I went to the grocery store...

on Sunday afternoon and then Carter had a meltdown because he and Anna were fighting over who got to push the cart and they pushed it into the produce holder, so then I said neither of them could push it. I ended up leaving a cart with two lemons, a bag of romaine lettuce, one zuchinni and a bag of new potatoes in a cart by the front door where a huge bin of apples greeted the customers. I fully intended to go back and finish shopping [to make salmon + potatoes (hence the lemons), kabobs (hence the zuchinni) and pasta shells and salad (hence the romaine lettuce)] but instead I got home, was very sleepy, sat down on the couch and fell asleep for an hour. When I woke up Kevin was making  chinese from a frozen meal in a bag from Sam's club. So it's clean out the fridge and freezer week.

Sorry to whoever at Price Chopper had to put away my random cart.

Fall Festival

Candi and I ran 12 miles on Saturday. Yay! We felt awesome. The weather was great and we surprisingly didn't run out of anything to talk about even after running for more than 2 hours and just seeing each other the night before.

I then took Anna to swimming lessons (she didn't pass level II so we are taking it again) and Sam and Candi watched Carter for me while Kevin was working. We all then met up for lunch and fun at the fall festival. It was a good afternoon with friends!

  

Then I went home and took a nap :)

Originals by Anna and Carter

Tonight the kids each wrote me a song. Well, Anna wrote what Carter said for his. Then they brought them to me...

Anna's:

Carter's:

I read/sang them and they laughed and laughed. Too funny.

Royals Game - Another Rainout

On Saturday after the company picnic we came home and I napped for 30 minutes. When I woke up Anna was dressed like Cinderella and Tassie looked like Ariel:

Saturday afternoon we went to the Royals game. We got to tailgate but then it rained and we left.

Sunday we went to a Chiefs party at our BFF's house.

Needless to say I was exhausted. I even had three redbulls and I thought I could go to sleep.

For those of you who don't know we have a trip to Disney coming up. It's a surprise for our kids but Kevin pratically let the cat out of the bag at the Royals game. Anna was sitting in his lap and we were talking about leaving because of the rain. I was asking him when our next tickets are and he said "right before we go to Disney." Well Anna's head spun around "Did you say Disney? Does that mean Disney World!?"
Kevin backtracked and then made up some story about needing an invitation from Mickey to go to Disney. So now she is waiting for her invitation. So the plot has thickened.

My next "project" is really prepping for this trip. I was planning the airplane entertainment and discovered we have lost Anna's DS. It is infuriating to me. I have plans to do the semi-annual toy organization project in hopes of finding it.

Other Fall projects also on the list:
Put on final coat of paint on Carter's dark blue wall
Then frame and hang Royals pictures
Move all scrapbook supplies from dining room to upstairs guest room closet
Paint kids' bathroom
Frame fall family pics and holiday pics from last two years and hang around house
Decorate office at work
Organize master bedroom closet
I will also be running the KC Half Marathon in about a month

So we are mostly caught up - what have you been up to the last week?

2nd Annual Company Picnic

Then on Saturday morning after I got back from my work trip we had our 2nd annual company picnic that I plan.

We had a great turnout and great food.

But the balloon guy was super lame. He could hardly make a dog and mostly just made flowers.

He even made a kid a triangle. I plan to complain because it was so embarrassing.

Found in laundry

When digging through the pile of laundry, after being gone for a week, I found a grocery bag with a shirt in it that had come home from daycare. It had the following stuck to it.

I laughed and laughed (and shoved the snot covered shirt into the washer).

Oops. Got a little behind.

Oops, I am way behind in posting. Going to try to catch up!

Last week I was in Indianapolis for the annual ExactTarget user conference. Lots of late nights, lots of networking, lots of learning, lots of meetings, lots of eating, not a lot of sleeping.

For those of you who don't know what I do, and care, ExactTarget is the software that we resell at my company. It is an email service provider (ESP) that sends email marketing campaigns.

My team configures accounts/clients on the platform, and then creates and manages all of the sends for those clients. My team also leads the strategic ideas (what emails to send, why, when, how often, etc.) We try to make them relevant to you, by asking you what you want and tailoring content based on what you click on and purchase. Because god knows we all get enough email. My husband calls me a spammer, but in my mind it's not spam if you signed up for it.

Anyways, here is a link to a video of one of our graphic designers speaking at the conference last week about some testing we did for Helzberg Diamonds. It is a little long and most of you probably don't care, but if you do, or you're bored and have 6 minutes to kill, there you go.

They have you going from 8 am until 1am at the conference every day. On Monday night there was a Monday night football party where Julie, Megan and I played the Wii they had setup.

On Tuesday we heard Sir Richard Branson speak.

On Tuesday night we had dinner at a museum.


On Wednesday night we went to a train concert and then hosted an after-party. (this is pre-show from the private VIP balcony area)


When I got home from my trip on Thursday night I had notes on my bathroom mirror. Too cute.

I missed them and they missed me too.

Labor Day Weekend - Saturday: Irish Festival at Crown Center

On Saturday morning (from Labor Day weekend) Candi and I ran 11 miles. Then I remembered Anna had one more swimming lesson that was a makeup from when they cleaned the pool one weekend. It was her last level II lesson. Or so I thought. At the end she got her certificate but she didn't pass. It recommended taking level II again. So we signed up for that again. 8 more weeks of level II.

Then I planned to take the kids to the Irish Festival at Crown Center. The weather was gorgeous so I was looking for something to do outside. I heard they had a big kids area and it was free for kids to get in.

But the kids were throwing a fit, grumpy and annoying me. So instead we got the car washed and I took them home until they calmed down. Then we went.

It wasn't as fun as Jiggle Jam (I didn't think) but we had a good time. Lots of art project making, which was fun. Carter had zero interest in the inflatables which surprised me.


Irish Fest - Kansas City at Crown Center from Cara on Vimeo.
Irish Fest is an annual event at Crown Center. There are a lot of beers to taste, shops, food and activities for kids. We didn't find it quite as much fun as Jiggle Jam (also at Crown Center) but JJ is also specifically targeted towards kids and this has more of a mix of adult and kid activities and entertainment.

Labor Day Weekend - Sunday: Santa-Cali-Gon-Days

On Sunday I took the kids to the carnival in Independence with my parents. We had never been to the Santa-Cali-Gon-Days festival before. They had a ton of rides. Anna was all about it - riding front and center on the roller coaster. Carter rode one ride and had no interest in any of the others that I couldn't go on. He was pretty fussy all weekend and eating a lot. I think he's having a growth spurt.

(Today we realized we actually had tickets to the Royals game yesterday. Oops. Oh well. The kids probably had more fun here.)

That night Kevin and I planned a date night. My parents kept the kids and we went out to dinner at a sushi restaurant called Ra at the new Park Place Plaza. It was delish. You have to get the Viva Las Vegas roll, it's the best.


Then we headed to the theater. We tried to find a liquor store on the way to put some $2 alcohol in our $5 soda but then realized it was Sunday and we were in Kansas and there was no place to buy any. We had planned to see The American. We got there 30 minutes before the show and everything starting in the next hour was sold out. Well everything except Machete which Kevin said I wouldn't like.

So we went hope and ironically watched Date Night on DVD. I was entertained but Kevin thought it was boring. We got to make our own drinks. I slept so hard that I didn't even hear the phone ring the next morning at 9 am when my mom called to meet me to hand off the kids.