You are Cordially Invited to the Wedding….

Not mine!  LOL!  Q&U!  Again this year Preston’s Montessori class put on the union of Q&U.  Last year if you recall he was the letter P.  This year he was the letter L.  And we had to make a costume.  I start to sweat over these things.  I have discussed many times on this blog that I am not creative.  Besides my fear of the end of the world, the next fear is Michael’s or any other craft store. Stressing to the point of pulling out both my high and low lights, my family all put their heads together last weekend and we thought of a costume.  Big props to my sister for making tiny little lightening bugs.  His line was, “L is for lion. L is for light.  L is for lightening bugs shining bright.”  Although I think he said “in the night” after I botched the line.  In any event, Miss Kim, Miss Suzette and Miss Christine did a fabulous job!  Here are the pictures!

 

Top 6 Perform on American Idol

Top Six perform. I cannot comment on any of the duets because the National Weather Service reminded me over five times during Idol that there is a tornado warning. There has been major warnings all week. It's getting a bit much for me. I will let you in on a secret-those that don't know me well. I am terrified of the end of the world. You heard correctly. Me, big bad Kim, nothing can knock me down-Kim. After I saw 2012 I couldn't sleep. I don't want to perish in a tsunami. I worry because I won't survive the end of the world. I won't be the one remaining after it's all over. I won't be able to drive a limo like John Cusack to escape a crumbling California. My brother Charlie informed me if there are people building ark ships in anticipation of the end, I would not be one of the people privileged enough to get on. Thanks Charlie. So tonight while trying to take notes and while attempting to me funny I'm thinking if I should get Preston and I off the third floor and onto the first...or move back to New York. Pretty sure there were no tornadoes touching down in Manhattan. And these aren't little windy semi-tornatic storms. Oh no. These are full fledged Wizard of freaking Oz tornadoes.

Tonight was Carole King night, or bad fashion night. Speaking of Wizard of Oz, Steven didn't disappoint in channeling his inner tin man. Randy is still stuck in a quartet R&B group from 1993 and Jennifer looked as if they forgot to apply any more make up after foundation (and still managed to look better than 95% of the female population). Let's get to it, shall we?

1. Jacob-He may have sang tonight. I don't know if he did because I could not wrap my mind around the fact that he voluntarily donned the outfit he was wearing. First his jacket looked like an outfit Preston wore at 9 months old. (Seriously-check the blog a few posts back). Then with the blue vest, yellow shirt and purple tie, it was as if the Wiggles got into a fight and these were the clothes leftover. Steven told him that tonight he shook his tailfeathers. Don't worry Steven-there was no way we could not notice the tail feathers when Jacob was wearing straight legged-skinny jeans with Timberlands..because there is the footwear to match the wretched ensemble. This must have been the same person who not only dressed Randy and Steven, but Jacob's family member that looked as if her dress was made from a nursing home shower curtain.


2. Lauren-My comments for Lauren have to do with her hair. He hair the past two weeks when curly has closely resembled my senior prom hair do, tight spiral curls. I wonder if she too has 953 bobby pins holding it up as well as help from a can of Paul Mitchell hair spray. The hair slick straight tonight during her performance made me yearn for the days like five weeks ago before humidity when my hair stayed straight. This humid weather that has creeped in is even rendering my iron useless against the moisture laden hair killing weather. I love the heat, but I hate the humidity. I have a retirement community picked out in Scottsdale already. Anyway, Lauren picked some random guy up in the audience. Interesting...Also Miley Cyrus, her Idol apparently came to give advice. After all a Disney show actress with a teeny bopper career gives one entitlement to give music advice on Carole King night. I'm also going to share a personal story. Lauren's boots reminded me of my first pair of boots. When I was in 4th grade I remember wanting cowboy boots so bad. My mother thought the ones I wanted were too "old" for me. I begged and pleaded. Christmas morning, there was a big yellow Thom McCann box and inside were shiny bright blue (yes blue) boots with studs and silver scales. I wore them with everything (including the hot pink striped jogging suit I also received that Christmas). That summer, wouldn't you know, Thom McCann sold blue studded sandals with silver scales. To this day, Mel has not let me live my blue boot wearing down. What she doesn't know is I'm looking for a pair to wear with my maid of honor gown at her wedding.


3. Scotty- Prior to Scotty, I caught ten seconds of the Haley/Casey duet before the NWS cut in. Enough time to hear them grunt and growl at each other. Scotty again committed fashion disaster with the dual denim. At least I thought it was, until the lights came on and I realized it was just a shiny blue blazer. Not really sure what's worse. Scotty I still think has this thing in the bag. Got to love Randy's quote of the night, "Scotty is in it to WIN IT!" Well yes....that is the point of this show.


4. James-If James sang like this the whole season, I may have liked him more. I may have thought he'd beat out Scotty (and he may if he sings like this). Toning it down made me realize James has a nice voice. It was nice to hear him sing instead of turning every performance into a Rent meets Ringling Brothers event.


5. Casey-Lauren had a random guy on stage, Steven was holding a random child during the performance. Casey and his dollar store straw fedora were terrible. Seriously I don't get the fascination. Is it singing? Is it a bad Blues Brothers spoof? What is this? Casey and his maniacal faces! If I was to see Casey in a park let's say, I would hold Preston's hand and kind of detour my child around the strange and disturbed man..much like I do when we see un-picked up dog poo on the sidewalk. Avoidance. Casey scares me. Not as much as being swallowed up by the Earth, but close.


6. Haley-bored me. The song was upbeat but she bored me. She sang it well but she bored me. This saddens me because I like her, but I just find myself tuning her out, checking Facebook status updates on my phone and BlackBerry messaging my father that a tornado is going to rip through my neighborhood and this could be the end and I won't know who wins Idol. (And just in case you're wondering, I know my dad gets my message because a little "R" appears. But then he either ignores me or feeds into my fears saying things like, "Well you'd better hope the shopping plaza a block away stands or else you have no protection." So. Not. Funny. Pere).

So I think Jacob will go home. Because if he doesn't, I'm not going to predict it anymore. Maybe he'll be the Idol. And then that would be an Idol Apocalypse.

Easter Weekend Picture Overload

What a whirlwind Easter weekend.  Everyone right now is at the book store while I’m blogging.  Then it’s lunch and my siblings all depart.  The amount of food that was consumed this one weekend could feed a nation.  I’m stuffed.  Friday we all hung out together since the weather was icky and Charlie painted one of my bathrooms. He was going to paint the one in the guest room.  I ran to Target I came back and screamed.  The color we had picked looked periwinkle instead of a silver sage on the wall.  Charlie said that’s why paint chips are not reliable.  So he painted the main floor one instead. 

Saturday morning was Build n’ Grow.  Uncle Steve and Preston built a birdhouse.

Saturday afternoon Preston played outside with Aunt Tinka and Uncle Steve where we found out that Preston throws left and bats baseballs left, yet writes with his right.  But before his adventures, it was egg dying time!  He even made an egg for Jesus.  He thought orange was a suitable color. Thank you Paula for the wax crayon!!!

Saturday night in true Raab tradition, it was off to Yamato.  I am so impressed that Preston eats dumplings and miso soup.  He’s awesome.

Easter morning Pres woke up and asked if the Easter Bunny hopped past the house.  I told him to go look and see if he left him a basket.  Sure enough, the Easter Bunny did not disappoint.  He finished his egg hunt in five minutes.  Next year the Easter Bunny may need to step up his Easter egg hiding skills.  After our egg hunt we went to my parents’ for him to get more Easter treats.

My parents made a delicious Easter feast.  We had our neighbors over as well.  It was such a nice day.  I leave you with some pictures of our holiday! Hope everyone had a very Happy Easter!

 

American Idol-Top 7 Perform

Tonight's theme was songs from the 21st Century. I start twitching because I know what's coming-Ryan says the rules are the songs had to be recorded from 2000 to today. NOOOOOOO! This is one of my biggest pet peeves (one of...because we all certainly know I have a lot of them). There was no year ZERO!!! That means that the millennium started in 2001, not 2000. Which is why I couldn't wait for January 1, 2000 so I didn't have to be bombarded with stories about the new millennium. ARGH! Moving on. Randy has replaced the word "pitchy" from previous seasons with the word "slay" which he said 657 times tonight. Why are his necklaces always mall kiosk jewelry big? We started the show with the rejects singing for us. I don't understand this. As I said before, when a person on Idol gets voted off they make them sing. WHY? This is the person America voted not to hear again. Now we have all the rejects back singing tonight. And how surprised were you to remember that Karen and Ashton were even ever on this season? I know!
I was also not a fan of the song choices tonight. You had from 2001 until today (or because Idol counts time wrong, you can chuck in 2000). I was surprised the Idol hopefuls passed up such chart toppers like, Terror Squad's "Lean Back", J-Kwon's "Tipsy" and the true lost hit, "Because I Got High" by Afroman.

1. Scotty-sang country-shocker. I think Scotty is a shoe in to win this thing. Country music has a huge fan base and Carrie Underwood may be the most popular Idol winner ever. But besides that, when Scotty goes back to school next year this guy has got it in the bag. I mean he is the number 1 prom date. If he were on Glee he would so not be getting the slushee to the face...even though he does sing.


2. James-He was asked how he comes up with ideas for his songs. He said that he gets a "vision." He lies. What he really does is pull tapes from two seasons ago, watches Adam Lambert perform and says, "Yeah. That. I'm going to do exactly what he does. Maybe add a piano on fire." This week he added in the cast of Drumline to help him out on this quest. The thing is, and what makes James amazing, is not his singing. It's his ability to make Randy forget that he saw these very same performances two seasons ago. It's uncanny.


3. Haley-So as I'm driving home tonight "Rolling in the Deep" came on the radio and I thought to myself (as I was singing my own Idol worthy rendition to the song) that someone should sing this on Idol. I have to say I think Haley did a good job with the song. The hair stylists also did a good job of taming her mane, because in auditions it was obvious L.A. has had some humidity this week. I hope she stays, even if she swings her arm like an elephant trunk.


4. Jacob-Someone make the torture that is Jacob singing stop! It's so not American Idol, pop music, bubblegum, Z100 (for my New Yorkers) type music. He's not even that good. I understand getting emotional during the song. I sometimes tear during Calloway's "I Wanna be Rich" but he was trying to use the emotion to cover up the fact that his singing is sub par. I was also a fan that Randy brought back a signature line of his during critique, "I wasn't like jumping up and down." I love this line. I've never really seen Randy jump up and down. I've seen him get excited, but not jump up and down. And even if Jacob sang the song well (which he didn't) it may not have been an appropriate song to jump up and down to.


5. Casey-As Josh so perfectly put it to me about Casey-he has the potential of being the homeless guy in the street who talks to himself. This is so spot on! We know this guy! His grunting that has found their way into the songs the past two weeks is borderline frightening. Also the creepy pedophile looks to the camera. What was that singing to J-Lo and then the kiss? It was so awkward I almost couldn't watch. He got so close she turned her head. Either of embarrassment, fear or his breath was lacking an Altoid. I think he kissed her to try to break the awkwardness. Of course this gave Ryan the excuse to remind America that Casey kissed the most beautiful girl in the world....and now I'm singing Prince.


6. Stefano-I mean seriously. If I were Usher I'd fly to L.A. and slap Stefano for that awful Usher-esque impression of dancing. Terrible. He was dressed like Pauly D and dancing like Usher and singing Ne-Yo. It was so horribly wrong. Jimmy began talking about how Stefano was so good looking and he did not have to beg for the girls' attention. Jimmy said he was not like Stefano in school. The girls didn't pay attention to Jimmy. Don't worry Jimmy. I'm pretty sure some of the guys that look like Stefano are now parking your Porsche. If I could go back in time, I wouldn't be looking for the pretty boy either....we ALL know how that turned out.


7. Lauren-came out in true Western Barbie fashion. I can't help but look at Lauren and just see extremes. Either she does well with this Idol thing and gets signed or she is a truck stop waitress serving meatloaf with sawmill gravy. I just see no happy medium. It's all or nothing. I hope it's all because if she doesn't make it it will kill her mother who is vicariously living through Lauren with hair extensions, makeup and maybe Botox in hopes to morph into a clone of her 16 year old daughter...or get to sing with Steven Tyler also. Who knows.

My pick to go home is Jacob.

Baltimore, Pjs and Grandma’s Birthday!

This is a picture dump post.  I have a lot of pictures!  Last weekend was the MD/VA POLP meet up (can I throw in another acronym)?  Jenn organized a trip tot eh Baltimore National Aquarium.  We had a blast.  The kids really enjoyed the dolphin show.  Preston was completely taken with seeing sharks that close up. And Paula is right-they have creepy eyes.  It’s so great to meet up with everyone. We have become such a close knit family! Here are some pictures of the adorable kiddos!

 

 

This was the day-Preston and Peyton.  They have become such good friends. 

This was just a great picture-the flowers in full bloom in the Inner Harbor!

This past week was Week of the Young Child at school.  Friday was pajama day.  Nothing is cooler when you are five than pajama day.  We got new Perry pjs, with a Perry sweatshirt! Very cool.

Preston also was the recipient of the following award-so perfect!

Today is my mother’s birthday. Preston was adorable picking out presents for her; pajamas, candles, stationary, earrings, etc. Then we took her out for brunch and made a home made cake.  Happy Birthday to the best mom and grandmother.