SNOW!!!

January 10:Well this isn't a picture that I took, but I'm going to use it today anyway. While Justin was on tour this fall, they were given a bunch of nice, gold cables. They had to take pictures with them to put up on the website. Do you think he picked this one? :)

January 11:This was taken on Tuesday, it's now Thursday and school has been canceled all week in Nashville and all the surrounding areas. It's kind of ridiculous!

January 12:Wednesday my co-workers and I all went out to celebrate January birthdays. Since I'm the baker of the group, I was elected to make the cake-funfetti!

snow and lifehouse

We got a bit of snow yesterday! Just a little bit, but enough to cover the deck. :) We're supposed to get 1-3 inches tonight. I guess that means schools will be closed tomorrow. (It's kind of ridiculous around here.)

Our church, Lifehouse, meets on Sunday nights in the YMCA. Tonight is our night to be on duty. Justin's playing in the worship band and I am doing coffee setup. We have a lot of young marrieds, most of whom are musicians. Sometimes we jokingly call it "Wifehouse" because all the husbands are out on the road and it's just the wives.

358

So, every time I blog I always end up feeling guilty that I don't blog more or that I've skipped some important event. Especially since this is more of a "here's what we're up to" blog. I have a great computer, which I can't blame my lack of blogging on.

All that to say I'm starting over this year. I'm copying off my friend Jill and my cousin Laura. I'm going to try to take a least one picture a day for the rest of the year. (Since I started about a week late, it will be more like 358 pics instead of 365.) My pictures won't be nearly as cool as Jill's, but it will help me to look back over the year a little better, I think. I do look back on my blog posts sometimes, so this will be a good way to keep track of good ol' 2011. I'm not going to promise to blog everyday (or clog up your feeds :) ) but I will take a least one pic a day and post them as frequently as possible.

Quick side note before I post yesterday's picture: Thanksgiving and Christmas were great and we had so much fun hanging out with our families. I just don't have to energy to blog all about them. Too daunting. Ok, moving on.

January 7:
This is the design for the bedspread I'm going to make for our bed. Each number is going to be a different pattern of black and white. I stole the idea/pattern from my friend Anne. I pretty much just like stealing other peoples' ideas. I'm off to the fabric store today to hopefully find some cheap material!

my dad is awesome

That's pretty much the consensus at the Ostrander house. While he was visiting he changed our furnace filter, the windshield wipers in Justin's car and hung pegboard in the garden closet section of the studio. He's the best!

My parents came to visit the weekend before Thanksgiving. Sadly, Justin was out of town for most of the time, but we still had fun. They got in Friday night and we headed over to the Nashville Night Market. (It's a new thing the farmer's market is doing about once a month. Some of the vendors come out from 6-8 on Friday night.) It was pretty cool. Sample city!! I wish we hadn't eaten dinner before we went. We could have eaten for free. We sampled some amazing apple cider, sausage, popcorn, sweets and other things. We also picked up our meat order from Weldon over at Emerald Glen Farms. They also had the best apple cider ever.

Saturday we went to Great Harvest bread. The manager gave us so many sample tastes of things, we were stuffed before we even paid for what we picked out. A stop at Whole Foods was a must as well as to Trader Joe's. That afternoon we also went to the Frist Museum so they could check out the Chihuly exhibit as well as "The Birth of Impressionism". The best part was the Children's area. :) We played with blocks, created our own stop animation, drew a mannequin from different angles and drew each other's faces through a glass wall with dry erase markers. This is my drawing of Mom. Not bad?

Both Saturday and Sunday we worked out in the studio some. Mom and Dad helped to clean out the garden closet and Dad hung the pegboard and helped me figure out the best way to hang everything on the wall. Justin and I had tried to hang the pegboard before, but our sad little circular saw wouldn't cut through the board. Turns out, no matter how powerful your battery is, the saw won't cut if every other tooth is missing. Oops. Thanks for pointing that out, Dad! :)

Justin came home Sunday early afternoon and we ate a late lunch before taking them back to the airport. After dropping them off, Justin said, "Your dad is awesome!" and I said, "He totally is."

Hotlanta

Well, Atlanta wasn't hot but it was still fun! We headed out early Friday morning after dropping Riley off at her best friend, Tito's house. :) We pulled in around noon, just in time for Justin to set the stage. We were pretty much lazy all afternoon and didn't take advantage of anything Atlanta has to offer-lame us!

The theater the guys played in was a Fox Theater and was amazing!! It had a super cool balcony and the ceiling looked like the sky.

It also had sort of a middle eastern theme:

The guys played a great show! We stayed in Atlanta for the night and headed to Chattanooga Saturday morning. The drive was so pretty with all the colorful trees. The leaves are still on the trees further south. Chattanooga was the "wives show". Everyone on the gig who is married had his wife out to the show. That was really fun. Katherine (David), Haley (Kyle, bass player), Rana (Erich, drummer) and Erin (Josh, merch guy) all drove out Saturday. We also had some good friends make the drive to see Justin play. It was so fun to have everyone out.

happy fall, ya'll

Ok, I know I've been majorly neglecting this blog. For the first time since moving to Nashville, we actually have internet in our house...that we paid for!! WOOHOO! So, that combined with the fact I just got a brand new MacBook Air means hopefully I'll be blogging much more often. There's a lot to catch up on. Let's see if I can hit the high points:

My little brother is married! YAY! We're all so happy to have Jessie in the family.

Justin is out playing with David Nail this fall. They're opening for Lady Antebellum on the Need You Now tour. And no...you cannot have tickets to the KC show.

I got to see my best friend, Meaghan on my trip to Connecticut. And....she's pregnant!!

This weekend I'll be with the band again (I even have a lanyard with my name on it. I'm kind of a big deal.) for a few days. The guys are playing in Atlanta and Chattanooga and most of the wives are coming to see the show. It will be lots of fun.

I'm so looking forward to the holiday season and it generally feeling like fall. Nashville's a little confused on that scene. The highs this week have been in the 70's. In November!!

2 important things

#1 My brother is married!! I will do a big wedding post soon...promise.

#2 Justin was on national television!! If you live under a rock and haven't heard about this yet, you can watch him here and here.

my garden...

...is amazing!! If I do say so myself. I have green beans, carrots, various herbs, strawberries, tomatoes, green bell peppers, jalapenos, cucumbers and zucchini.

Also, we are leaving tonight for Kansas. My little brother is getting married! I'm so excited. :)

bridal shower

Sooo...I'm a little late in posting this especially since the wedding is only two and a half weeks away. AHHH!! So exciting! Anywho...I went home a while ago to help my mom and Abbe throw Jessie (future sis-in-law) a shower. We did a pretty bang up job, I'd say. It was really fun to see all the family come together. We've actually known Jessie and her family for a long time, like since before Aaron was even born. Basically Jessie's dad farms the land that was my great Grandpa's. It's kind of confusing unless I go into the whole story (which I won't unless you really want me to.) Enjoy the shower in pics:

My mom decorated the tables with vintage table clothes, pics of the cute couple, flower vases and CANDY! Each table was unique. Such creativity!

Wedding cookies. The squares are monograms of their initals, A, J and D.

We made these paper fans to put over the mantel out of scrapbook paper.

Sisters!

Bride to be and the Moms.

The whole crew. Don't judge the camera angle to harshly. I balanced my camera on a folding chair and managed to fit everyone in!

Breaking the Silence

A lot of you also read my sister-in-law, Abbe's blog. If you don't, she posted today about what they've been going through the last 6 weeks. Please just read and pray and be aware. It has been a very very difficult time for all of us. Please pray for them and encourage them.

All Doll(ed) Up.