My hubby the rock star :o)

Unfortunately this is one of the best pictures I got all night. It was dark and I was sitting closer to the back. You'll notice that there is a microphone in his hand - that's right, Travis sang! Well, sort of. He sang the Beastie Boys song "Fight for your Right". I did have a funny video of Trav making his big debut in the band, but Blogger doesn't want to upload it.

The guys did great and we all had a great time. They're playing at a lodge on the Lake Vermilion that brings in a lot of local talent, and a fun crowd! I managed to make it all the way until 1am when they stopped playing on Friday night, but I definitely paid for it Saturday! Another friend who is pregnant came, so I managed not to feel like the only bump on log. Last night was a black light party, but this Cinderella has had enough of one night turning into a pumpkin!

Yesterday I went to a shower for one of our cousin's that is getting married this fall. They had it at a local Italian restaurant with awesome food. It was actually really nice going to someone else's shower and just being able to enjoy myself! The bride is the sweetest person ever and is going to look gorgeous on her big day. I can't wait!

Here's my latest bump picture at 32 weeks from today. Only 8 weeks left!

When it rains, it pours...

But inside my house? I'm not so sure about that. Last night after Trav went to band practice and I made myself dinner, I went to close the curtains in our living room and what did I see? Water, pouring down my family room wall. Two walls actually, since it was in a corner. Just. Freaking. Great.

So there I stood, for an hour, wiping drips as they came through the ceiling. Since Travis wasn't home, I didn't really know what to do! Eventually it stopped though. In the light of day, once Travis was home, he discovered that some of the tar had cracked (it's a flat roof, so just tar and peat gravel, no shingles here). Thankfully that was an easy enough fix for him today, but we'll definitely need to look into replacing the whole thing pretty soon here. Just what I wanted to deal with right before having a baby!

I was the lucky recipient of a second baby shower this week, hosted by a few of my real estate friends. It was amazing to see all the hard work they put into the details, such as mini-candy bars labeled "Alison's Baby Shower", balloons with Emily's name on them, hand-made invitations, and even hand-made thank-you's complete with stamped envelopes! It was amazing!
Here I am with the awesome diaper cake they made. It was decorated with onesies, wash cloths, socks, rattles and toys. So cool!
My amazing hosts - they even dressed in pink to keep the theme going!
Here's my 31 week picture. Only 9 more to go! This looks like I'm still carrying pretty high, but I know she's in the right position with her head down because she's been getting the hiccups every now and then, which always feels lower. Typically she pushes her butt out against my stomach, so the bulge is likely a little baby hiney! Travis has started getting worried that I can go into labor at any time now. If I make a weird noise or rub my belly, he gets a little nervous look on his face. It's kind of funny! So for his sake I started packing my hospital bag - which is a little ridiculous since we only live two blocks from the hospital. He can always come home to get stuff! But if it makes him feel better, then we'll just be prepared!

Spring has finally decided to show up in our neck of the woods. Last weekend Travis mowed the grass for the first time, just to see if the mower worked. Well, in a weeks time our grass has nearly grown a foot! Plus our chive bushes are growing like crazy!

In other news, I registered for my first two classes for my MLIS degree. I tried to only take one, but found out that I needed 4 credits for my financial aid so I found a 1 credit genealogy research class to go along with my core intro class. I start the first week of September - so here goes nothing! Next weekend is Trav's big gig with the band - stay tuned for pictures!

Sweet Freedom

If you know my husband, you know that one of his passions in life (after me of course!) is music. He plays guitar and loves to jam out whenever he's given the chance. Such a chance came along a few weeks ago when a friend from work invited him to come jam with their band, and maybe be the sound/lighting guy. Through a succession of events, Travis became a member rather than being behind the scenes. The name of the band is, you guessed it, Sweet Freedom. They're a local country band that plays quite a bit around here.

*Crickets*

Uh, yea, that's right - I said country. Yes, I'm still talking about my husband. Being in a country band. Does anyone else think this is funny? I sure do! For the entire time I've known Travis, he has always hated my country love affair, saying that country music puts him to sleep. But hey, when opportunity calls then you answer, right? So he's been having fun going to practices, and they're having their first gig on Memorial Day weekend at a lodge up north from here.

Of course that means that they needed to take publicity photos, right? Of course! Actually they'll be playing at the local fair this summer and the fair people wanted a photo to put in ads. So that makes a little more sense. Since they did this on a Sunday afternoon, I decided to go along and meet everyone. The lead singer also happens to have a bunch of horses and we were going to his house - bonus!

Lead singer's wife was actually doing the photographing, but I figured I'd bring my camera along to take a few for our own personal use. I got a bunch of shots, but it was so bright and sunny that a lot of them were washed out or just poor lighting. Here's a favorite with decent lighting:
And a great blackmail photo if ever I need one:
I have no idea why they were making smoochy faces at each other, but this is hilarious! That's Sonny with Travis, he works with us as well. He can be quite a ham!

The idea was to take pictures of them by the waterfall that we went to, which was pretty cool. Unfortunately not many of those came out, but here's the waterfall.
It's hard to see, but there is a big one in the back left that is original. The falls on the right were created by a log dam.
And here's me in front of them! It was quite windy, and this was after traipsing all over the area to get good shots. I was a little pooped at this point!

In other news, today is Trav's 27th birthday! I can't believe he's that old, considering we met when we were 20! (I know 27 is not old, just go with it) It feels like just yesterday we were celebrating birthdays in the typical college style - a la a cheap dinner and too much booze! Instead we BBQ'd and had his family over. Tonight we're just going out for dinner. Here's Trav with his new video camera for lots of baby videos!
Thanks Mom and Dad!

So that's all the fun and exciting stuff we've been up to lately. I leave you with my 30 week bump picture. Only 10 weeks left!

Nursery: complete!

We've finally finished the nursery, and what better timing than on Mother's Day? Although I don't really feel like this is my "first" Mother's Day without an actual outside-baby, we celebrated anyway by going to dinner and a movie last night. And Travis is currently cleaning the bathrooms as I type this - nice :o)

So without further adieu, here are pictures of our completed nursery:
So our theme is a French-romantic theme, sort of shabby chic but without all the white furniture. I found these wall decals on Etsy, my favorite go-to site when I'm looking for something unique that I can't seem to find anywhere else. It doesn't help that I live in a one-horse town with my only retail choices being Walmart and JCPenny. Little did I know that the decals were coming from China, but they made it in about 3 weeks and I'm very happy with the results.
This is our dresser/changing area, complete with a Diaper Genie stationed nice and close for those stinky diapers! We also have a hutch that goes on top of the dresser once Emily is out of diapers, so I didn't want to spend much money on what went over it. The shelf was free thanks to a Lowe's gift card, and the stuffed animals were all gifts. The frames and artwork totaled $32.

The artwork is a page out of the original "Madeline" book and "Madeline goes to London". My big idea was to actually frame 3 or 4 pages out of the books. For those of you that don't know the Madeline books, they go something like this: "in an old house in Paris covered with vines, lives 12 little girls in two straight lines, they left the house at half past nine, the smallest one was Madeline" by Ludwig Bemelmans. Now if you actually glance through a Madeline book, you'll see that all of the artwork is by Bemelmans. Bravo to him for being a much better artist than I, but they weren't exactly what I had in mind to put up in my daughter's room. Most of the artwork is dark or, like in the first book, all one color. We also ran into an issue with finding appropriate sized frames that didn't cost an arm and a leg. (See above re: my limited retail options) So we settled on the first pages from the books. I think they turned out pretty cute!
Here's our rocker, and hanging above it is the antique baby painting that hung in my Dad's nursery, my nursery, and now Emily's nursery.
Here is only some of the clothes we have for Emily, grouped by age/size (of course). There is more in the dresser, and a ton in that laundry basket that I haven't tackled putting away yet. It's like laundry day x 1000, so I just do a little at a time. You can't see our diaper stock in this picture, but we also have tons of diapers at this point. So we should be good for...6 months? Let's hope so!
Here I am at 29 weeks! I can't believe we just have about 10 more to go!

In other news, I think our weather has finally decided that it's Spring. We haven't seen any snow in about a week (fingers crossed!) and it's been a tad warmer. Yesterday was nice and sunny, and Walmart and Lowes have all their flowers/outdoor stuff out. Travis has started playing in a band with a co-worker's husband, and they have their first paying gig on Memorial Day weekend. It's 3 nights, and from what I understand this band makes pretty good money, so that would definitely be a nice added bonus right now! However, every time he goes to practice with them, he comes home with a new instrument. We have an additional guitar, electric keyboard, and a banjo....yes, a banjo. This is a country band. My husband is playing music in a country band. We're all a little shocked! He keeps promising that all the new instruments won't be staying here, which is a good thing. I told him our house is starting to look like a second hand store for baby items and musical instruments!