friday night I went to Treads and Threads with my brother Zach. Kevin had to work and Zach just happened to be in town for the afternoon. Lisa carpooled with us and we all had a grand time. I really do want to set her up with my other brother Ben, but since neither live here that will have to wait for another day.

Several of my coworkers' wives were there and two are pregos and the other wants to be. They must think I'm crazy because they were asking me questions about having two kids... like... have you ever left your kids overnight? um.... yes I left Anna when she was 5 months old to go to Orlando for a week. I left Carter when he was four months old to go to Vegas. and pumped. and stored it. and it made the trip back and I fed that liquid gold to him. And I've left them to go to San Diego one year and San Francisco another. Plus a work trip to Indianapolis. And then I left both of them a year ago to go to Key West. And we have a trip coming up to go to Vegas again. And then they were also talking about scheduling their weekends around nap times. Really? Really? I just pack up my kids and go. If they sleep they sleep. If not oh well. Are they grumpy? Sometimes but I got shit to do. Like today Kevin was at work this morning, I got ready, cleaned up a huge mess one of the dogs made while I was taking a shower, gave Carter a bath, packed everyone up and headed to Sam and Candi's where I dropped everyone off and headed out to get my nails done and a spray tan. My parents picked the kids up from there and they slept in the car on the way to their house. Since they'd been out of town they wanted to see the kiddos. They kept them all afternoon and Candi and I shopped it up. Usually I would have done all of this with the kids but I was lucky to have a lot of help today. But I definitely did not plan this around a nap schedule. Crazy? I don't think so, but I'm pretty sure the girls at the party did.

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And I must say to my very wonderful friend Molly - welcome to the world Hazel! I'm sure you aren't reading this and won't be for awhile but maybe in a month when you're up at 3 am and tired of watching the same informercials for Proactiv and juicers you'll read this. Can't wait to meet her!

Etsy Art from China

This is our new art displayed above the console table in the living room purchased from etsy. Progress in our home decor. Next up: framing all those 8x10s I have of Anna and have started of Carter. I've decided to just do black frames and hang them up and down the stair wells in groups.

Play in the Park

We headed to a birthday party on Sunday for Carson who turned one. I didn't get any pictures of the birthday boy who fell asleep at his own party :) but I did get these of the kids and Carson's bro Julian.

I especially love the series I happened to catch of Carter mimicking Anna and Julian hanging before going down the slide.