I'm Too Old

Thanks for your comments. I can't audition for A.I. because I am way older than they allow. I would be terrified out of my MIND to hear what Simon would say to me anyways. Yikeski!

You Were Meant for Me

Roob was kind enough to play the guitar for me on this song. Smart idea on my part :)

American Amiee?

Ok, I know many of you are just dying to see this clip. I do not say that this is my best performance--nor is it my worst. It's an "okay" one in my book. Don't laugh at the guy holding the mic, either! This was a very casual event and I thought it would be a good time to see what it was like to sing while playing the guitar (normally I just sing). It definitely motivated me to practice the guitar a lot more. Those musically inclined will hear a few mess-ups on the chords. I was so nervous I kept forgetting to play "Em." Gah. Anyways, I want to play more so that I can just play without thinking about it so I can focus more on the vocals.

P.S. American Idol has inspired me to dig out my ol' singing videos. More may be surfacing!!!

Amiee's American Idol Recap

A friend inspired me to blog about A.I. every week because I am so obsessed with it. Seriously. All I can think about while watching it is "what would they say to me?," "how could I improve?," etc etc. Like I said, I'm obsessed. That being said, as much as people love to hate Simon, I usually agree with him 98% of the time. Here's my take of Wednesday night's show:

1. JASMINE - Something about her just rubs me the wrong way. Didn't like "love song" for her, either. She sounds like she'd be much better on a nice soulful song.
2. MATT - Piano dueling guy. He could possibly be good, but this Cold Play song was whack. Very pitchy. He tried to jazz it up way too much w/ runs, etc.
3. JEANINE - Oh my goodness I hated it. Seems like she is probably an awesome singer so why the heck did she sing that Maroon 5 song? It was all wrong for her. I was happy when it was over. And could those shorts have been any shorter?
4. NICK or should I say NORMAN? - Ok he is funny & entertaining, but I don't think it's fair that they even put him through this far in a serious singing competition. I would be so mad if I were in his group and had to compete for votes against him just bc he was funny!
5. ALLISON - Ok love "Alone" by Heart, and I thought she did really well. Reminds me of Kelly Clarkson. However, when she was chatting with Ryan she was being SOOO WEIRD. What was that about? I'm hoping she was just super nervous bc that was just strange. Once she sang, though, she was pretty good. And she's young--so that's always a plus in the industry.
6. KRIS - Man in the Mirror is such a random choice to sing but whatever. I thought it was good but I wasn't blown away by any means.
7. MEGAN - This girl is so pretty (except I don't like the huge tatoo) and definitely different. Thought her body movements were a bit quirky--but I guess that could work in her favor. Cool tone to her voice.
8. MATT B. - Seems like a nice guy. Good vocals but boring performance for me. He sang "If you Could Only See."
9. JESSE - Very comfortable on stage. Cool tone to her voice, also. I liked her personality. She seems real and cool.
10. KAI - Nice guy but way cheesy song and performance! Song was just too old--blah.
11. MISHA - Ok I thought this chick has tonnnns of potential. She has a really good voice! Even though that song was a bit boring, I'd like her to get through bc I think she will improve a lot.
12. ADAM - I'm on the fence with this guy. Is he an amazing singer? YES. But since he is already successful with theater in California, I'm kind of pulling for some of the other singers to get through instead of him that could use a chance at some success. I thought some of his song was WAY cheesy (dramatic/theater style) but other parts were freakin' awesome.

So who would I choose at the 3 to get through??? Tough decision. (First of all can I say that I don't think it's fair how they do the highest voted boy, highest voted girl, then next highest vote? I think it should just be the top 3 people with the highest votes REGARDLESS of gender. Regardless! Why does gender matter???) It seems so unfair to have to judge these kids based on one performance (especially those who have had like zero camera time earlier in the season).

Well I guess I'd say Allison, Misha and Jesse or Megan. Dang I know that's four! AND there's not a boy in there. Ok well if I had to pick just one boy, I'd pick Matt the piano guy. I think he'd be much better if given the chance. He just picked a bad song tonight.

The Pioneer Woman

I have a link to this site on the side of my blog BUT since "P-dub" has changed my life--I thought I would do a lovely post about it. I love her site! It's a cooking blog (she also has a photography blog, home & garden blog, and I think something else, too) with tons of pictures and funny comments to boot. But the food blog is my FAV. Most of her food is pretty simple and of course, not necessarily low calorie--but they are easy enough to lighten up if ya need to. Anyways, I recently shared it with a good friend of mine, and she liked it just as much as I do! So now I know it's not just me. Ha! Hope you enjoy it! You can click on the title of this post to link to it, too.

VAleNtinEs Day & Jasey Stats

Hi. Just thought I'd do a quick update. So far it seems the splint for Jase's hand is helping! He has been using that finger more when the splint is off, and he also keeps it a bit straighter than he used to have it. So yay for that!

Jase had his 15 month checkup this past week, too. I think he's starting to remember the pediatrician's office now bc as soon as he saw the nurse, he started screaming (he's never done that before). He cried even more when the doc was looking in his eyes & ears than he did for the shots! Poor baby!) Here's his latest & greatest:
WEIGHT = 27.29 lbs, 82%
LENGTH = 33.07", 92%
HEAD SIZE = 19.5", 95%

We didn't really do anything cool on Saturday for Vday (well we drove around town all day & ate a lovely meal at McDonalds since the restaurant waits were ridiculous), but I cooked us up a romantic dinner this evening. I have to say everything was exceptional except the steak was a bit tough (I think it was due to where I purchased it). *note to self*--get online and research tips for tenderizing steak--Anyways, I also made shrimp scampi (minus the noodles), steamed asparagus with butter & parmesan cheese, mashed potatoes, rustic artisan french bread, and little mini chocolate lava cakes. I also made some chocolate dipped strawberries. Did I mention I need to open up a restaurant??? It was way yummy and my stomach is a little sick from eating all of that...oh well. It was worth it. We sort of ate by candlelight (with Jase, of course) and then put him to bed and hung out with each other for a while. It was really fun! I have to say I love the Roobenator so much! He is the BEST and takes such good care of me and my boy. I hope you all had a good day, too!

We're Number One!

Well what is this, you ask? It's Jase's super cool new splint. We took him to an orthopedic surgeon about his burn scarring since he can't really straighten out his pointer finger. In an effort to stretch it as much as they can (the scar tissue will still "form" for about 2 more months), he has to wear this every night and about half of the day.
I say it's super cool because it constantly reminds me of one of these: (hahaha)
As you can see it's rather long down his arm. They made it that way so it wouldn't be as easy for him to take it off.I had to post this picture because it cracks me up! He was getting SO MAD that I wouldn't let him have the digital camera. FUNNY!
Ok here is a cute pic of him so he can redeem himself from that last one! :) It already seems like the splint has made a difference, too. He uses that finger more AND keeps it a little straighter than he used to. I am HOPING he can avoid surgery all together. But just in case, they scheduled him for hand surgery in May. We'll keep ya posted.

Cake-Maker for Hire??

Ok y'all remember my snail birthday cake?? Well my lovely friend Erinn called the other day and asked me if I'd like to make a panda bear birthday cake for her 5 yr. old daughter's birthday. Sure, I was up for it. She brought me the stuff and I got to working...I think it came out pretty cute. It was MUCH easier than the snail cake (that was 2 layers w/ lots of complicated pieces and fillings). This one was one layer, but it did have a 3-d nuzzle on its face. I ran into a few problems along the way (such as BLACK icing is ridiculous to try to MAKE). I ended up using Wilson's ready-made icing in a tube! I had just barely enough to do what I needed--while still compromising a bit on some of the other things I wanted to do. Anyways, I thought it would be cute to make this panda a little girly--so I added a cute flower barette in her "hair," and also some eyelashes! Ha!
My one regret was that I think its ears are a tad big--more like mouse ears. I hope all the little girls at the party don't notice! Hee hee. Well, here's a look at the side view:
After all of this cake making, I started feeling like maybe I should learn more about this and start doing cakes on the side for a bit of extra cash. It's pretty fun, after all. Unless you have a 15-month old holding onto your ankles while you're piping on icing! :)

Spaghetti Fun!

I made the BEST spaghetti sauce the other day, I swear! I am still trying to figure out what I did! Jase was all over it. I bought him this cool bowl with a suction cup bottom. It worked great until he figured out how to remove the suction cup thing. Argh. Anyways, I know he might still be a bit too young, but I have been working with him on how to eat with a spoon. Here's some of his first attempts.
Yay, he did it! I realized I don't let him get messy very often. I'd rather feed him myself than clean him up afterwards! So here he is getting very messy...
Even though he can actually get the spoon to his mouth every now and again, I think he still prefers the good ol' hand-to-mouth method. Here's a quick clip of me helping him figure it out:

Trip to the Aquarium

So I realized the aquarium here is NOT very cool--but it was fun, I guess. The best part for me was petting the stingrays. I was scared to death! All the kids were doing it so I felt like a big ol' wimp. My mom came with us. Here she is pointing out some cool fish with Jase:
This is Jase showing Grandma his belly button! He knows exactly how to find it. It's funny to ask him where it is when he's wearing a onesie bc he gets confused. Heh heh.
Here we are by the stingray "petting" pool. It's deeper than you think! I finally got the courage to basically touch one, then run! Once one turned around and looked at me right before I was going to touch it and scared me to death!
Another pic of us chillin' by the coral reef fish...
My mom and Jase hangin' by the stingray pool. I think the pool was Jase's favorite part, too. He was just a-splashin' away! (And that big brown thing in the water is an actual stingray, by the way).

Before...and After!

BEFORE with lovely light hair...
AFTER with super DARK hair! And shorter bangs! What do ya think? I'm still trying to adjust to it. It's dark brown with a reddish undertone to it. I finally went for it!

Belated Christmas Post

Here's our cute little tree. We opened presents on Christmas eve since got up super early Christmas day to brave the snow and drive to Grandma Jenith's house. I forgot to take ANY pictures while we were there. Argh. Well, ok. Back to our house...
The stockings were hung on the staircase with care...(yes we have them for our dogs, too)
Jase trying to learn how to spin on his cool spinny spiderman toy. The funny thing is that it talks and plays music, too. Ok that's not so funny--the real funny part is that the talking voice totally has a lisp. Yep. Funny.
Checking out his super cool Dr. Seuss themed learning cards--which are currently all over my living room floor. Awesome.
This is what Jase did instead of unwrapping things. He just preferred to climb on them. And I was ok with that.

Lame

I've gotten so caught up in reading everyone else's blogs that I literally have forgotten about my own! Ridiculous. What's also even more ridiculous is that I hardly have any pics from Christmas to post--and NONE from New Years' Eve. Lame. Plus, the internet isn't working on my laptop (which is where I have my very few xmas pics). So the post with those will have to wait. Double lame.

I'm a Cheap Scrooge

We were at the mall today. Santa was there and you could take pics with him. Since Jase has never taken pics w/ him before, I thought it would be a cool thing to do. That is, until I saw the price list. Do you know it was $12.99 for ONE 5x7 picture???? Are they losing their minds? I am new to the world of taking pics w/ Santa--so I'm just curious for you experts out there--is it NORMAL for that kind of pricing??? And I think the next "package" up was like $22, which was like 2 5x7's and a couple wallets. Needless to say, I do not have a pic of Jase and Santa now. Waaah. Maybe I could make one in Photoshop. Ha.

Slacking on the Posting

Yeah so I haven't posted in a while. Here's some fun pics from that drive we took up the canyon. This month has been so crazy busy for me--but in a good way, I suppose. I'll try to post more later!

Mr. Tootles

We took a drive on Sunday and brought our camera along. He looked so stinkin' cute in his church clothes with his hair all done and his pimp argyle sweater--I was inspired for a mini photo-shoot. We got a billion pics of Jase. I am so busy lately that I don't have time to sift through them or edit them (this one could use a little "warming up") just yet--but today Roob told me that he kept checking the blog hoping to see the pictures! So I'm posting this one for you, babes. More to come!!!

Lloyd Christmas

Jase's hair was getting a bit on the long side, so both Roob and I decided to cut it. First Roob did it, and then I tried to cut it a bit more. It was ridiculous. He spun his head around so much the entire time I had the scissors out! Anyone who can cut a 1 yr. old's hair and make it look good deserves an award! I wonder if a bowl would have helped???
It ended up looking something like this when I was done (as you'll remember from the movie "Dumb & Dumber"):
Jim Carrey's character was called "Lloyd Christmas." Fitting, since it's December and all. Here is a shot of Jase's lovely chopped bangs below:
Another wonderful picture of Mr. Lloyd Christmas:
Poor child! It doesn't look so bad when I put some gel (a.ka. baby lotion) into his hair, but when it's just a la natural it looks ridiculous. Hence the new nickname for Jasey--"Little Lloyd."

Twilight....my thoughts

I don't want to overanalyze the movie to death (even though I prob will anyways), but I thought I'd give you my take on it. Overall, I liked it more than I thought I would. It was fun to see a book "come to life" on the big screen. Silly as it is--I was into it! The previews kind of had that "low budget" feel to them (climbing the tree looked so lame) so I didn't have my hopes up. And heaven knows my husband teased me every time one of them came on TV. :) How is this any more far fetched than Iron Man or StarWars? Anyways--here's the lowdown. THE CAST--I liked pretty much everyone except Jasper (what the heck were they thinking with this guy? he looked ridiculous!), Rosalie (she wasn't NEAR pretty enough as she should have been), and Jacob Black (he was one of my favorites in the book and I'm just not sure I like who they picked to play him in the movie. He might grow on me, though.) Alice was OK but she didn't really connect with me too well. Her "vision" was kind of portrayed in an odd way, I thought. I think lots of the cast didn't really know how to connect with their characters too well. There were many awkward moments. I was surprised that I liked "Edward" since I thought he was all wrong for the part. So that's good. Even though I thought he had some bad acting moments (like when the fan blew her scent across the room--I thought he looked strange). And a couple of times he did this weird eye-bulging thing. But I thought he got 100x better once they started "dating." Bella fit my imagination perfectly (thank goodness). I really think her character really carried the movie. She was probably the best actor in the film. I also thought Charlie, Bella's mom (just blanked on her name), and most of the schoolmates were cast well. I thought Charlie's house, the school, the prom, etc. was also a perfect match from the book's descriptions. I think with the next movie, New Moon, we will see a HUGE improvement since they will have LOTS more money to make it with due to this movie's success. I hear they made Twilight on a pretty tight budget (wasn't it an independent film)? It showed sometimes (a friend said at times it kind of reminded her of an after school special-ha ha), but for the most part they did a great job. Some of the story was out of order, but I figure they did that for time's sake. However, it did feel a bit rushed to me--but that is because the book is soooo much more detailed--and when is a movie ever quite as good as the book? Mostly I'd say it was entertaining, fun, and a very interesting love story. And a good time! Thanks, Krista, for joining me! I hadn't been to the theater in ages!

My Own Mini Grocery Store

Hi. So lately I've been thinking I need to get up to par on my food storage (for those of you who may not know what I mean, I'm referring to the LDS Church's recommendation to keep a year's worth of food in your home in case of hardship) . It has always been overwhelming for me, but in light of this economy and such, I have found some new motivation to get it done. I like to think I'd have my own little grocery store to "shop" at in times of need. Even if you don't experience any "hardship," you can just save money by buying in bulk and using some of your storage instead of doing your usual grocery shopping. I've been trying to cook more from scratch (especially breads) so that I can more easily rotate through flours, etc. Anyways, I've been doing a bit of online research and making a few phone calls for more info. If anyone knows of any cool websites that would be helpful in this area, I'd greatly appreciate a comment with the link. Here are some that I've found so far:

FEMA disaster preparedness - They have all kinds of tips on emergency supplies, how to store food, how to store water, etc. I was impressed! For example, you may want toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, etc. Another thing to think about is treats! Like chocolate chips, graham crackers, Snickers bars...whatever it is you normally eat (refried beans, corn, penne pasta, tomato soup). Just get the basics--see lds.org--then add all the fun/fancier stuff!
LDS.org - Basic food storage calculator, minimum food recommendations per person per year
The Red Cross

Jase's 1 Year Stats

"Is anybody in there???"
I know we're a couple weeks late, but that's when they made his appointment. First of all, his burned hand has healed up quite nicely, but the problem now is getting him to use it. It's still in a fist 98% of the time. And if you try to pry it open or encourage him to grab for something while holding his "good" hand down, he wigs.

Weight 26.5 lbs, 90th percentile (wow, this is the lowest percentile he's ever been)
Height 32.5", 98th percentile
Head 23.1", 100th percentile (so funny! though I have to say that his head doesn't look big to me, it looks just right--so go figure.

Some other fun things he's doing:
1. He "rocks out" to music. We're talking some major head bobbing (I have to catch this on video) and bouncing of the legs. And if I bust out the karaoke machine for my own entertainment, he just rocks out with me. It's so cute!
2. He says "nana" (banana), "meow," "ma" (which means "more") and a bunch of other non-word babbles. Well I'm sure he thinks they are words--but you know what I mean.
3. He will give you a kiss if you ask. But usually he only gives daddy a kiss. What the heck?
4. He can climb stairs (we have a gate in front of them now to prevent this).
5. Throws royal fits while getting his diaper changed.
6. Teethes on and off due to the front two teeth breaking the gums then retracting for the last few weeks now. ARGH. Which, by the way, is causing extra drool which is causing a little rash on his chin. Ouchie.
7. Sticks his thumb in one of his ears and "itches" it, I guess. We had it checked out just in case it was an ear infection--but everything's just fine.
8. Loves to use smushed food on his hands as hair gel (my personal favorite if we are just starting the day off).
9. Shoves food so quickly into his mouth you'd think he's preparing for the apocalypse! He puts so much in there that he has to use his other hand to keep it from falling out of his mouth!